TRACING THE ANTHRAX LETTERS
The FBI’s investigations into the anthrax attacks of 2001 revealed that there were at least two sets of anthrax-contaminated letters, postmarked on September 18 and October 9. Each of the four letters recovered was sent from Trenton, New Jersey and processed through the Hamilton Township postal facility. Two of the letters postmarked on September 18, addressed to Tom Brokaw of NBC and an editor at the New York Post, were then processed at a postal facility in New York, New York.
Employees at the ABC and CBS buildings in New York also contracted the disease in a similar time frame as the cases confirmed at the New York Post and NBC, but no source letters were found at these sites.
At the American Media Institute in Boca Raton, Florida, the Environmental Protection Agency found evidence of anthrax throughout the building after Robert Stevens, a photo editor at AMI, died of inhalation anthrax on October 5, 2001. Although the source of the anthrax was never found, traces of anthrax were discovered along the path of mail that is delivered to AMI, suggesting that a letter from the September 18 batch of mail may have been processed and sent to AMI as well as the New York offices.
The development of multiple anthrax cases from the confirmed and suspected September 18 letters in New York and at AMI suggest that the perpetrator was targeting the major media companies of the United States in his first attack.
The second wave of letters was postmarked on October 9, and also processed at the Hamilton mail facility in Trenton, New Jersey. The two letters, addressed to Sen. Daschle and Sen. Leahy, were then sent to the Brentwood mail facility in Washington, D.C. The letter to Sen. Daschle was opened by an aide in his office in the Hart Senate Office Building on October 15, 2001. The Leahy letter, however, was misdirected to a State Department facility, and later found unopened on November 16, 2001 within a section of quarantined mail.
Because of the additional anthrax cases that arose beyond the locations where the confirmed letters were found, investigators believe that there was a total of seven or eight letters sent, although only four were recovered.
Of the five deaths that occurred because of the attacks, the source of the infection for two of these cases was never discovered. In New York, Kathy Nguyen, a hospital worker, died of inhalation anthrax on October 31, 2001. Investigators traced her movements around the city, interviewed co-workers, and inspected her apartment, but no trace of the anthrax was ever found. A similar case appeared in Connecticut. Ottilie Lundgren died of inhalation anthrax on November 21, 2001. Although the source of both cases remains a mystery, theories about cross-contamination from the Trenton, NJ letters may explain how these two women were exposed to the disease.
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