[tense ambient music playing]
[man 1] The thing that makes anthrax a exquisite biological weapon
isn't because it kills at a high frequency.
It isn't because it's communicable, like COVID's communicable,
you get that from your neighbor.
It's because it has a spore.
The spore form can exist for decades.
You can't get rid of it.
Once those spores get inside the body, then, of course,
they germinate and take over
and will kill an animal.
The spores, then, get back into the soil.
It has to kill in order to survive.
[tense music builds]
It has to kill to complete its life cycle.
[police sirens wailing]
[indistinct radio chatter]
[siren wailing]
[reporter 1] At the American Media Incorporated building in Boca Raton.
The building has been sealed and anthrax has now been detected
on a computer keyboard used by 63-year-old Bob Stevens.
He's the first person in the U.S.
to die of the extremely rare form of the disease in 25 years.
[reporter 2] Investigators believe he contracted this anthrax naturally,
which means it must have come from soil or from a farm animal.
[reporter 3] Do we know...? Sir, was this inhalation anthrax?
Was this fellow a hunter?
It appears, at this point in time, it's inhalation.
[reporter 3] Do we know if he was a hunter?
We don't... We don't know. We know he was an outdoorsman.
[reporter 4] Mister Secretary, any reason to believe this is a result of terrorism?
It appears that this is just an isolated case.
There's no evidence of terrorism.
[man 2] Soon after 9/11, I get a phone call from a FBI scientist,
and he starts to tell me about this unusual case of anthrax.
They were reporting that he had pulmonary,
or inhalational anthrax.
And so they did a spinal tap.
The bacterium bacillus anthracis.
It spread everywhere, even into his central nervous system.
Anthrax would not be a good death.
You'd spike a high fever, you'd feel very terrible,
and then you'd crash and die.
In Palm Beach County, Florida,
dozens of anxious office workers were screened for signs of bacteria today.
[woman 1] Didn't sleep very well.
They told me to get my son 'cause he's been in the building.
When you don't really have a direction,
then you have to look at every direction.
We didn't know what we had.
We had someone who had died
from anthrax poisoning.
The question is, how did it get there?
[Paul] So the FBI said,
"We want to send you a sample so that you can analyze the DNA."
We were expected to perform, and we needed to do this fast.
[car horns honking]
[reporter 5] President Bush told Americans there's progress
in the search for those believed to be responsible
for the September terrorist attacks.
[George W. Bush] My focus is bringing Al-Qaeda to justice.
[reporter 6] Mr. Bush urged Americans to go about their lives.
To fly on airplanes, to go to work.
But he also said they should use common sense
and report things that seem suspicious.
[sirens wailing]
Good morning, I'm Andy Lack. I'm with NBC.
I'm here with the Mayor.
This morning, we received a positive test for cutaneous anthrax
for one of our colleagues who works on Nightly News.
[newscaster 1] A floor of the NBC television network headquarters,
closed down.
Authorities determining if any other traces
of the anthrax bacteria are present.
[inaudible]
[woman 2] They said that somebody in the building had anthrax.
That was frightening.
You know, you could die from it. Right?
[security guard] Excuse me, please.
[indistinct chatter]
[Rudy Giuliani] At NBC, there's one other person who handled the letter
who is now confirmed to have developed cutaneous anthrax.
[policeman] Get him out of here. Get him out of here.
- [horn honks] - Come on, let's go!
In this huge stack of mail, I saw this letter.
[woman 3] When I open the letter, I got chills all over. So...
It said, "9/11/01."
"Death to America. Death to Israel."
"Allah is great."
And inside was
what appeared to be, to me, it looked like a combination of brown sugar and sand.
I took the substance and I dumped it into the trash.
I just was incredibly sick.
I felt like there was something running through my whole body and my veins.
My doctors gave me an antibiotic.
I could have died easily if I had just one misstep,
or if I decided I was going to smell that,
you know, the anthrax, I would have been dead.
[sirens wailing]
[Casey] We had a car waiting downstairs to take us to the FBI.
You know, we're whisked away in a black car.
I remember I looked over at the ticker by the Today Show
and it was like, "Anthrax at NBC,"
and I thought, "Oh, my God, this is crazy."
[Brad] The big fear was this is the second wave of a terrorist attack,
and now we've got an Islamic terrorist group that's sending out poison to people.
It just feels so vulnerable now because you don't know what's gonna happen,
where it's gonna happen.
[Brad] The real concern at that point is, are there more of these?
[siren wailing]
This comes to us from Washington, D.C.
President Bush just announced, uh, from the Rose Garden
that, uh, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle,
um, has reported seeing a suspicious letter,
and that the authorities believe that letter contains anthrax.
I did contact each of the other members of leadership.
If it happened in my office,
it could happen elsewhere.
[reporter 7] Law enforcement officials say they now have reason to believe
that there may be a connection between the Daschle case in Washington,
the NBC News case in New York,
and the tabloid newspaper case in Florida.
[George W. Bush] I will answer a couple of questions.
[overlapping chatter]
The anthrax attacks, sir, do you believe there is any connection
to Bin Laden's organization?
Well, there may be some possible link.
He and his spokesman are openly bragging about how they hope to inflict
more pain on our country.
I wouldn't put it past him but we don't have hard evidence yet. Yeah, Ron.
[newscaster 1] The seven-month-old son of an ABC News employee...
[newscaster 2]...a worker at the New York Post was diagnosed...
[newscaster 3] An assistant to CBS News anchor, Dan Rather, exposed as well.
Do you know how much mail, how many packages I've opened?
I don't want to touch the mail.
It's a new form of human warfare.
Kathy Nguyen did die due to inhalation anthrax.
This time it's a woman in Connecticut.
[reporter 8] ...provided more questions than answers.
Until there is a suspect, no one will know whether this was a terrorist act
and whether it is related to the September 11 terrorists
who tried to rent a crop dusting aircraft.
[newscaster 4] If we're really being honest,
if America is prepared for a chemical attack,
the answer is no.
Oh, my god!
Maybe we shouldn't be talking here.
Maybe there's anthrax flying around in the air.
[reporter 9] Pharmacy supplies of the antibiotic Cipro,
one of the drugs known to fight anthrax, are thin.
[reporter 10] Gas masks sell out in Los Angeles.
It's probably a little paranoia,
but I'm not gonna take the chance. That's all.
We face an enemy as ruthless and unpredictable as any we've ever faced.
[reporter 11] And the road back to a sense of security could be a long one.
I feel like I go to work, I don't know what's going to happen next.
[Brad] The mail system touches the entire United States.
[ominous music playing]
And so the potential of these letters going to whomever was huge.
How in the world are we gonna get our arms around this quickly?
One of America's most distinguished scientists, Dr. Paul Keim.
[applause]
[Paul] Early in the investigation, I thought it was a foreign source
associated with Al-Qaeda and the 9/11 attacks,
but we got the data and we started comparing it to our databases.
And it matched up with this strain that we call the Ames strain.
Everybody was silent
because at that point, the only examples of the Ames strain,
even to this day, the only examples of the Ames strain that we have in our database
originate in American laboratories.
The person that we were pursuing
was one of us.
[theme music playing]
[reporter] Barbara Hatch Rosenberg
believes the anthrax attack is an inside job.
What many consider to be the largest FBI investigation in history.
This is criminal intent to commit murder.
[man] We will find the perpetrators of anthrax
and we will punish the guilty for their crimes.
[indistinct chatter]
[bell ringing]
Hi.
[crew member] Final touches.
[indistinct chatter in background]
[crew member] Sound check, please.
One, two, one, two. Testing. One, two, three, four.
Okay.
[crew member speaking indistinctly]
[tense music playing]
My name is Dr. Bruce Edward Ivins.
I am a Department of Defense researcher at USAMRIID.
That's the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases.
[Bruce] For me, it's a real thrill to make a discovery
and know that I've just revealed something
that no one else in the world ever knew before.
[man 1] Morning, sir.
[Bruce] I feel like a detective
and that which is unknown
dares me to try to find out about it.
[beep]
[man 2] Bruce Ivins, he struck me as somewhat eccentric,
but he had a worldwide reputation as one of the experts on anthrax.
He was extremely well thought of.
As opposed to being aloof and self-important,
- Bruce was neither of those things. - [woman] Hey, Bruce.
[bluegrass music playing]
[music halts]
It is clear that the terrorists responsible for these attacks
intended to use this anthrax
as a weapon.
We still don't know who is responsible.
As you look at him, I could see how he could be a suspect.
[Vince] Whoever committed this act of bioterrorism
is somebody with a pretty extensive scientific background
and access to deadly spores.
I mean, one of the challenges we had
was relying on the scientific community.
- Yeah. - ...to help us in the investigation.
What time?
How do we know that they were being helpful?
[machine whirring]
And so, Bruce was definitely somebody that needed to be looked at.
[tense music playing]
[Brad] Any time you interview somebody, particularly on something at this level,
would be a little bit, I suppose, like a chess match
because you're dealing with somebody that's clearly intelligent.
You're obviously trying to get them to tell you what they have done,
if in fact they've done anything.
- Really sorry to keep you guys waiting. - Not a problem.
We appreciate...
I was working in the hot suite and it's quite a process to de-gown.
Let me tell you.
Have a seat, Doctor.
Yeah, thank you.
I'm Special Agent Hayward. This is my partner, Agent Braxton.
I'm very happy to meet you.
We appreciate your help with the sample analysis.
[Bruce] Of course, my pleasure.
[Hayward] You say here the, uh, spores
found in the letters are not garage spores.
What does that mean?
It means they're highly purified.
99% refractile. No vegetative cells or debris.
Any idea who could make something like this?
Uh...
Someone with specialized training.
Someone with access to industrial manufacturing tools.
Oh, so, someone like you.
[chuckles] I wish.
To produce powder of that purity from wet spores,
you'd need serious equipment.
Much better than we have in this dump.
We were stuck from the standpoint that we really did have to rely on the people
that were the experts.
[Brad] But the problem we had was, we had zero evidence
that one of these scientists was the ultimate culprit.
And so, you know, the question is how to stop this anthrax thing
where we had no clue when it would stop, if it would stop.
[foreboding music playing]
[reporter 1] Good evening, Tom. Military experts say
the powder in that letter sent to Senator Daschle
was the same biological type as in the other letters.
But so pure and so extremely fine, it was clearly designed to kill.
Inside that innocent-looking...
[woman] When we heard about the Daschle letter,
that's when it felt closer to home.
I was like, "Wow, in order for them to get their mail,
it has to come through Brentwood."
So I kinda, like, went inside myself just to stay calm.
This mail had to come through our building.
[dramatic music playing]
[Paul] These letters are pushed through rollers,
and then the spores that are inside the letter
could doubtlessly get pushed out through any cracks.
A little bit of that powder gets out, and it just flies.
I want to thank you for joining us here today.
As, you know, one letter
from among the more than 3.5 million pieces of mail
handled here each day
contained Anthrax.
That letter was extremely well sealed,
and there is only a minute chance
that anthrax spores escaped from it into this facility.
[camera shutters clicking]
When it first hit the national news,
I said to myself, "Oh, boy."
My brother Joe dealt with all the mail
that would come through Brentwood at that time.
I talked to him on the phone. I said, "Joe, please. Please be careful."
And he said, "I will, I am."
I just had this feeling of foreboding.
Knowing that you probably in a place that's not safe,
but then somebody's telling you it's safe and you're trying to trust them.
And then you find out later you can't trust 'em at all.
[man 3] Our plant manager said,
"We're going to have some people come in and test."
"They're gonna have on the Hazmat gear from head to toe."
Why did they have Hazmat gear on if everything was safe?
[interviewer] Just to be clear,
you guys could see people in moon suits walking around the plant?
Yes.
They just told us to stay out of their way.
[technician] Six FKC pumps for an unknown volume flow...
And then, our plant manager goes,
"You know what, if we shut the building down,
then the terrorists wins."
Why would you feel that we should not have been tested and the building closed?
They were telling the media and the workers the same thing.
"It's nothing to worry about."
"Anthrax isn't in the building."
And that's when it happened.
Our chests started to hurt.
All of us started having dizziness or, um, headaches,
and I could see Joseph Curseen.
He sat on there and his head was kind of down.
That stood out because he's... he had never taken a sick day off work.
And then not long after that,
you start hearing about another postal worker, Thomas Morris.
[Thomas]
- [static hisses] - [Thomas] Um...
[static hisses]
[Thomas]
[phone line clicks]
[Joan] It was early in the morning when Joe's wife woke up.
Joe wasn't there in the bed,
she went to their bathroom and he was sprawled out.
I don't know whether he had
defecated on himself... I mean, he was just out.
He was that sick
and she called the ambulance, called my parents,
um,
and when they got there,
they could...
I guess they took them to an area,
and they could actually hear him heaving.
And I tried to call home and I kept calling and calling.
That's when my mother told me Joe was dead.
And I dropped the phone and, uh...
[man 4] A short while ago, I briefed the president with the latest facts
on the anthrax situation, as we know them.
Two postal employees
who work at the Brentwood Mail Facility here in Washington, D.C.
became critically ill, tragically, ultimately passed away.
[Joan] That Saturday, we buried Joe.
And, let me tell you something.
If it weren't for my faith,
I would have lost my mind
behind losing my brother,
especially like that.
[George W. Bush] We mourn the loss of the lives
of Thomas Morris and Joseph Curseen.
Postal workers who died in the line of duty.
We have seen the horrors terrorists can inflict.
Overseas,
and here at home.
But one thing is for certain.
These terrorists must be pursued.
They must be defeated.
And they must be brought to justice.
[applause]
[Brad] As far as high-profile, pressurized cases,
I can't think of anything as big as this.
[dramatic music playing]
We were, many times on a weekly basis,
going to FBI headquarters and briefing the director
as to what's going on in this case.
Good morning. I want you to know our investigators are hard at work.
Are hard at work in New York, in Florida,
in New Jersey, uh, in D.C., and throughout the country.
You gotta get this solved and we need to move on here.
We're not in a position at this point to determine, uh,
those who are responsible.
I'm just gonna leave it there.
[reporter 2] A biological killer sent through the mail.
The letters killed five people...
...and made 17 others sick. The case remains an unsolved mystery.
[Brad] Over a period of time,
the case agents and the postal inspectors
were able to develop, sort of, the movement
of these letters from a particular mailbox,
which was Princeton, New Jersey.
Postal inspectors take these mailings very seriously.
This afternoon, I am announcing the offer of a reward of up to $1 million.
Quickly you want to figure out how to rule people out
and how to rule people in.
And so, we were looking at every possible angle one could.
Right? Someone at some point noticed that certain letters were heavily bolded.
Some of the A's and the T's.
What does that mean?
Maybe it means nothing, but maybe it means something.
What could it mean?
It's another thing to look at as you're trying to narrow down who did this.
[Bruce] This is the coolest part. Look at this.
The elongated morphology.
These, uh, centipede-looking things?
[Bruce] Each bacterium is coated with a smooth mono-amino acid shell
that blocks the T-cells from recognizing it as a pathogen.
Understand?
Not a word. Continue.
[Bruce] That's how it survives.
It makes itself seem harmless, slips past the defenses.
Even though there's about 15 labs that produce the Ames strain,
it's still sort of a needle in a haystack
because you have no idea which lab it came from.
There was a couple of scientists at USAMRIID
who were working directly with the powders from the letters.
[tense ambient music playing]
They noticed that when they plated the spores out onto Petri dishes
at a small frequency,
some of the anthrax looked different. It had different morphology.
And those differences then
would be a way to figure out,
not just whether you have the Ames strain,
but whether you actually have the Ames strain
that ended up in the anthrax letters.
And sure enough, all of those samples
that had the morphs were at USAMRIID.
[Jeffrey] USAMRIID was founded in the early '70s
as a biological defense organization.
In particular, infectious diseases that have been weaponized.
So, like most of our scientists,
I had this nagging sense that
we, or somebody that we knew, would be caught up,
um, and... and accused of being behind this.
When, in fact, we had nothing to do with it.
Doctor, for the record...
Were you involved in any way in the anthrax mailings
of September and October, 2001?
Absolutely not.
Any ideas who might have been?
Oh, yes. Lots.
Not only do these two particular researchers
have access to the original strain, they...
They also routinely make serial dilutions.
We keep a detailed record of all that activity.
Appreciate your help.
We'll be in touch.
[departing footsteps]
[Paul] The FBI said, "Okay,
all the people who had access to the Ames strain,
send us a sample."
Under subpoena, all of the scientists at USAMRIID,
including Bruce, would have had to have gone into their collection,
sampled each of their tubes,
and then the FBI would have sent that to my laboratory for DNA analysis,
and also for long-term storage.
[ominous music playing]
And when they did the analysis for the morphs,
none of the scientists' tubes have the morphs.
And so they weren't part of the anthrax letters sources.
[woman on TV] Early on, many...
[Paul] Bruce was in the clear.
The anthrax was identified as the Ames strain,
commonly used in U.S. government labs.
One of those labs is located on the Fort Detrick Army Base in Maryland,
but without a solid suspect, conspiracy theories persist,
especially since the killer hasn't struck again.
Michael Jordan, in his first comments since confirming his NBA comeback says...
[Braxton] You said you had something for us.
[Bruce] I sure do. This is really cool.
You're gonna love this. It's... Okay, here we go.
[Brad] Now that Bruce Ivins had been eliminated as a suspect...
[sniffles]
...he could help us maybe narrow this down.
[Hayward] These are anthrax cultures.
Agent Hayward, I'm very impressed.
Yes, that's exactly what those are.
Those are from my personal stock,
straight from the source.
Bruce was really enamored by the idea that, you know,
his contributions and through his science
would help them to solve this case.
[Hayward] What else can you tell us?
[Paul] Bruce's main project at the time was a new vaccine.
We were all vaccinated,
but this was a vaccine that went back decades and decades,
and some people who got that anthrax vaccine
ended up with knots on their arms the size of grapefruit.
So he was trying to make a vaccine that was just as effective,
but didn't cause the side effects.
He was normal for a scientist,
but he was out there a little bit by your general population.
He definitely was one of those geeky, nerdy guys that you see across the room.
Like me. Like me. [laughs]
[sharp exhale]
Okay, so, here are some of the most objectionable aspects about me.
One.
Giving bad advice when no advice was asked for or needed.
Two. Being demanding.
Three. Asking personal questions
that are none of my business, also known as the "Grand Ivins Inquiry."
[Jeffrey] He played piano,
he fooled around with the banjo...
You know, he had a lot of talents like that.
[bluegrass music plays]
[man] Bruce!
[Bruce] Shit!
[Jeffrey chuckles]
There's Bruce Ivins, you know, doing, uh, something unusual again.
[Bruce] Okay, so, four.
Interrupting people and then monopolizing the conversations.
- Five. Calling people at home. - [line ringing]
- [woman on phone] Hello? - Hey.
Six. Talking a mile a minute,
and then asking several questions without waiting for the answers.
I think that pretty much covers it.
♪ Pretty girl is waitin' ♪
♪ On down the line ♪
♪ And I'm on my long journey home ♪
[song fades]
[man on radio] By the time a piece of mail makes it through the postal system,
it is gathered and dumped and sorted, shaken, jostled, and squeezed.
So everyone's a little edgy,
no group more so than the nation's postal workers.
[man] I'd just like to say that this is a very sad time for the postal service.
We mourn the loss of two of our soldiers on the front line,
and we're gonna do what we can, uh, to...
to deliver America's mail.
[Terrence] Finally, after ten days,
the building had been shut down.
They told us that everybody more than likely had an exposure.
[reporter 3] More than 2,200 D.C. postal workers
have been urged to get tested for Anthrax exposure.
Employees are being...
When it first came out, when Congress got tested,
everyone should have got tested.
At Brentwood, they kept the building open for 24 hours,
seven days a week, for ten straight days.
[dramatic music playing]
[Terrence] There were forklifts, power oxes riding through.
People moving around, shuffling, spores flying everywhere.
Machines running 35 miles an hour.
And when you look back at the Hart Senate Office Building,
what we see is what a building really looks like when people are in danger.
About 10:30 a.m. this morning,
my office, uh, opened a suspicious package,
and the good news is that,
uh, everyone will be okay.
That building was shut down in two hours.
Evacuated everybody, tested everybody, everybody's safe.
Two hundred and forty hours versus two hours.
The dogs got Cipro on Capitol Hill before we did.
They say there were five deaths.
Seventeen people got sick.
No, they don't know how many people...
My x-rays show that my lungs look like I've been a heavy smoker,
or like I have a lung disease.
I never smoked a day in my life.
When this happens to you, you become obsessed.
[woman] And then a picture of the "No Photos" sign
at the entrance of the Brentwood Post Office,
as well as the machinery
and the tents
in which these Hazmat teams, uh, worked out of.
The tunnels leading up to the building to put the...
[man 1] The chlorine dioxide.
[woman] Dioxide...
[man 2] Zoom in on... on...
Okay, yeah. They got warnings on the building here.
[Dena] This was about them knowing that the building was contaminated
and keeping us in there and jeopardizing our lives.
They... They should have done better.
[propulsive music playing]
[reporter 4] For two months, investigators have been searching
for the culprit in the anthrax-by-mail attacks.
[car horns honking]
That's one thing that lurks in the back of a lot of postal people's mind,
that it's been done once, and they got away with it, they could do it again.
And then we'll be right back where we started.
[reporter 5] Who sent letters laced with the biological hazard and why?
[reporter 6] An invisible enemy killing Americans, one breath at a time.
[reporter 7] Just like DNA,
we're solving crimes today that we couldn't solve ten years ago
because science has improved. We hope that's going to be the case
with the anthrax case also.
[newscaster] It's been nine months since the wave of deadly anthrax letters
began passing through the U.S. mail.
New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof joins us now live.
You've come up with some suspicions of your own.
Why don't you tell our viewers what they are?
He's somebody who's in the biodefense community,
uh, in the kind of military intelligence establishment.
There's been a lot of buzz about him,
uh, as somebody that people think should be investigated a lot more closely.
[woman] The block has been kind of swarming with guys in suits.
[brakes squealing]
[woman] They just showed us a picture, asked if we had recognized this fella.
A gentleman with kind of dark hair, a bushy mustache,
kind of close-set eyes.
[tense music playing]
[reporter 1] FBI agents have searched the apartment
of a former Army researcher named Dr. Steven Hatfill.
There was a lot of... aspects of what Dr. Hatfill had done and said,
uh, that made him, quite appropriately,
the leading suspect.
[man 1] He was fired in 1999 for violating lab procedures
and then he got a job with a government contractor
and lost that security clearance for that job,
August 23rd of 2001.
Just about a month before the anthrax went in the mail.
[man 2] He was polygraphed three times, each of those three showed evasions.
[man 3] His resumes were a skeleton of truth.
[man 4] He was mad at the world, at the government.
[reporter 2] A study that he commissioned described a fictional terrorist attack.
[reporter 3] Federal agents searched Steven Hatfill's Maryland home
for a second time.
Hatfill has denied any involvement in the anthrax attacks.
Let me just be clear here.
And to be fair.
This is the first bio-terror attack in our nation's history.
None of us were prepared for it.
It scared the American public. It scared Congress.
But nothing justified the treatment that he received here, nothing whatsoever.
I'll give you some sound checks, fellas.
Tell me if this works for you.
[Tom] And so I came on to represent him
in a case that if it was brought,
was undoubtedly going to be a death penalty case.
Dr. Hatfill deserves to get his life back,
and the American public deserves a real investigation.
- [shutters clicking] - [reporters chattering]
[Tom] Look what actually happened here. Okay?
They signal to the American public
that Dr. Hatfill was the person who committed this horrendous attack.
[reporter] Is Dr. Hatfill a suspect?
Well, he's a person of interest.
"Person of interest."
[overlapping reporters speaking] Person of interest...
[ominous music playing]
It had such a huge draw from the media.
And, like, they're all over the place,
and there's helicopters above his apartment.
A couple of dopey agents fell madly in love with him.
It was like a teenage romance crush,
and they just kept pushing a round peg in a square hole.
They essentially engaged in a campaign
with their friends in the press
to continually suggest to the American public
that Dr. Hatfill has committed this offense.
They did so without any evidence because they were happy
to have a patsy here,
to suggest to the public that we're making progress.
It says to me that there's some good gumshoe detective work going on
and they're hot on the trail of somebody.
People had differing views about how much they believe
whether Hatfill was the right guy or not.
But the problem is they just couldn't eliminate Steven.
They had me actually interview him more than once.
You know, we start talking about, you know, his history with anthrax.
And he says, "You guys don't believe me."
"You think I did this."
And, you know, my response to that was "Well, Steve,
did you do it?" And he says, "Of course not, I didn't do it."
But the bureau still thought he was the right guy,
and that's... that's why they moved forward.
Now, one possible outcome
sources suggest is that the government could bring charges against Hatfill
unrelated to the anthrax attacks at all,
if they become convinced
that's the only way to stop future incidents...
[newscaster] And still no arrests,
even though investigators believe they know who the culprit is
and where he is.
What's going on here?
[ominous music playing]
This is, like, real pressure.
You have him under surveillance 24-7.
You're following him every place he goes.
[reporter] And he's often publicly tailed by the FBI
so closely that an agent drove over his foot three months ago.
[barking]
The fuckin' dogs.
They opened the doors of the apartment
and one of the dogs just excitedly bounded across the room
and went straight up to Dr. Hatfill.
Now, what they didn't tell
was that the dogs alerted on eight or nine other scientists.
So, that's the equivalent of saying... telling your boss,
"Hey, I've got Dan's fingerprints on a gun,"
and not telling him,
"By the way, I got ten other fingerprints on the gun that aren't Dan's."
This is in-your-face harassment.
This was not surveillance.
This was a design to sweat him.
The pressure the criminal suspect has when the FBI has them under scrutiny,
can lead them to break and do awful things,
including committing suicide.
He was so... [hesitates]
...distressed about the media,
and for whatever reason,
they knew where we were going to interview him.
I mean, it got so bad at one location
that we actually put him in the back of a vehicle and took him to a hotel.
[Rachel] I wasn't there and I'm not going to judge the day-to-day on that,
but I will say,
when you have somebody who you think committed this major bioweapons attack,
you're gonna want to look at every aspect of his life
and you're going to want to interview his friends
and you're going to want to perhaps physically surveil him.
It's... It frankly would be malpractice if they hadn't done some of those things.
[Tom] Of course he should have been investigated.
No one has ever complained
that the FBI shouldn't have looked at him.
The complaint is,
you wrenched him from all the other people that they were looking at
and put him forefront in the American public and said,
"He's our guy."
That's what happened here, and that's the complaint.
[reporters clamoring]
[reporter 1] Over here, please.
[Tom] Guess what? Once you burn a man's house down,
and then take his clothes
and then spit in his face...
Guess what?
He's gonna fight back.
[shutters clicking]
[intense music playing]
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
My name is Steve Hatfill.
After one of the most intensive public and private investigations
in American history, no one,
no one has come up with a shred of evidence
that I had anything to do
with the anthrax letters.
I am not the Anthrax Killer!
We're almost a year now into the anthrax investigation
and the FBI doesn't have a clue who's responsible.
[reporter 2] FBI officials say there are just too many questions
about Hatfill to back off now.
Some involved in the case are clearly frustrated.
More than 18 months later, there has not been one single arrest...
And it does seem like the FBI works very slowly,
which makes us wonder...
Well, it's like this. It's not television.
There's a lot of legwork...
[reporter 1] Does it disappoint you?
A case like this, unsolved, no arrests, no indictment?
[reporter 2] As of this moment, is he still being investigated?
We may not have the admissible evidence
that we need in order to prove it in court.
[reporter 3] Remember the anthrax scare?
It was five years ago today that a photographer in Florida...
[reporter 4] There's a split at the FBI
with some agents now thinking Hatfill didn't do it,
but others still believe he did.
It's one of the largest FBI investigations ever
with more than 9,000 interviews,
6,000 subpoenas, and 67 separate searches.
The FBI insists this case remains active.
The fatal flaw that some people have is
trying to prove that somebody committed a crime,
versus just investigating the crime.
The investigation had been going on for five years,
and Director Mueller wanted to have some new eyes in there.
And so I took over the investigation.
I told the team, "This case might be old,
but it's not stale and it's not like we don't care."
"We still have, you know, resources dedicated to it."
We told everybody... Like, we empowered them to investigate.
[Rachel] At that point,
there was an incredibly aggressive development of the science,
and it became the game-changing piece of the investigation.
[Paul] Previously, nobody was sequencing genomes.
It's what we call a pre-genomics era.
We were using DNA to identify the Ames strain,
but we hadn't sequenced the whole genome.
[Vince] What they wanted to do was develop a DNA fingerprint
for the spores that were mailed
to see if we could identify the parent.
[dramatic music playing]
And we did it because the technology improved,
but also because we had a lot of money.
This was the most expensive investigation that the FBI ever carried out.
Then they compared the DNA fingerprints
that they had identified in the spores that were mailed
to everything they'd collected.
[Paul] Those all traced back to a single flask...
called RMR-1029.
And then on top of that, we found out that this was a flask
of anthrax spores that Bruce Ivins had created for his experiments.
["Hard Times Come Again No More" playing]
♪ Oh, hard times come again no more ♪
♪ It's a song ♪
♪ A sigh of the weary ♪
♪ Hard times, hard times ♪
♪ Come again no more ♪
♪ Many days... ♪
[Rachel] At the beginning of this investigation,
it was this global whodunit.
The global whodunit has now shrunk to one flask in one walk-in cooler,
in one lab, created and maintained by one guy.
[song halts]
[interviewer] Do we know definitively at that point
that Bruce Ivins sent the letters?
No. Uh...
RMR-1029 was a resource that was used by many people.
Some of the material from that had even been sent to my laboratory.
So, we looked at the relevant time period
and said, "Okay, who had access to RMR-1029 during this time period?"
The FBI swung back around and started focusing on USAMRIID again.
We were right back under the magnifying glass.
We were one of the few institutes that fully cooperated with them.
Not only providing the expertise and the assistance,
but giving full access to all of our written records,
all of our biological samples,
providing anything and everything that they wanted, on a voluntary basis.
But then, because you've created records of everything,
that gives them something to sift through,
and if something similar is found,
it's going to label you as the originator of this attack material.
You know, that was disconcerting for a lot of people
because it created a lot of fear and paranoia.
[Vince] Each one of them became a suspect, right?
Get me a rock-solid alibi.
We had some people on the list that we had phone records,
where they were on the phone with their spouse who was overseas at the time.
Right? So there's no way they could have driven to Princeton
on the 17th or 18th of September
and mailed the letters.
We checked everybody else off the list.
[Vince] But then, the more we investigated Bruce,
the more things that came to light.
One of the things that stuck out was his time in the hot suites,
leading up to the attacks.
[beeping]
Late at nights and on weekends and into the wee hours of the morning.
And going into a hot suite isn't just going into a room.
And then there was a break for about a week or so,
and then it picked up again where he was back in there.
Then he had all these hours in there leading up to the second mailing.
Never before, never since,
did he have time in the hot suites like that.
[Rachel] That, standing alone, is not proof beyond a reasonable doubt,
but it's certainly a brick in the wall of evidence.
Now with the additional knowledge
that, whoa, we think this identified flask of spores
that was created and maintained by Dr. Ivins
is the source of the murder weapon, right?
Is the source of the mailed material.
Let's go back and take a look at everything he has said
and everything he's done, in a different light.
[ominous music playing]
[Rachel] Going back and looking at statements he had given.
Was he sabotaging, undermining, misdirecting the investigation?
Did he try to distract?
I had one other thought.
Iraq, for instance.
What else can you tell us?
- [knock on door] - Oh. Hey, guys.
Did he try to deflect?
[Bruce] Get a load of this.
Those are from my personal stock, straight from the source.
What else can you tell us?
[Rachel] Did he identify certain suspects
depending on his personal feelings towards that person at the time?
[Bruce] Not only do these two particular researchers
have access to the original strain, they also routinely make serial dilutions.
[Hayward] What else can you tell us?
Did he try to send investigators in different directions?
- Can you get us copies? - I'll fax them over this afternoon.
What else can you tell us?
Lots.
[dramatic music playing]
[Rachel] Here is this super respected, talented scientist within the government,
giving advice about, you know, what to pursue and what not to pursue.
[Hayward, voice echoing] What else can you tell us?
[Rachel] There was now absolutely a concerted focus on Dr. Ivins.
- [country song playing] - ♪ Take me by the hand ♪
♪ I will always understand... ♪
[song continues faintly]
[song stops]
[Vince] You know, this guy checks a lot of boxes
when you talk about an insider threat.
We found out that he had some mental health issues,
that it was common for him to leave at night and come home
sometime the next morning, without his wife knowing.
He maintained P.O. boxes in different names at different locations.
He would drive to remote locations
and mail something to conceal his identity.
[man] Dr. Ivins.
We're with the FBI.
[female agent] We'd like to speak with you, sir. Won't take long.
Now? Uh, I was supposed to be home an hour ago. Uh, my wife...
Your wife is being taken care of.
What... What does that mean?
Sir, we're currently executing a federal grand jury search warrant
at your home.
[ominous music playing]
[Vince] That's when we jumped out of the cake, right?
"Hey, Bruce, we're executing a search warrant at your house."
"You are a big suspect in this."
[male agent] We've arranged a hotel for you and your family,
just until the search is complete.
We've got a car just over here.
Uh, no, thank you. I... I need to go home.
We'll see you on the ten o'clock news, then.
[male agent] Doctor, you go home,
it's going to cause a major scene.
Neighbors start talking.
[male agent] Next thing you know, news trucks are rolling in
like the third armored brigade.
[female agent] You don't really want that.
Do you, Dr. Ivins?
Where's Agent Hayward? I always work with Agent...
Agent Hayward is no longer assigned to this case.
What? No. No, you don't understand. Hayward is my contact...
I know this is upsetting.
Best thing is to remain calm, let us do our work.
I think I just... I need you to stop.
Stop the car. Stop.
[Bruce] You... You're saying it was me?
You think... You think I sent those letters?
That I'm some kind of terrorist?
No one's saying that.
I'm a patriot. I've worked my entire life protecting American lives.
Sir, please.
[male agent] Let's just all keep our heads
and give the team a chance to do its work.
How does that sound, Doctor?
[Vince] To be quite honest,
we didn't come out of there with a silver bullet.
There were some people that thought that he would've kept a souvenir.
Right? And we're like, "What souvenir are we gonna find?"
And there wasn't that much.
But then a couple guys on the team had a great idea.
[dog barking]
[Vince] Two nights later was trash night.
See what he throws out that we may have missed.
Unbeknownst to him, was an FBI agent holding his breath,
standing motionless so that Bruce wouldn't see him.
He clearly wanted to make sure that nobody recovered what he threw away.
[airplane engine roaring]
[Paul] I was in Washington at a conference in a hotel out near Dulles Airport.
- [applause] - [static hisses]
Welcome, everyone.
And the FBI knew I was there and so they actually set up a meeting for me.
There were, like, 20 people there,
and they didn't have lights shining on me or anything like an interrogation,
but it kind of felt that way. It kind of felt like that environment.
And we sat down and one of them
reassured me that, uh, they were not there to arrest me.
It was like, "That had never crossed my mind until just now
that you might be here to arrest me."
And they started pulling out emails that I had sent to Bruce Ivins.
They were trying to figure out if there was any information in these emails
that might have tipped off Bruce Ivins about the analysis that we were doing.
That's when a kind of light went off in my head, said,
"They're looking at Bruce."
Many of his co-workers defended him and said, "No, it couldn't be Bruce."
And when we pointed to strange behaviors, you know... [hesitates]
...things that Bruce did, it was always, "Well, that's just Bruce being Bruce."
That was the common phrase we heard. "That's Bruce being Bruce."
But from looking at Bruce's emails,
it was clear that
he had obsessions.
His relationships with some of his co-workers were...
[Vince] Um...
You know, one woman... he wrote a lot of personal emails
that were troubling.
[breathing heavily]
[tense music playing]
Occasionally, I get this tingling that goes down both arms.
At the same time, I get a bit dizzy
and I get this
unidentifiable metallic taste in my mouth.
I'm not trying to be funny.
Actually, it scares me a bit.
When I get these episodes,
I become mean-spirited,
hateful,
angry,
withdrawn,
paranoid.
[tense music builds, fades out]
Of course, I regret them thoroughly when they're over,
but when I'm going through them,
it's as if I'm a passenger on a ride.
Like I'm a few feet away watching myself.
[somber music playing]
I try to put on a good front here at work and at home
so I don't spread the pestilence.
[Bruce panting]
Unfortunately, I have to talk about it to someone.
So, you get to be my secret sharer.
[Vince] His behavior toward those women was the same as another of his obsessions.
We found out that he had
an obsession with KKG Sorority.
[foreboding music playing]
This obsession was something that he developed in the 1960s in college
when he asked a girl on a date who belonged to KKG Sorority.
She turned him down,
and Bruce was rejected.
And so, he decided to steal from a sorority house.
He stole their cipher,
which allowed him to decrypt their rituals that they had.
And when you think about... here's a man, 40 or 50 years later,
who had multiple personas...
[Vince] ...who was 60 years old,
posing as a sorority sister, online.
It kind of raises some eyebrows.
[indistinct chatter]
[Vince] One of the women that he had this strong interest or obsession with
defended him over and over,
until we showed her some information that he somehow identified her password
and would log on to her computer, as her,
and read her personal emails.
And whenever he read something disparaging against him,
then he was just enraged by it.
It was pretty disturbing, and she agreed to cooperate with us.
Bruce.
Ah.
[both chuckling]
- You came. - I came. [chuckles]
[sighs deeply] Right.
I just keep thinking about that grand jury hearing.
They were so accusatory.
You can't keep going on like this, Bruce.
Sure I can. See?
Maybe you should see somebody.
I have you.
My secret sharer.
Don't call me that.
I'm... I'm sorry, Bruce. I want to support you, I do.
But these things that you've been writing me about...
[accomplice] Alternate personas, paranoid delusions...
So this woman actually wore a wire to... to meet with Bruce.
Just let him volunteer and see how comfortable he gets.
- [accomplice] I don't know what to do. - The crazy thing about those emails is
I don't even remember actually writing them.
What?
The first I know about them is when I see them in my sent box in the morning.
I wake up and there's all these traces of what Crazy Bruce has been doing.
I see keys by my bed and I think, "Oh, no, did I drive somewhere?"
For somebody who's a suspect in a bioterrorism event, right?
It's alarming to us.
I want to ask you something.
But please don't get mad at me.
You want to know if I did it. You want to know if I sent those letters.
Yes.
I can't recall doing anything like that.
But you're not sure?
The only thing I know for sure
is that in my right mind, I would never hurt anyone.
"Did you kill five people?"
It's a pretty easy question to answer for most people, right?
And Bruce didn't say no.
You know, I was thinking, this friend of mine,
her therapist hypnotizes her.
- No. - And it helps her.
- I said no. - It helps her remember.
What if I don't want to remember?
[chair scrapes]
But, Br... Bruce, wait.
Don't go.
Sit down.
You used to be so beautiful.
[tense music playing]
[Bruce] It's getting to be lately,
I felt there's nobody in the world I can confide in.
I used to walk at night through a bad part of town
with a loaded gun in my windbreaker.
If I saw a group of young guys on the street,
I'd walk right through the middle of them.
Just hoping someone would try something.
[sniffles]
You have to battle back.
Look these bastards in the eye and say,
"You're not going to drive me into a hole."
"You go after me, I'll go after you."
Bruce? Bruce?
Just remember what I said. Short and direct.
No unnecessary details.
Gonna do great.
[door opens]
[phones ringing in background]
Appreciate you coming in today.
I'm Vince Lisi, Special Agent in charge here.
We just wanted to let him know we had him.
Okay if I call you Bruce?
Sure, Vince.
Look, I want to be very clear.
This interview here, it's voluntary. You're here on your own accord.
- In the presence of your attorney. - I understand.
An enormous amount of work
was put into getting ready for that first interview of Dr. Ivins.
We had a very careful plan
that involved both what questions we want to ask,
how do we want to ask them,
but also consulting with a psychologist about how do we approach him.
Right? What are the triggers, what are the aspects
that are going to get him talking.
So, tell me, Bruce.
What's the deal with you and women?
Excuse me?
Two former female co-workers said you hounded them for over a decade.
One said you threatened to poison her?
Now there's this whole thing with a Kappa Kappa Gamma Sorority.
[sorority members cheering and laughing]
A "preoccupation," it says.
I wouldn't call it a preoccupation.
[Vince] No? What would you call it?
An obsession.
He just cut me off. He goes, "It's not an interest. It's an obsession."
He said "I just lay in bed at night and this just goes through my head."
It says that you broke into a sorority house
at the University of North Carolina to steal their code books.
Interested in codes, Bruce?
Not especially.
You know, I read somewhere
that you can write secret messages using DNA codons.
Ever hear anything like that?
Doesn't sound familiar.
- [dramatic music playing] - [Vince] How 'bout now?
[Bruce's lawyer] This was not on the search and seizure inventory.
I found it in his trash.
And that's whenever they found some, uh,
some pretty, pretty interesting and damning, uh, items.
An Eternal Golden Braid. That's a... That's a good book.
I mean, at least the parts I could understand.
Gödel, Escher, Bach was the book he had that he was very interested in
that talked about codes and coded language.
Hey, Bruce. What the heck is a codon, anyway?
Okay, you're asking Dr. Ivins to teach remedial science to the FBI now?
The letters A and T are used in DNA codons, right?
We knew that there was a hidden message in the letter.
Bold a T in one word and then you bold an A in another word
and use that to send hidden messages.
And they kind of had an idea of how it was translated.
We knew both from talking to Dr. Ivins
and from things he had written, that Dr. Ivins hated New York.
The bolded letters translated into "FNY."
Take, what you will, the FNY.
"Fuck New York."
Mr. Lisi, we agreed to come here in the spirit of cooperation.
I don't appreciate you trying to intimidate my client.
You feeling intimidated, Bruce?
All that matters here is the science.
We talked about the submission to the repository.
I mean, it was just, like, one fastball after another.
Six years ago, you submitted a sample of anthrax in your custody, came back clean.
Negative match.
Yeah.
[Vince] There was another sample.
The original one.
It was supposed to be destroyed because, well, you didn't follow protocol.
You used the wrong test tubes, or some nonsense.
What?
Wrong test tubes. The lab guys are very particular.
Someone kept it, Bruce.
Let me back up, because actually, you prepare two, right?
One sample goes to the repository, and one sample goes to Paul Keim.
The tube that came to me,
the FBI didn't ever tell me to get rid of 'em.
And so, that first set of tubes that he sent to me
stayed in our repository for the next four years.
That one came back a match.
The same DNA markers as the spores that killed those five people in 2001.
We traced it to a flask labeled RMR-1029.
Which you control.
A dozen people have access to that flask.
Fourteen, actually.
But you're so sure it's me?
I think we are finished here. [clears throat] Dr. Ivins.
Why'd you submit two different samples, Bruce?
Can you explain why?
[Vince] So after Bruce's first sample was refused by the repository
and it was destroyed,
he, uh, attended this meeting
and was told exactly what the samples were going to be used for.
Right? So now he's thinking, "Wait a minute..."
Doctor, please, follow protocol to the letter this time.
[Vince] "So when I submit my new sample of RMR-1029,
I'll put something else in there, so it doesn't point back to me."
He got a second bite at the apple, right?
[Hayward] We appreciate your help.
[Vince] Can you explain that?
I'm not a killer.
Let's see what a jury says.
[ominous music playing]
[Jeffrey] The one thing Bruce was not is an emotionally strong person.
The FBI isolated him from most of his friends and family.
His reputation had been sullied.
He seemed to be moving away from his former self.
[intense music playing]
The first thing I noticed was that he wasn't
primarily interested in getting other people to laugh
or to engage with other people.
He became somewhat withdrawn.
He admitted that he had been drinking and that he wasn't sleeping well.
I think he even had an issue with a mental health professional
that he was seeing.
[breathing heavily]
[Paul] He actually had a restraining order against him by his counselor.
There was a dark side to Bruce that many of us didn't see.
[ominous music builds, fades]
[sniffles]
[Bruce] I have this terrible dreaded feeling that...
I have been selected for the blood sacrifice.
The FBI can take the most innocent moment or incident
and turn it into something that looks as if it came from the devil himself.
I don't have a killer bone in my body, but it doesn't make a difference.
[emotional instrumental music playing]
I miss the days...
I miss the days that people would say that I was sane without a snicker.
I miss the days when I felt that we were doing
what was worthy and honest.
Our pasts shape our futures.
And mine was built
with lies and craziness and depression.
Go down low.
Low.
Low as you can go.
And then dig forever.
And there you'll find me.
My psyche.
Alone.
The farther I go, it's alone.
[gentle music playing]
[keys jangling]
[lock clicking]
[door hinge creaking]
[static hissing]
[line ringing]
[operator] Frederick County 911. What is the address of the emergency?
[woman] Military Road.
- [operator] And what's your name? - Diane Ivins.
[operator] Diane, what's the problem? Tell me exactly what happened.
[Diane] My husband, I found him laying on the bathroom floor upstairs.
He's unconscious.
He's got a...
He's breathing rapidly, he's clammy.
I found some...
a glass of wine earlier in the day.
I don't know if he was drinking and got up and fell or...
if he drank too much.
[operator] All right, I'm sending the ambulance to help you now.
Want me to stay on the line with you or are you okay?
[Diane] No, I'm okay.
[call ends]
[intense ambient music playing]
[reporter 1] Bruce Ivins, a brilliant microbi...
[reporter 2] Tuesday, Ivins died of an apparent overdose.
[reporter speaking French]
[reporter speaking German]
[reporter 3] The nation's most notorious unsolved terrorist crime.
The death of Bruce Ivins...
[reporter 4] ...was a delusional sociopath.
[reporter 5] A history of mental illness.
It was his own fault.
One of the largest and most complex investigations...
[reporter 6] ...had the opportunity, motive, and means
to be the 2001 Anthrax Killer.
[static hissing]
[reporters chattering]
[camera shutters clicking]
[sniffles]
Good afternoon.
[somber piano music playing]
[camera shutters clicking]
Because of the extraordinary and justified public interest in this investigation,
as well as the significant public attention resulting from the death
of Dr. Bruce Edward Ivins last week,
today we are compelled to take the extraordinary step
of providing some of our conclusions.
We are confident
that Dr. Ivins was the only person responsible for these attacks.
How is it possible that a guy in this state of mind
could have tricked the FBI
for so long?
Officials say authorities were investigating
whether Ivins released anthrax as a way of testing the vaccine
he developed here at Fort Detrick.
[interviewer] Are you a hundred percent certain Bruce did it?
Oh, absolutely.
Absolutely. Beyond a reasonable doubt.
Bruce was worried that his life's work
dedicated to anthrax research was gonna come to an end.
Right? And then the anthrax attacks happen
and all of a sudden the FDA quickly approves this batch of vaccines,
and then Bruce ended up getting the highest award a civilian can get
in the Army for his work on anthrax.
No.
He's responsible for five murders. You know?
[interviewer] How certain are you that Bruce was responsible?
Yeah, I'm... I'm not certain that he was the mailer.
It's not like a murder case, you know,
where you have a blood stain and you can come back and say,
"Absolutely, this belongs to that person. That puts them at the crime scene."
In the case of the anthrax with the DNA, uh,
we just put the... the suspect or the perpetrator in the vicinity
of the flask.
It's a circumstantial case.
There's no silver bullet here,
but... and if you want to look at any one little aspect
and pick it apart, that's fine.
But I tell people it's like looking at the Mona Lisa through a drinking straw.
Right? You got to step back and look at the whole thing.
[reporter 1] Former supervisor Jeffrey Adamovicz
says Ivins knew he was under suspicion.
If this case is closed and that evidence was not sufficient
to indicate that he was the person who did this,
that means that person is still out there.
[Jeffrey] I think the FBI was under tremendous political pressure
to solve this case.
But it was clear that these spores had been processed in such a way
that they had characteristics and features that weren't consistent
with the spores that we made.
And it didn't seem that Bruce had the technical knowledge
to do that, nor did anybody else at the institute.
And that's what still bothers me to this day about this entire case.
[Vince] Bruce would tell us
that he didn't have the skill set to grow the spores.
But I met with a leading scientist and said,
"How many people do you know that can make spores like this?"
And he goes, "That I know of?"
"Maybe six or eight."
Bruce was one of the first names.
[reporter 2] While the FBI believes it's solved the case,
an attorney for the Ivins family says nothing could be further from the truth.
The evidence does not directly tie Ivins to the anthrax letters,
but with the suspect now dead,
the government will never have to prove that link.
[Paul] I was very disappointed in the FBI
because there was still a lot to learn,
and instead they closed the case and they destroyed the evidence.
Almost all of those spores and samples have now been destroyed,
and so, uh, there's no chance to go back and reopen this and look at it.
[newscaster] Now to that anthrax investigation,
as you know, the prime suspect committed suicide...
[reporter 3] News crews now descending upon the widow's home...
You know, when I found out that he committed suicide,
I thought through it a lot.
I'd seen what the FBI had done with Steven Hatfill.
The pressure that they'd put on him
to try to break him...
[Diane] It wasn't unusual for him to sleep all day
because he's been depressed and concerned about this investigation.
He's been incredibly, incredibly stressed because of the way he's been hounded
by the FBI.
[man] I can imagine.
[Diane] And I felt that he couldn't take it anymore.
[Jeffrey] Bruce talked about them threatening his family,
trying to get his children to testify against him.
Maybe he sent the letters, and maybe he didn't.
But it was the pressure of the FBI is why Bruce committed suicide.
It's really hard for me to hear that,
when I feel like we're accused of driving him to suicide.
We did everything we could to both keep him safe, right?
To protect himself and protect the public,
but also pursuing him aggressively because we had to,
because we were convinced he was the one who committed the anthrax attacks.
[reporter 4] The investigation into the Anthrax Killer
is being called the FBI's most expensive undertaking ever.
The agency spent more than $10 million...
Over the past seven years, they've followed up 50,000 leads
on six continents,
conducted 9,000-plus interviews,
and issued 6,000 grand jury subpoenas.
They never let this go.
What could ever possibly motivate somebody to mail anthrax
and kill innocent victims?
And when you think about the letters themselves,
the letters didn't get to Tom Brokaw. They didn't get to Senator Daschle.
But who are the people who get sick?
Mr. Stevens in Florida.
The people who opened the letters in NBC.
Let's close off...
[Rachel] The people who were working in the Hart Senate Office Building.
People were coming in contact with it
just through the course of their, like, duty
as a civilian employee of the U.S. Postal Service.
[male official] We have provided you copies of the court documents
which give details...
When I heard about the press conference,
I said, "Okay, I need to be there."
I have a postal press badge
and they let me in.
[reporters chattering]
How big a factor was Dr. Hatfill? How did the FBI get so off track?
If you talk a little more about the meeting with the family...
[Dena] I have a question.
- Yes, in the back. - I'd like to ask the Postal Inspector...
Um, when are you... Are you planning to brief or speak with the postal workers
who were affected, or is that the end of it?
Um, we, today, this morning, sent out a letter from the Postmaster General
to all of our postal employees.
I was just appalled that they dismissed us like that,
and they just continue to dismiss us.
I would like to know, are you all planning to do anything to meet with us
so that we can, um, get a briefing and also ask our questions?
Of course, we'll answer the questions
as the questions come in to, uh, to the Postal Service.
But remember, we have 700,000 employees across the country.
[somber music playing]
Brentwood was renamed
the Joseph P. Curseen Junior and Thomas Morris Junior
Processing and Distribution Facility.
And I thought that was a beautiful tribute.
I can't hold bitterness.
I can't hold hatred.
Obviously...
He... He... This person had issues,
and something wasn't quite right there.
And because we're all intertwined,
innocent people get caught up in it.
I feel bad for him, that if he did this,
that his mind took him there.
[Casey] Clearly, suicide is horrible and terrible,
but the fact that I knew that this person who may have killed five people
wasn't alive anymore... is that a terrible thing to say? I...
I was just somewhat relieved that he wasn't around anymore.
Sorry, God.
[Terrence] The names on that building,
it's a testament for us as to what happened,
you know? And, um...
I'm sorry.
[sniffling] I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
[voice breaking] But...
Um... I'm sorry...
The... [sniffles]
I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
[crying]
I'm sorry. So...
I think different people
walk away from this with different things.
Um... [sniffles]
Um...
[sighs]
And I think we're still learning from the experience.
[somber music playing]
My throat was raw and I couldn't hardly swallow.
I could barely eat. I couldn't keep anything down.
I was having problems breathing. My throat was real sore.
I feel as though we were betrayed.
[camera shutters clicking]
[man 1] This is the video deposition of John Ashcroft.
[man 2] Is it appropriate for Department of Justice officials
to suggest that Dr. Hatfill fits a behavioral profile
of the Anthrax Killer?
I don't know.
[man 2] You don't know whether it was appropriate
to disclose that kind of information?
I don't know.
[man 2] Do you think it's fair to Dr. Hatfill?
I don't know.
What direct evidence do you have?
For instance, do you have any tape that was used on the envelope
that was recovered from his home?
Do you have any other, uh, evidence
that clearly would link him? For instance, the affidavit mentions
that people of this sort often keep souvenirs.
[reporter 1] It was known as the "Quantico Letter."
It was a letter sent in September of 2001
identifying an Arab-American scientist...
[reporter 2] Were you able to place him at the mailboxes in Princeton?
Like a gas receipt?
[official] We don't have that piece of direct evidence you mention.
[reporters clamor]
[reporter 3] Can you speak broadly about some of the skepticism that people have?
Is that normal?