Isn't it wrong that someone in such an extremely sensitive position would have a social worker and "a long history of homicidal threats"? If you or I make political or "suggestive remarks" to the wrong person, we get fired, but someone who handles chemical warfare materials is given a pass for not reporting anthrax contaminations for FIVE MONTHS in his lab!!! Me thinks something stinks in DC and Maryland, my friends. So read for yourselves, first the LA Times, with video report in the link, then the Huffington Post and a view from friends & neighbors, courtesy of the AP:
Apparent suicide in anthrax case
By David Willman, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
August 1, 2008
A top government scientist who helped the FBI analyze samples from the 2001 anthrax attacks has died in Maryland from an apparent suicide, just as the Justice Department was about to file criminal charges against him for the attacks, the Los Angeles Times
has learned.
Bruce E. Ivins, 62, who for the last 18 years worked at the government's elite biodefense research laboratories at Ft. Detrick, Md., had been informed of his impending prosecution, said people familiar with Ivins, his suspicious death and the FBI investigation.
Ivins, whose name had not been disclosed publicly as a suspect in the case, played a central role in research to improve anthrax vaccines by preparing anthrax formulations used in experiments on animals.
Regarded as a skilled microbiologist, Ivins also 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.
Ivins died Tuesday at Frederick Memorial Hospital after ingesting a massive dose of prescription Tylenol mixed with codeine, said a friend and colleague, who declined to be identified out of concern that he would be harassed by the FBI.
[...] 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 in the 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.
[...] By spring of this year, FBI agents were still contacting Ivins' present and former colleagues. At USAMRIID and elsewhere, scientists acquainted with Ivins were asked to sign confidentiality agreements in order to prevent leaks of new investigative details.
Ivins, employed as a civilian at Ft. Detrick, earlier had attracted the attention of Army officials because of anthrax contaminations that Ivins failed to report for five months. In sworn oral and written statements to an Army investigator, Ivins said that he had erred by keeping the episodes secret -- from December 2001 to late April 2002. [my bold] He said he had swabbed and bleached more than 20 areas that he suspected were contaminated by a sloppy lab technician.
"In retrospect, although my concern for biosafety was honest and my desire to refrain from crying 'Wolf!' . . . was sincere, I should have notified my supervisor ahead of time of my worries about a possible breach in biocontainment," Ivins told the Army. "I thought that quietly and diligently cleaning the dirty desk area would both eliminate any possible [anthrax] contamination as well as prevent unintended anxiety at the institute."
The Army chose not to discipline Ivins regarding his failure to report the contamination. [my bold] Officials said that penalizing Ivins might discourage other employees from voluntarily reporting accidental spills of "hot" agents.
[...] "That's bull----," said one former senior USAMRIID official. "If there's contamination, you always reswab. And you would remember doing it."
The former official told The Times that Ivins might have hedged regarding reswabbing out of fear that investigators would find more of the spores inside or near his office.
Ivins' statements were contained within a May 2002 Army report on the contamination at USAMRIID and was obtained by The Times under the Freedom of Information Act.
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.
[...] Ivins was committed to a facility in Frederick for treatment of his depression. On July 24, he was released from the facility, operated by Sheppard Pratt Health System. A telephone call that same day by The Times verified that Ivins' government voice mail was still functioning at the bacteriology division of USAMRIID.
The scientist faced forced retirement, planned for September, said his longtime colleague, who described Ivins as emotionally fractured by the federal scrutiny.
"He didn't have any more money to spend on legal fees. He was much more emotionally labile, in terms of sensitivity to things, than most scientists. . . . He was very thin-skinned."
[...] The eldest of his two brothers, Thomas Ivins, said he was not surprised by the events that have unfolded.
"He buckled under the pressure from the federal government," Thomas Ivins said, adding that FBI agents came to Ohio last year to question him about his brother.
"I was questioned by the feds, and I sung like a canary" about Bruce Ivins' personality and tendencies, Thomas Ivins said.
"He had in his mind that he was omnipotent."
Ivins' widow declined to be interviewed when reached Thursday at her home in Frederick. The couple raised twins, now 24.
The family's home is 198 miles -- about a 3 1/2 -hour drive -- from a mailbox in Princeton, N.J., where anthrax spores were found by investigators.
All of the recovered anthrax letters were postmarked in that vicinity.
david.willman@latimes.com
Willman reported from Los Angeles and Washington. Times researcher Janet Lundblad contributed to this report.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-anthrax1-2008aug01,0,3772533.story
Here's the Huffington Post coverage of the story:
Anthrax Scientist Suspected By FBI Kills Himself: Report
MATT APUZZO and LARA JAKES JORDAN | August 1, 2008
WASHINGTON 
— Anthrax-laced letters that killed five people and severely rattled the post-9/11 nation may have been part of an Army scientist's warped plan to test his cure for the deadly toxin, officials said Friday. The brilliant but troubled scientist committed suicide this week, knowing prosecutors were closing in.
The sudden naming of scientist Bruce E. Ivins as the top _ and perhaps only _ suspect in the anthrax attacks marks the latest bizarre twist in a case that has confounded the FBI for nearly seven years. Last month, the Justice Department cleared Ivins' colleague, Steven Hatfill, who had been wrongly suspected in the case, and paid him $5.8 million.
Ivins worked at the Army's biological warfare defense labs at Fort Detrick, Md., for 35 years until his death on Tuesday. He was one of the government's leading scientists researching vaccines and cures for anthrax exposure. But he also had a long history of homicidal threats, according to papers filed last week in local court by a social worker.
[...] The Justice Department said Friday only that "substantial progress has been made in the investigation." The statement did not identify Ivins.
However, several U.S. officials said prosecutors were focusing on the 62-year-old Ivins and planned to seek a murder indictment and the death penalty. Authorities were investigating whether Ivins, who had complained about the limits of testing anthrax drugs on animals, had released the toxin to test the treatment on humans.
The officials all discussed the continuing investigation on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
This just in from the AP:
Ivins had mild persona, but some saw dark side
By DAVID DISHNEAU – 12 hours ago
FREDERICK, Md. (AP) — 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.
Documents show that Ivins recently received psychiatric treatment, and that he was ordered last week to stay away from Jean C. Duley, a social worker who counseled him. In her handwritten application for a protective order, Duley wrote that Ivins had stalked and threatened to kill her and had a long history of homicidal threats.
[...] Some who knew Ivins said the scrutiny of the investigation was too much for him to bear. But they also asserted his innocence.
"The relentless pressure of accusation and innuendo takes its toll in different ways," his attorney, Paul F. Kemp, said in a statement. "In Dr. Ivins' case, it led to his untimely death."
[...] Dr. W. Russell Byrne, a colleague who worked in the bacteriology division of the Fort Detrick research facility, said Ivins was "hounded" by FBI agents who raided his home twice, and he was hospitalized for depression earlier this month.
[...] "I think he was just psychologically exhausted by the whole process," Byrne said.
Still, Byrne did not think the probe would result in charges being filed. "If he was about to be charged, no one who knew him well was aware of that, and I don't believe it," Byrne said.
Neighbor Bonnie Duggan, who brought her daughter, Natalie, to Ivins' home near Fort Detrick on occasion to see the family's elaborate gardens, was also incredulous at the charges.
"It's not the Bruce that I knew," Duggan said. "It doesn't jibe with anything about the Bruce that was my neighbor."
[...] Ivins could frequently be seen walking around his neighborhood for exercise. He volunteered with the American Red Cross of Frederick County, and he played keyboard and helped clean up after Masses at St. John's the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church, where a dozen parishioners gathered Friday after morning Mass to pray for him.
The Rev. Richard Murphy called Ivins "a quiet man ... always very helpful and pleasant."
An avid juggler, Ivins gave juggling demonstrations around Frederick in the 1980s.
"One time, he demonstrated his juggling skills by lying on his back in the department and juggling with his hands," said Byrne, who described Ivins as "eccentric."
Whenever a colleague would leave the bacteriology division, Ivins would write a song or poem for that person and perform it, accompanying himself on keyboard, Byrne said.
Ivins had several letters to the editor published in The Frederick News-Post over the last decade. He denounced taxpayer funding for assisted suicide, pointed readers to a study that suggested a genetic component for homosexuality and said he had stopped listening to local radio station WFMD because he was offended by the language and racially charged commentary of its hosts.
He also commented on the growing political influence of conservative Christians, [my bold] and he was willing to criticize his church.
"The Roman Catholic Church should learn from other equally worthy Christian denominations and eagerly welcome female clergy as well as married clergy," Ivins wrote.
Byrne said Ivins appeared to be at peace and that he expressed no interest in the anthrax mailings, even after some letters were sent to Fort Detrick for analysis.
"There are people who you just know are ticking bombs," Byrne said. "He was not one of them."
Associated Press writers Chrissie Thompson in Frederick, Md., Ben Nuckols in Baltimore and the AP News Research Center in New York contributed to this report. http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hoIfsuWqM7DNKzhcHdaSNvdfQ9ggD92A18RG0
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