Server logs and the 2001 anthrax attacks (suspect dies in apparent suicide)

["Richard M. Smith" <rms () computerbytesman com>]

Hi,

 

The 2001 anthrax attacks have been bugging me for almost 7 years now.
Here's an article I wrote on how server logs might be used to break the
case:

 

    http://www.computerbytesman.com/anthrax/toaddr.htm

 

I know that the FBI did look at server logs back in the fall of 2001, but I
don't know the results.

 

Richard 

Anthrax suspect dies in apparent suicide

By DAVID WILLMAN

Los Angeles Times

One of the nation's top biodefense researchers has died in Maryland from an
apparent suicide, just as the Justice Department was to file criminal
charges against him in the anthrax mailing assaults of 2001 that killed
five, the Los Angeles Times has learned.

Bruce E. Ivins, 62, who for the past 18 years worked at the government's
elite biodefense research laboratories at Fort Detrick, Md., had been
informed of the impending prosecution, people familiar with Ivins, his
suspicious death and with the FBI investigation said.

Ivins' name had not been disclosed publicly as a suspect in the case that
disrupted mail service and Senate business three weeks after the 9/11
terrorist attacks. The Maryland scientist had for years played a pivotal
role in research to improve anthrax vaccines, preparing anthrax formulations
used in experiments on animals.

Regarded as a skilled microbiologist, Ivins also had helped the FBI analyze
the powdery material recovered from one of the anthrax-tainted envelopes
sent to a U.S. senator's office in Washington, D.C.

Ivins died Tuesday at Frederick Memorial Hospital after having ingested a
massive dose of prescription Tylenol mixed with codeine, said a friend and
colleague who declined to be identified out of concern, he said, that he
would be harassed by the FBI.

The death -- without any mention of suicide -- was announced to Ivins'
colleagues at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious
Diseases, or USAMRIID, through a staffwide e-mail.

"People here are pretty shook up about it," said Caree Vander Linden, a
spokewoman for USAMRIID, who said that she was not at liberty to discuss
details surrounding the death.

The extraordinary turn of events followed the government's payment in June
of a settlement valued at $5.82 million to a former government scientist,
Steven J. Hatfill, who was long targeted as the FBI's chief suspect despite
a lack of any evidence that he had ever possessed anthrax.

The payout to Hatfill, a highly unusual development that all but exonerated
him of committing the anthrax mailings, was an essential step to clear the
way for prosecuting Ivins, according to lawyers familiar with the matter.

Federal investigators moved away from Hatfill -- for years the only publicly
identified "person of interest" -- and ultimately concluded that Ivins was
the culprit after FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III changed leadership of
the investigation in late 2006.

The FBI's new top investigators -- Vincent B. Lisi and Edward W. Montooth --
instructed agents to re-examine leads or potential suspects that may have
received insufficient attention. Moreover, significant progress was made in
analyzing properties of the anthrax powder recovered from separate letters
that were addressed to two U.S. senators.

The renewed efforts led the FBI back to USAMRIID, where agents had first
questioned scientists in December 2001, a few weeks after the fatal
mailings.

By spring of this year, FBI agents were still contacting present and former
colleagues of Ivins. At USAMRIID and elsewhere, scientists acquainted with
Ivins were asked to sign confidentiality agreements in order to prevent
leaks of new investigative details.

Soon after the government's settlement with Hatfill was announced June 27,
Ivins began showing signs of serious strain. One of his longtime colleagues
told the Times that Ivins, who was being treated for depression, indicated
to a therapist that he was considering suicide. Soon thereafter, family
members and local police officers escorted Ivins away from USAMRIID, where
his access to sensitive areas was curtailed, the colleague said.

 

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