By David Espo
Associated Press
WASHINGTON – The terrorist who mailed anthrax-tainted letters is probably a man, something of a loner with scientific ability who “lacks the personal skills necessary to confront others” face to face, the FBI said today in a fresh plea for the public’s help in solving the baffling case.
The culprit “did not select his victims randomly,” the FBI said in a three-page, carefully hedged assessment issued more than one month after the disease first surfaced. He “may hold grudges for a long time, vowing that he will get even with ‘them,’ one day.”
The FBI issued the profile hours after Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge expressed hope that the anthrax attack was on the wane. He conceded investigators were “still no closer to identifying specifically the origin of the anthrax or the perpetrators.”
The bioterrorism attack, launched by mail, has killed four people and sickened 13 more by the count of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. New York City health authorities have reported an additional three cases that do not meet stricter CDC criteria.
Thus far, three tainted letters have been found, addressed to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, NBC anchorman Tom Brokaw and the New York Post. The FBI said that a fourth letter may have been addressed to a Florida tabloid publishing company where two men became ill from anthrax and one died. Additionally officials have said there may be other deadly letters that went undetected, or are buried in mountains of mail quarantined since the outbreak of the disease.
Ridge, asked whether the initial threat had been shut down, expressed hope that was the case. “We’re prayerful, we’re hopeful. We hope this is the last we ever” have to deal with the issue, he said. He quickly added, though, “I can’t give you that 100 percent guarantee.”
No new cases of the disease have been reported for over a week, raising hopes that its spread has been halted by decisions to shut down tainted mail facilities and issue antibiotics to more than 32,000 people.
Two Washington-area patients suffering from inhalation anthrax were cleared for release from hospitals during the day. One worked at the central mail facility for the nation’s capital, where the letter to Daschle was processed.
The second man worked at a State Department mail handling facility in suburban Virginia that receives mail from the same central Brentwood complex. A third area man, a worker at Brentwood, remained hospitalized.
Investigators at the CDC said more advanced medicine was the reason that six out of 10 inhalation anthrax victims have survived. The disease was last seen in 1976, and until last month, experts believed that 85 percent of victims would die.
Treatments including drugs to control blood pressure, ventilators to help with breathing and removal of bloody fluid from the lungs are now standard, in addition to a combination of antibiotics, said Dr. Bradley Perkins, a CDC anthrax expert. He added that the six people who have survived were diagnosed and began treatment earlier than the four who perished.
The FBI said it was releasing a “linguistic and behavioral assessment” of the person behind the anthrax attack because the public had helped in solving previous cases that involved writings.
Based on the selection of anthrax as the weapon, the agency said the culprit is “likely an adult male,” and if employed, “is likely to be in a position requiring little contact with the public or other employees.” He may work in a laboratory, “is apparently comfortable working with an extremely hazardous material,” and has access to anthrax and equipment needed to refine it.
The FBI also said the anthrax mailer is familiar with the area around Trenton, N.J., where all three letters were mailed.
It offered no explanation for its conclusions about the personality or character traits of the culprit.
The offender is “a non-confrontational person, at least in his public life. He lacks the personal skills necessary to confront others. He chooses to confront his problems long distance and not face-to face,” it added. The FBI said the man may have “chosen to anonymously harass other individuals or entities that he perceived as having wronged him,” possibly using the mail to do so.
In addition, he “prefers being by himself more often than not. If he is involved in a personal relationship it will likely be of a self-serving nature.”
While the FBI sketched the personality of the man believed responsible for the bioterror attack, it described in detail the envelope, handwriting style and other characteristics found on the attack letters.
“We hope someone has received correspondence from this person and will recognize some of these characteristics,” the agency said, including the distinctive use of dashes in the writing of a date, the use of upper case block-style letters and the downward slant from left to right of the names and addresses on the envelopes. The FBI has previously released copies of the letters and envelopes.
Dr. C.J. Peters, the former head of special pathogens at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said he was surprised that a terrorist could make anthrax powder as sophisticated as that found in the letter to Daschle.
“I could grow lots of anthrax. I couldn’t make that powder,” said Peters, a microbiologist who has studied bioweapons for years.
With a relatively small amount of anthrax found thus far, he asked, “Why did he or she only make a couple of grams and quit?”
Copyright ©2001 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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