Anthrax traced to N.J. mail route

Associated Press

EWING, N.J. – Investigators trying to track down who sent a pair of anthrax-laced letters questioned residents and workers along a suburban Trenton mail route Friday as authorities said a second postal worker has the skin form of the disease.

FBI evidence teams fanned out in neighborhoods in Ewing Township to trace the route of a letter carrier who was diagnosed with anthrax earlier this week.

“You may see us taking mailboxes away,” FBI spokeswoman Linda Vizi said. “We are now able to concentrate on this individual’s routes and her daily activities with the post office in order to try and find out the source of the anthrax.”

The carrier may have handled contaminated letters sent to NBC anchor Tom Brokaw on Sept. 18 and Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle’s office in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 9. Both letters were postmarked in Trenton.

In Washington, Homeland Security director Tom Ridge said the FBI has been able to identify the New Jersey mailbox where anthrax-tainted letters had been sent. He did not elaborate.

The mail route includes a Department of Transportation office, a country club and a school for the deaf in this working-class suburb of 36,000 people. Letter carrier Jim Bittenbender said his infected colleague served 250 to 300 addresses, didn’t have any collection boxes on her route and didn’t remember handling anything unusual.

“We pick up thousands of letters from this office. One letter carrier may pick up hundreds,” he said.

Irma Sauerman, who lives in an apartment building, said FBI agents went door-to-door Friday asking people if they had seen anything unusual. She said she had not, but she did know the infected carrier – if only by her first name, Terry.

The infected carrier worked out of the small West Trenton post office, one of 46 central New Jersey stations that feed mail to the regional distribution facility in Hamilton.

Authorities said a mail sorter at the Hamilton facility was the latest victim. He has cutaneous anthrax, a milder form of the disease than the inhaled form that killed a Florida man Oct. 5.

The 35-year-old Levittown, Pa., man was in stable condition at a hospital and is expected to recover, Pennsylvania Department of Health spokesman Richard McGarvey said.

The Hamilton and West Trenton facilities were closed Friday. State and federal health officials said all employees should see a physician and begin a seven-day course of antibiotics.

The state has been under scrutiny by investigators since hijackers crashed four airliners into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field on Sept. 11.

At least six hijackers are believed to have lived in a Paterson apartment, including Hani Hanjour, who apparently crashed the Pentagon jet. The suspected ringleader, Mohamed Atta, bought a plane ticket to Spain from a Paterson travel agency in July.

Copyright ©2001 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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