The FBI has known for more than three months that the person responsible for sending the letters was a U.S. citizen and, according to the sources, probably a former scientist connected to the government's biodefense program. The government's chief suspect is believed to have worked at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Md., which has maintained stores of weapons-grade anthrax — commonly known as the Ames strain of Bacillus anthracis. The former scientist is now employed as a contractor in the Washington area. The unidentified scientist was twice fired from government jobs and, after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon that killed more than 3,000 people, reportedly made a threat to use anthrax.
Give him the blindfold, I suppose, but no cigarette. It'd be bad for his health. |