Panel Finds Bruce Ivins Capable of "Anthrax Attacks"
Dr. Ivins was psychologically disposed to undertake the mailings; his behaviorial history demonstrated his potential for carrying them out; and he had the motivation and the means.
The panel's assessment was based on examination of previously sealed records, including psychiatric records.
Two repeatedly raised objections to fingering Ivins as the bioterrorist—namely that he didn't have the opportunity to drive 200 miles to mail the tainted letters at a Princeton, NJ, mailbox and that his close colleagues had trouble suspecting him as the culprit are met with these rebuttals by the panel:
- Ivins had a "long-established habit of making secret, night-time drives to faraway locations — many much more distant than Princeton University."
- Ivins was adept at compartmentalizing and hiding his deepest troubles, so that colleagues perceived him to be an eccentric, but otherwise harmless, individual.
Also noted in the 285-page redacted report, the first 20 pages of which are available here, is Ivins's bizarre obsession with the sorority Kappa Kappa Gamma and his strange or outrightly criminal acts against a former laboratory colleague and KKG member, labeled "Sorority Sister #2" in the report and identified elsewhere as microbiologist Nancy Haigwood (for background posts, go here and here).
* He of stem-cell litigation fame.
Public domain photograph of Daschle "anthrax" letter from Wikipedia.
