Anthrax suspect threatened reality TV contestant

Posted on Wednesday, September 24, 2008 6:07 PM ET
Filed Under:

By Pete Williams, NBC News Justice Correspondent

Newly released court documents say that Dr. Bruce Ivins, the Army researcher accused of sending the anthrax letters, wrote an e-mail to himself a year ago claiming he knew who mailed the letters.

"Yes! Yes! Yes!!!!" he wrote, sending the e-mail to himself and using the name KingBadger7 at AOL to send it.  "I've pieced it together.  Now we can finally get all of this over and done with....I should have it TOTALLY nailed down within the month.  I should have been a private eye!!!!"  The message does not say who he concluded was responsible.

Investigators also say that three weeks before Ivins took the overdose of painkillers that killed him, he posted several messages on the You Tube web site about Kathryn Price, a contestant on the ABC reality show "The Mole."  Moles should be killed, he wrote, adding that she could be attacked with a hatchet or blinded with a sharp pen.

A day later, he sent an e-mail to a Kathryn Price, in which he claimed to be a woman name Cindy Wood. "I've been a fan of yours ... and I wondered if you are going to have any public appearances where people could meet you," he wrote, according to investigators.

Separately, a military document released today revealed that in March, the Army revoked Ivins' access to the biodefense labs where he worked.  The report says Ivins spilled some dilute anthrax samples on his pants and went home to wash them instead of reporting the accident immediately as is required. 

Comments

Ridiculous headline that totally misunderstands nature of YouTube post.

Moreover, the "Yes! Yes!  email, as I recall, was in March, not a year ago.

John Doe Seattle, Wash. (Wednesday, September 24, 2008 7:27 PM)

Something is missing in this investigation. Did Bruce Ivins work with the DOD and Army's Project Badger team that developed the secretly made "Vaccine A" used on US troops during Operation Desert Storm, which used Squalene as an adjuvant to boost the immune system? I'm hearing that new research now shows the Squalene is the cause of the mysterious Gulf War Syndrome. I hope there is a good investigative reporter out there somewhere.

R. Marsh, Clarkton, NC (Wednesday, September 24, 2008 9:55 PM)

Nobody knows definitively what caused Gulf War Syndrome, but most of the neurological and immunological clinic signs are similar to low level exposure to organophosphorous nerve agents. Some signs are also comparable to PTSD alone, not to mention psychosomatic responses to buzz expressions like "Gulf War Syndrome". Scientifically, statistically, there is nothing to show that the anthrax vaccines caused widespread health issues, especially when people NOT receiving the vaccine had comparable problems. How do I know? It's my academic background and my job. Good try though. "New research" should be cited from peer-reviewed scientific journals and not wishful anecdotes.

Nunya, Baltimore, MD (Friday, September 26, 2008 9:41 AM)



Send a comment

PLEASE READ: All comments must be approved before appearing in the thread; time and space constraints prevent all comments from appearing. We will only approve comments that are directly related to the blog, use appropriate language and are not attacking the comments of others.

Message (please, no HTML tags. Web addresses will be hyperlinked):

Your name, city and state (John Doe, Seattle, Wash.): 

 Your e-mail address (jdoe@msnbc.com):

Your website (it's okay if you don't have one):

Remember me? (We'll keep it private)

About the blog

Deep Background is NBC News’ investigative blog. It covers national security, terrorism, spies, Iraq, and politics, as well as government waste, fraud and abuse. It is edited by NBC News Senior Investigative Producer Jim Popkin.

Recent Posts

Archives


Browse by topic:

Browse by date:

Add this blog to your news reader

msnbc.com weblogs