Suspected in anthrax attack commits suicide

Too many things in this article are very troubling. The first is that "that has been investigating the anthrax mailings for more than a year" but has not said why it was never an important enough investigation to have been non-stop since 2001.

It took them all this time to exonerate Steven Hatfill who had this hanging over his head for seven years. The good thing is that they had to pay for what they did to him all this time.

The government paid Hatfill $5.82 million to settle a lawsuit he filed against the Justice Department in which he claimed the department violated his privacy rights by speaking with reporters about the case.

The article went on to say that after the attacks, Ivins conducted unauthorized tests but did not say he had done so before the attacks.

This is very odd.

Anthrax Scientist Commits Suicide, Report Says
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: August 1, 2008
Filed at 3:57 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A top U.S. biodefense researcher apparently committed suicide just as the Justice Department was about to file criminal charges against him in the anthrax mailings that traumatized the nation in the weeks following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to a published report.

The scientist, Bruce E. Ivins, 62, who worked for the past 18 years at the government's biodefense labs at Fort Detrick, Md., had been told about the impending prosecution, the Los Angeles Times reported for Friday editions. The laboratory has been at the center of the FBI's investigation of the anthrax attacks, which killed five people.

Ivins died Tuesday at Frederick Memorial Hospital in Maryland. The Times, quoting an unidentified colleague, said the scientist had taken a massive dose of a prescription Tylenol mixed with codeine.
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