Anthrax probe narrows to N.J.
By MARTIN MERZER, SETH BORENSTEIN and TOM AVRIL Knight Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON - Investigators have found the mailbox used by the person who sent two anthrax-tainted letters, federal officials said yesterday. A source said the FBI is hunting several suspects, including a Pakistani who overstayed his visa.
"The FBI has been able to identify the site where the letters were mailed," said Tom Ridge, director of the Office of Homeland Security. Asked specifically if he meant post office or mailbox, he said: "Mailbox."
He would not discuss the location of the mailbox, but postal inspectors said "multiple mailboxes" had been identified and removed west of Trenton, N.J. Most of the attention focused on Ewing, a town of 35,700 people about six miles northwest of Trenton.
Ridge also confirmed that all three samples of anthrax recovered so far in Florida, New York and Washington are identical and appear to have "come from the same batch." "The tests to date have concluded that the strains are indistinguishable," he said. Nevertheless, the anthrax "may have been distributed to different individuals to infect and to send into different communities."
The female New Jersey mail carrier who developed skin anthrax served 570 addresses - mostly private homes but also some apartment buildings - in Ewing, according to Tony Esposito, a postal inspector. She did not pick up mail from public boxes, co-workers said.
Two anthrax-laden letters - one sent to NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw, the other to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle - were postmarked at a regional mail center that serves the Ewing-Trenton area.
A second postal employee at that regional center, a 35-year-old man, has developed skin anthrax on his neck, health and postal officials said yesterday. In New York City, the same disease was contracted by an employee of The New York Post, the newspaper announced.
In all, eight cases have been confirmed in New York, New Jersey and Florida, and five media companies have been struck by anthrax. A South Florida man died; the others are being treated.
At the White House, spokeswoman Claire Buchan confirmed that a single mailbox had been identified by authorities. "That is a lead that is being strongly pursued," she said.
According to a U.S. law enforcement official who has been briefed on the case, the FBI is trying to track down a small number of people in connection with the anthrax that was mailed from the Trenton Main Post Office in Hamilton Township.
One of them, said the official, who requested anonymity, is the Pakistani national who has disappeared.