Last Friday, the Amerithrax Task Force issued its final report on the 2001 anthrax scare last Friday, closing an investigation that lasted more than eight years. The task force, which included FBI special agents, U.S. postal inspectors and other law enforcement officials, alleged that Bruce Ivins committed the bioterrorist attacks.
Laced with lethal spores, the letters infected 22 people, killing five and exacerbating the nation’s post-9/11 panic. The tainted envelopes were addressed to Tom Brokaw, The New York Post, then-Senate majority leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.).
The task force confirmed early in its investigation that the letters originated from a mailbox at 10 Nassau St., across the street from the Rockefeller College dining hall. Last week, this detail was incorporated into the official report of the anthrax scare.
In 2001, the revelation of the letters’ origin raised a stir on campus, which was already shaken by the World Trade Center attack only an hour’s drive away. The Daily Princetonian published more than a dozen articles on the incident during the 2001-02 academic year.
But nearly a decade later, the memory of the incident has not remained with most students.
Agreeing with the prevailing sentiment among her classmates, Veena Putcha ’11, had not heard that the letters were sent from Princeton, she said, and found the news “shocking and truly frightening.”
“Wow, I had no idea,” Ellen Chu ’12 similarly noted in an e-mail.
The immediate question surrounding the 2001 finding was why the letters were sent from Princeton.
The Amerithrax report suggests that Ivins, who committed suicide in 2008, may have driven more than three hours from his home in Frederick, Md. to mail the letters because of several connections to the University. His father graduated from the University, and he was alledgedly obsessed with the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority, which has a chapter on campus. The Amerithrax report noted that Ivins established a pattern of visiting Kappa chapter houses at different universities.
Current Kappa members declined to comment.
The task force alleged that Ivins acted lone in committing the attacks. It concluded that the microbiologist used anthrax in his laboratory and had the opportunity, motive and mental-health issues to commit the crime. The report also stated that Ivins, an expert in Army biodefense, displayed knowledge of and an interest in the cryptic codes contained in the letters.
Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.) is among those skeptical of the task force’s conclusions.
The congressman, a former assistant director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, said that the report’s level of certainty about the purported culprit was unjustified.
“Arbitrarily closing the case on a Friday afternoon should not mean the end of this investigation,” Holt said in a statement.
He added that the investigation resulted in “barely a circumstantial case,” one that he said “would not, I think, stand up in court.”
Unlike some of her classmates, Sarah Williams ’11 was nonchalant when told about the connection.
“That doesn’t surprise me,” Williams said. “Princeton tends to attract crazy people.”
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