US: Anthrax scientist was 'diagnosed as homicidal killer'

An anthrax researcher who committed suicide earlier this week had threatened his therapist and recently outlined a plan to kill his colleagues, according to a tape of a court testimony.

Jean Duley testified at a hearing in Frederick, Maryland, on July 24 in a successful bid for a protective order from Bruce Ivins.

Dr Ivins, 62, who worked at a US army biodefence laboratory at Fort Detrick, Maryland, took his own life on Tuesday as authorities were closing in after investigating him for more than a year in connection with the deaths of five people poisoned by anthrax sent through the post.

The New York Times obtained a recording of the Ms Duley’s hearing and posted it on its website today.

“As far back as the year 2000, the respondent has actually attempted to murder several other people, either through poisoning. He is a revenge killer,” Ms Duley said.

“When he feels that he’s been slighted or has had – especially towards women - he plots and actually tries to carry out revenge killings,” she told the court.

She added that Dr Ivins “has been forensically diagnosed by several top psychiatrists as a sociopathic, homicidal killer. I have that in evidence. And through my working with him, I also believe that to be very true.”

Ms Duley told the judge she was “scared to death” of Dr Ivins.

Frederick County District Judge Milnor Roberts issued a temporary protective order on July 24 ordering Ivins to not to contact Duley and to stay away from her workplace.

Answers to one of the highest profile unsolved mysteries in the US are in documents that could be released this week – and help explain how the government chased the wrong suspect for years.

Prosecutors were mulling this weekend whether to close the anthrax poisoning investigation, possibly as early as tomorrow or Tuesday. If that happens, court documents detailing newly developed scientific evidence that recently led the government to Dr Ivins may be unsealed.

Five people died and 17 others were sickened when anthrax-laced letters began arriving at congressional offices, newsrooms and post offices soon after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

After wrongly investigating army scientist Steven Hatfill, the FBI more than a year ago began looking at Dr Ivins, a decorated scientist who was working on an anthrax cure, who worked at the same military lab.

The US Justice Department attributed the break in the case to “new and sophisticated scientific tools”. Investigators said the science focused, in part, on how the anthrax strains were handled and who had access to it at the time of the attacks.

Dr Ivins was removed from his lab in Maryland by police on July 10 and temporarily admitted to hospital, according to court records, because it was feared that he was a danger to himself and others.

A murder indictment and the possibility of the death penalty could have produced a high-profile climax to the anthrax case. Shadowed by the FBI, Dr Ivins died from a Tylenol overdose, leaving the probe in limbo and many questions unanswered.

Among the unanswered questions is why the anthrax was sent. The FBI was investigating whether Dr Ivins, renowned for his work developing anthrax vaccines and treatment, released the toxin to test those cures.

As Dr Ivins’ name emerged, so did a portrait of a conflicted, troubled man. His friends knew him as the man who played the keyboard at church, a Red Cross volunteer who was an avid juggler and gardener.

But others like social worker Ms Duley saw a darker side.

“Client has a history dating to his graduate days of homicidal threats, plans and actions towards therapists,” Ms Duley wrote in court documents last week when she sought a restraining order.

Dr Ivins’ lawyer, Paul Kemp, asserted the scientist’s innocence and said he would have proved it at trial.

Mr Kemp said his client’s death was the result of the government’s “relentless pressure of accusation and innuendo.”