A Pilgrim’s Digression

The word is that the FBI is going to report the 2001 Anthrax case “solved.” The more I read about the supposed murdered, Bruce Ivins, the less certain I am that he is the culprit, however.

Today’s Washington Post story, “Tales of Addicton, Anxiety, Ranting” only confirms in my mind that like Stephen Hatfill before him, Ivins is a scapegoat for investigative incompetence. At first glance, an alcoholic who, so his therapist says, made threats against his colleagues, would seem a likely suspect. However, his descent into addiction and mental illness seem only to have occurred after the FBI made it clear he was their prime suspect.

Some of the ways in which the FBI harassed him included telling his children and wife their father was a murderer–once going so far as to stop Ivins and his wife in a public mall and telling his wife that her husband was a murderer.

They also tried to entice Ivin’s son to implicate his father by offering him the reward money plus a sport’s car of his choice.

I think addiction, anxiety, and suicide look less and less like guilty behavior, and more like a natural response to this kind of stress.

Anyway, the FBI is going to lay out their case against him soon. FBI to Show How Genetics led to Anthrax Researcher. At this point, I am a skeptic. I don’t think there can be a case made proving him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, or even on a preponderance of circumstantial evidence. I am more inclined to believe that an over-zealous government hounded an innocent man to commit suicide.