Posted on 08/01/2008 2:51:27 PM PDT by Shermy
FREDERICK, Md. - Bruce E. Ivins was a juggler, a gardener, a church musician, a Red Cross volunteer — and a suspected multiple murderer, according to federal authorities.
Some people who knew him scoffed at the government’s assertion that Ivins sent the anthrax letters that killed five people and sickened 17 in the fall of 2001. But court documents indicate the outwardly mild-mannered Ivins had a menacing side.
misleading headline, most have good things to say.
So far on the bad side,
1. Brother who has not seen him since 1985
2. Handwritten notes on a document by social worker saying Ivins was a threat, not to people in general, but people in her line of work.
Everything else says he was o.k. and harassed by the FBI.
Reminiscent of Ken Berry’s breakdown.
Is the FBI going to prove their case, or just put it in the “unsolved” file?
Stephen Hatfill, Fort Detrick microbiologist formerly suspected by FBI :
“FBI IS WRONG TO SEARCH AT FORT DETRICK. THE ANTHRAX LETTERS ARE LINKED WITH SADDAM HUSSEINS’S REGIME AND I CAN PROVE IT”
(Hatfill to ABC News, October 2001)
http://www.anthraxinvestigation.com/Hatfill116-2.pdf
http://www.kansascity.com/811/story/729504.html
And they would certainly know something about multiple murders. I think the biggest argument against the conspiracy theorists who claim the government was involved is that the FBI tends to commit their mass murders on national television.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2008/0801081anthrax2.html
Here’s all the proof they need. /sarc
Handwritten notes, partly incoherent, “graduate days”
On page one there are allegations of threats around July 9.
Nothing about going back to “graduate days.”
Oh, but the first story from the LA Times mentions his brother didn’t like him. What they failed to say, but this story digs out, the brother hadn’t talked to him since 1985.
So, the first FBI planted story leaves out a crucial, disabling fact. Very thin gruel here.
I think that if the FBI threw any ordinary person out of his job, followed him everywhere, sat in cars outside his home, harrassed him, and then the state sent a “social worker” to his home interview him, it would be understandable if he got a little annoyed.
“Hello, you dangerous lunatic, I’m from the government and I’m here to help you. What’s that? You don’t want help, you just want to be left alone? I’m filing a report on you, buddy!”
Years back, I think it was the “FBI car runs over the foot of Hatfill” story, one or more here thought the FBI was trying to crack Hatfill, even get him to kill himself. I think that could be true now.
But Hatfill is a tougher character than Ivins.
So far the spin,
1. Brother doesn’t like him, though the first and primarily cited article/leak omits they haven’t talked in 28 years,
2. Hand written notes with poor grammar talking about threats in July this year, and some vague “graduate” statement. So far, no interview with accuser.
Fortunately, most of us are able to control our darkest impulses. But you can make damn near almost anyone look bad if you dig hard enough and talk to people who don't like that person for whatever reason.
I agree. The government can break anyone. It is very sad that they now come running out to claim they were ready to file criminal charges. How long has it been? Reminds me of the witch hunt after Rush with his alleged drug prescription abuse and disloyal house keeper. He had too much firepower and top lawyers for them. They like to mess with the little guys.
Well, this is convenient for the FBI. They can now wrap up their case with a TWA flight 800 type press conference showing how he weaponized anthrax in his basement with a Popeil’s pocket fisherman and a vacuum foodsaver...
Uh, oh, AP ...
Why would someone want the story out bad enough to leak it before the DOJ says anything and before there is anything confirmable about the case?
It could also be some lawyers' effort to aid a suspect by casting suspicion on a third party. Is there anyone else we know going on trial in the near future? Benevolence Int'l folks or some such?
It was clear they obsessed on the domestic theory from the beginning. Maybe they were right. But if only recent testing proved Ft Detrick, why the focus before that?
hulloo! I seem to recall other “suicides” by anthrax scientists some time back...weren’t there?
There is the case of Frank Olsen, also an anthrax scientist, also at Fort Derick, who was alleged to have committed suicide in the 1950s. His family fought for years to have the truth known and then finally, and very surprisingly, during the Ford Presidency, it was officially admitted that he had been killed by the intelligence agencies. The US govt paid compensation and apologised.
But there are many unanswered questions about the Olsen case. His son made public statements, after the anthrax attacks, saying he was very worried about what might really be going on at Fr Derrick.
Exactly so. And also, you can have the most casual acquaintance making suspicious remarks about you if the conversation is structured like this:
- You know your mild-mannered neighbour - the one who juggles for a passtime - it is now revealed he is a multiple murderer. Now what weird things did you ever notice about him?
I think after they identified the particular type of anthrax strain involved...it came back to the front door of the US facility. Unless someone can show one of these guys giving the sample to the Muslim guys (which hasn’t been proved in any forum yet)...then we are stuck with a scenario which none of us like. It was our own people who did this to us.
I don’t yet agree on the entire scenario presented...and wait still for more details on Bruce Ivins. After the Hatfield episode...I am slow to believe in any quick solution. But the one fact that puzzles me is that that the brother hasn’t talked to this guy in years. I’ve seen cases like this...but it typically involved a total nutcase....which makes me wonder just how competent that Ivins was, and who vouched for his security clearance over the past decade. If he did represent a threat to co-workers...this is a insignificant indicator of a guy you simply cannot trust in such an environment.
Several years ago, at a US military contingency site...a Navy O-4 arrived and over a period of two months....was deemed a total nutcase. None of the officers would do anything about the guy. Finally, a senior AF enlisted guy started documenting the daily tirades and examples of this officer. After two weeks of collection...he handed it over to the local mental health clinic. They arrived the next day with two big guys and escorted the O-4 to a aircraft and he was flown to a stateside facility.
Most of us will just keep accepting deranged folks working with us, and never demanding action. At some point...we may all be fooling ourselves over our safety.
All that is required is that a sample leave the facility, and somehow get to the bad guys. Anthrax is pretty easy to smuggle, so espionage is a real possibility. The initial sample did not need to go to Al Queda, maybe to the Germans, to some “peace” group to Saddam to them.
We don't know what we don't know.
Absolute coincidence, I'm sure.
I'm pretty sure the deceased were bio-weapons scientists.
It's probably been sent down the memory hole by now.
WRT this pitiful case, I might be moved to blog about it. Clearly it's bullshit and the man's lawyer is right on target when he states, as quoted by the NY Post this morning, that his client was harassed to death.
The feds are posthumosely prosecuting this poor guy by innuendo and it's sickening.
You can stop fearing the gestapo. We live amongst our own version today.
Speaking of dark side, have they IDed the murderer on the Candian bus who sliced and diced his ‘seatmate’?
If my social worker wrote like that I question her sanity too.
Hatfill was falsely accused.
He just recently won a lawsuit to clear his name.
It all started with Barbara Hatch Rosenberg. She has a personal vendetta to closed down all bio-labs in the United States.
She fingered Hatfill to the FBI.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6152515/
Some people like Hatfill are mentally strong to hold up extreme pressure like that.
Ivins’ couldn’t handle the pressure cooker?
Where’s our FR Slueths on this.
Zack and Pook
http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/2048166/posts
EdLake
http://www.freerepublic.com/~edlake/
I don't know about the others, but I had 150 emails in my inbox on Friday morning, and probably another hundred since then. Plus, I had to read dozens of news articles and write comments for my site.
That's kept me VERY busy.
My "take" on the Ivins situation is: Let's wait and see. None of what I've read makes much sense without some kind of EVIDENCE showing WHY they suspected Ivins. His nutty behavior and mistakes AFTER the attacks mean nothing.
Agree! No sense starting more rumors.
The Ames strain was distributed to many countries who in turn may have shared it with others in the interest of science; so the strain of virus isn’t that important. It is the way the spores were weaponized that is unique and only a few countries had the ability to do this (US, Russia, Iraq), so then we have to take into account the timeframe of the attacks and the attempt by the highjackers to rent/research cropdusters and the ability of Ivins to have opportunity to manufacture this weaponized version undetected in a Ft. Detrick lab while his co-workers came and went. Not saying it couldn’t happen but the timeframe of the 9/11 attacks, the letters’ written contents, and the report of a red-handed terrorist trying to get treatment at a pharmacy for what appeared to be cutaneous anthrax symptoms is just too great a coincidence to be quickly swept aside. This is what the FBI is attempting to do. Alot of scientists are quirky and combined with constant “inquiry” and tails from the FBI could push anyone over the edge- just ask Hatfill and Richard Jewell.
I had almost forgotten about the recent strange deaths of bioweapons scientists recently. Can someone make a list with details?
I was never ever frightened
By the murderer on our block
He nurtured orchids and raised hamsters
The neighborhood is still in shock
La, la, la, la, la...
There's a link to a very comprehensive "dead scientists" list in this piece.
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