Oh, Right, I’d Forgotten About Anthrax
posted on August 6th, 2008
I’m not going to suggest that I have any reason to suspect that Bruce Ivins, the scientist who was the victim of an apparent suicide last week as the FBI closed in, was innocent. Nor am I going to suggest that he was guilty. Nor, finally, do I wish to in any way be disrespectful to the memories or families of the 5 people killed in the 2001 anthrax attacks. But suicide is not an admission of guilt.
According to the Associated Press, Ivins complained to friends that the feds were bullying his family, trying to get his son to rat him out, visiting his daughter in the hospital, etc. This is after settling a suit brought by their previous main suspect, Steven Hatfield, a colleague of Ivins. Charitably, we could assume from this that the FBI has isolated, say, the lab where the anthrax originated, and has just been making its way through the people there with access to it. It appears that during their investigation, the feds learned that Ivins had some sort of kink for a sorority that has a chapter 100 yards away from a mailbox where some of the anthrax letters were mailed. He worked at a lab with anthrax. That’s the means. He was infatuated with a sorority house in Princeton, putting him near the contaminated mailbox. That’s opportunity. God only knows what the motive could be.
People will be tempted to now assume that Ivins did it. Innocent people don’t kill themselves, right? And there’s no way a normal, non-killer person could ever become infatuated with sorority girls, right? Or maybe a man who is already having emotional problems (according to Time, Ivins was receiving psychotherapy) finds his job in jeopardy, his family harrassed, his personal business dragged all over the place, and sees a way to make it stop.
I don’t have access to all the evidence the FBI has. Maybe there’s some really damning stuff in there. And even with their current suspect now dead, they seem willing to continue the investigation until it is concluded with a preponderance of evidence. As well they should.
After apologizing to the Ivins family for harrassing them and driving their husband and father to suicide, whether he was guilty or not.
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