41: The Anthrax Attacks | Red Thread
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Hello and welcome to Red Thread, the show where we talk about wacky stuff that, you know, lead to questions and, you know, mysterious things happening in the world that you may or may not know about. This week...

We're talking about the anthrax letter attacks from 2001. But before we do that, curious minds may notice we are missing someone. Isaiah, what happened to our friend Caleb? Where's he gone? He died. He died. He was driving an RV and then he was hit by an anthrax. Yeah, we sent him to test out anthrax. We wanted a person on the ground to tell us how anthrax smells. Turns out Caleb was not resistant at all, so he's super dead now.

No, Caleb, well, you were half right. Caleb did have issues on the road. He's fine, though, but he's just not here for this recording. So the guest has left us for this episode, but he will return. Back to the two of us, like it's always been. Yep, like it's always been. We always end up back here somehow. But yeah, we're covering the anthrax letter attacks. This was a massive event back in 2001. Some say the only thing that happened in America in 2001. Yeah.

No other significant attacks took place in 2001. I thought it was... So, my understanding of the anthrax attacks was that it was before 9-11. Like, in the 90s, I thought it was. I did not know it was literally the same month as 9-11. I didn't know that either, really. Yeah, it was the same month. It's amazing anyone remembers it. Yeah, how was it not completely overshadowed? I guess anthrax is just that scary, though. It really is. Yeah. Yeah.

I also, this episode is kind of a penance for me. So in the last episode, uh, I mentioned anthrax as being a chemical, uh, and that was because I was confusing anthrax for arsenic. My wife is a research vet. I know anthrax is, is a bacteria. I apologize. I was thinking arsenic and I was just crying. I got the word wrong. I'm so sorry. Okay.

No, be humble. Accept that you don't know what anthrax is. You thought it was a chemical compound or something. No, no. Not a bacteria. Prove it. Prove it in court, idiot. I thought it was just a spooky. Yeah, I thought it was a spooky chemical. I didn't know it was a living thing. That kind of makes it scarier to me. I can deal with like chemical compounds and stuff like man-made things. The fact that there's like an actual organism out there that just does this is terrifying to me. Mm-hmm.

I think it's kind of like opening up a letter and then the plague gets thrown at you. Yeah. All right. So I'll start this off. On the 27th of July, 2008, at around 1 a.m., Diane Ivins, or Ivins, awoke abruptly from her sleep. Reaching out to where her husband, Bruce, usually laid, she found the other side of the bed empty. With an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach, she got up and began to search the house, each empty room, adding to the overwhelming sense of dread.

Finally, she slowly opened the door to the upper bathroom and it was here that she found Bruce Edward Ivin unresponsive on the floor.

The events preceding this late-night discovery were filled with mysteries and toxic poisons, or I guess toxic organisms, all existing within the backdrop of the recent 9-11 terrorist attacks. Today, we know of these events as Amerithrax, or the 2001 Anthrax attacks. I have never once heard the word Amerithrax, but I wish I did. That's a pretty cool description, or a pretty cool name for it.

Amerithrax. That's great. That sounds like a supervillain. The new Marvel supervillain. It's the next arc. I don't watch any Marvel stuff now, but that's like an evil Captain America. Isn't there already an evil Captain America?

You're asking the wrong dude. I tapped out of Marvel movies back at the end of Endgame. That's also when I quit. I watched Endgame and I'm like, alright, I'm done. Yeah, I'm done. That's it. It's played by... Is it US Agent? What? Is his name US Agent? There's no way that's his name.

I only know about this character because I play the mobile game Marvel Snap with my girlfriend and that's the only character I could think of that is kind of like... Well, the new Captain America turned evil. Yeah, he's played by Russell. Not Russell. What? Who's the guy? Kurt Russell. Yeah, he's played by Wyatt Russell. Yeah. Oh my gosh, he's called US Agent. I was right!

That is the dumbest name I've ever heard for an evil Captain America. Okay, I don't watch anything Marvel related. I'm done with it. But I'm now going to refer to that person as Amerithrax. It's way better. He runs around with an envelope full of anthrax and just blows it in his face. That's way more terrifying. That's way more scary. Yeah, what would the actual...

villain do like fucking throw a vibranium shield around that's lame coat that shield in anthrax and then let's see what happens and anyone it hits dies in seven immediately it's insane that's so funny that i got that right though i am actually a marvel expert which may be the saddest thing ever and the fact that i learned that from a mobile game jesus christ kill me now that's awful

I gotta stop playing Marvel Snap apparently alright so what is anthrax Isaiah I was gonna call you Caleb I miss him so much he's still here in spirit buddy I have the mustache now caused by the bacteria bacillus anthraxis or anthraxis and not by a chemical ha ha ha ha thank you so even my girlfriend knows about it she got me she hit me with that one that's fair

Anthrax is a disease that can be found naturally in soil and most commonly affects wild animals and livestock negatively. The bacteria emanate spores which can survive for years that, when introduced into a human body, germinate and produce lethal toxins which leads to disease damage, inflammation, and more severely, organ failure and death. Yeah, that is pretty severe.

I think that's probably the most severe you can get definitely two severe things I would say you remember the old game uh fuck pandemic no what was it called the one where it's a mobile game where you like uh yeah hold on my wife plays it all the time it's so good um

Plague ink. Plague ink, yeah. My strategy was always just pump points into organ failure and death, and it was always pretty effective, believe it or not. Well, what you do is you just make sure it has zero symptoms until everyone on Earth is infected, and then you just max out organ failure. Yeah, exactly. And everyone just dies in like four days. Yeah, the only way that you can really lose a plague ink is if...

Iceland remains uninfected. Yeah. Well, it also depends like when you start to play with like the difficulties and different kind of diseases, you can't like there's some things in the game that you cannot have 100% unnoticed. So people will start to notice and work on a cure for it eventually. So you have to like game the symptoms and stuff. Um,

Uh, but yeah, if you're just doing like virus, get everyone infected. And then when 90% of the world is dead, there'll be like new disease discovered. We just didn't realize seven billion people just died. I'm also, uh, internally laughing at the people that don't know what plaguing is at the moment. And we're just talking about killing 90% of the planet. I think we're insane. Uh, it's a fun game. Check it out. Not sponsored. Uh,

Anthrax poisoning can be treated with antibiotics if detected early, but ultimately, without rapid treatment, it's fatal with a mortality rate ranging from 45% to 85% if introduced to the body via inhalation.

It can, however, also be introduced to the body via gastrointestinal methods, consumption of contaminated goods, which has a mortality rate of 40 to 60%, and also through cutaneous methods, introduction to the bloodstream via cuts, which has a mortality rate of around 20%. Well, I know how I want to get anthrax then, 20%. Those odds are pretty good. I'll take the cut, yeah. Yeah, it's still bad, but hey, I'll take it. One in five, not bad.

Due to the fast-paced progression of the disease, you typically need to start treatment within 24 to 48 hours of experiencing the first symptoms, which generally resemble... He's inhaling. He's inhaling the anthrax. The first symptoms, which generally resemble flu-like signs, for the treatment to be successful.

The reason as to why you may have heard of anthrax is because it's incredibly silent, extremely lethal even with treatment, and its ability to transmit via aerosolized methods means that it can be a highly effective bioweapon.

theoretically has it been used as a bioweapon i mean i guess in this situation it has but like i don't know has it let's keep reading i mean on the scale on a like larger scale like surely uh governments would be using this against other countries and stuff during wartime well i mean you could say that for like any super disease right like why don't they

release it and kill a ton of people because a disease you can't like with the bomb you can control how long it lasts in the region you know what the immediate effects are but with this you're pretty much you are potentially doing an entire region of the planet it's more genocidal which doesn't really help yeah especially if like it continues something like this would continue to spread like everywhere like then you're that you're not picking targets it's like just burning down the forest

I always thought anthrax was like, again, like lab made almost like it had to be fostered in a lab environment. But from the sounds of this, it's found naturally in soil. Yeah, it's a bacteria. It does affect wild animals and livestock. How do more people not die then if this is just something out there?

It's just not like in its natural environment. It just doesn't come into contact with humans a lot. A human can certainly come into contact with it, but it's not like proliferated people. You know, actually, I'm going to shut up and stop talking because last time I said that anthrax was a chemical and I'm going to not sound stupid. You said your wife's an expert on anthrax. Can we get her in here? She is. To discuss anthrax. Actually, hold on. Stand by. We don't have to.

I'm phoning a friend. Like this is who wants to be a millionaire. Come here. You're on the red thread. I'm on the red thread. You're on the red thread. Hey, Kayla. Jackson says hi. Hi, Jackson. Hi. I'm like red. We're talking about anthrax. Okay. And I didn't know about it, so I'm like, I know someone who does. Why is anthrax something that affects things like...

animals and stuff. And whenever like anthrax attacks happens, it's super lethal, but why can't it just like exist in the wild and animals and stuff get it, but it's not like a huge pandemic all the time. So it can be in the soil. If I remember correctly, I'd have to, um, update my anthrax knowledge, but if I remember correctly, it's in the soil and that's how animals get it. It can live in the soil for a really, really long time. Um, it causes a, okay, no, I don't know. Um, I was gonna say something else, but I can't confirm that. Um,

So yeah, it's like constantly in your soil, I think, or can be constantly in your soil. There's a cure for it, I'm pretty sure. They can cure it in humans. They can cure anthrax in humans? I'm pretty sure. Yeah, they can. There's treatment for it. He said there is treatment? Okay, yeah, there's treatment. Okay.

So is that why it's not a concern? I mean, it is a concern because if you put it in the air, because it's like airborne, so you put it in the air, a bunch of people could get it. And I mean, it can get you pretty fast, so you can start killing people pretty quickly, but there is a cure for it. So why is it because when it's in the soil, it's not aerosolized? He said, is it because when it's in the soil, it's not aerosolized? Yeah, so like whenever they're rooting and digging, that's how it gets. It gets in our lungs and they get it. Right, okay. I think...

So it's because we don't do a lot of digging. Like we don't go out and like dig through the ground a lot. If we did, then we'd get anthrax. He said it's so it's because we don't do a lot of digging, but if we did, we'd run into it. I mean, I don't think it's like prevalent everywhere in the United States, in the world, not in the United States, but like in the world, but I think it's a possibility that it can, because it can live in this world for so long. Okay. That's typically where it comes from. That's why, like, it's not like, that's why, you know, we don't have anthrax, but if we see the symptoms of it, we're supposed to call somebody. Okay. I have one final question. Uh,

How did she feel when you got the anthrax distinction wrong and you thought it was a chemical? Nothing. Sorry for not being helpful. In the last episode, I said anthrax. I got confused with arsenic. It said anthrax was a chemical and everyone beat me to death. It's a bacteria. Yes, I know. I know. I'm a well-known. If I remember correctly, botulism causes a flaccid paralysis and anthrax causes a rigid paralysis. But I may be confusing that with something else. That's just like boards.

Do you know anything about Plum Island? Do you have anything to say about that? Yeah, I know a lot of people that work there. Oh! We should have had our last one. I saw you guys in an episode on that and I was like, oh, I actually know a lot about Plum Island. Is it as sinister as it sounds or is it evil? Is it more generic? No, it's like a big research facility. They're doing a lot of really cool research and stuff there. I think they have like...

Pretty much all the animals you can do research on. She's a fed. Get her out of here. Yeah, your wife has been paid off. My wife has been paid off by the plum island, by Big Plum. Thank you, honey. All right, we'll be right back after these words from our sponsors.

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And we're back. Thank you to our sponsors for supporting the show. Big thank you to the sponsors. Love them lots. Now, I'll take this next part. It was merely weeks after 9-11 and the people of America and the world were still in shock, obviously, because of 9-11. Hey, don't you say we in shock? We the biggest country ever. We ain't never been in shock. We just rearing up for a punch. My God. Ready to throw them all the way back to where they were.

It doesn't. It doesn't hit the same. It doesn't hit the same when Caleb's not here. I know, he's not here. Oh, she's back. Anthrax does not cause paralysis. I was going to get confused with Ted. Oh no, she did it too! She did it too. It mainly affects livestock and wild game. Humans can become infected through direct or indirect contact with sick animals. I don't know if I can trust either of you about anthrax. He says he doesn't know if he can trust you. She's paid off by Big Plum. I'm on the Mayo Clinic.

I could have done that. Yeah, you breathe it in. I could have Googled it. Hey, I haven't thought about anthrax since I took my board. Get out. You should think more about it. It's a real risk. Thank you very much, Kayla, for joining us for this. Appreciate it. I'm not telling her you said that.

Well, it was nice. I'm just going to think I'm a dick. No, I don't. Not only was there physical devastation gripping New York, but the emotional toll on the public was massive. A survey conducted days after 9-11 showed that 71% of Americans felt depressed, 49% had difficulty concentrating, and 33% had trouble sleeping. And

And while the news coverage was devastating, they could not stop watching. They were glued to their screens. Even a year later, many felt more afraid, careful, distrustful, and vulnerable as a direct result of 9-11. It was an extremely turbulent time. And I guess we're talking about this now just to kind of set the stage of what life was like at that time. Because remember, the anthrax scare happened literally like the same week as 9-11, which is like crazy. That's such a wild...

wild thing to happen in addition to 9-11 wait when did it start i think it's like a few weeks later if i recall oh okay so not the same way it was close enough i mean he was preparing it at the same time it was within 30 days yeah yeah sure all right tell me about also known as a week no other term for what 30 days is go for it

You know I love you. Yet a few weeks later, a small story was beginning to make headlines in the shadow of 9-11. On October 4th of... That's what we should call this podcast. In the shadow of 9-11? That goes hard. On October 4th, 2001, it was announced by health officials in Florida that a man had been diagnosed with pulmonary anthrax. This was the first time in around 25 years that such a diagnosis had been made.

The man, Robert Bob Stevens, was a tabloid photo editor for Sun Under America Media Incorporated. Even though it was a strange and novel situation, there was no immediate cause for concern by investigators or the public as the prevailing rationale was that the event was likely caused from a natural source and it wasn't likely to be something akin to an attack. The Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tommy Thompson, said publicly...

Quote, there is no evidence of terrorism, and we do know that he drank water out of a stream when he was traveling through North Carolina last week, end quote. However, contrary to the immediate public information, it quickly became clear that this was not an isolated situation. Over the following seven weeks, politicians and figures in the media spent every day in fear that they would be the next victim of the invisible killer.

So he gets anthrax and they're like, as my beautiful wife explained, it can come from the ground. They're like, oh, well, he probably got it when he was drinking from a river in North Carolina. Yeah, which makes sense. Like that would be the obvious assumption rather than, you know, there's a male attack. Yeah.

Especially if he himself offers up the information that, yeah, I went out last week to the wilderness and was drinking from rivers and stuff. Yeah, you would think that's safe data. Yeah, exactly. Originally hailing from England, Bob lived in Lantana, Florida with his wife, Maureen. They shared three children and, when not working, he loved to spend his free time outdoors. On the 2nd of October, he was admitted to a hospital in Atlanta, Florida.

He had recently traveled to North Carolina, and upon his return, he had reported flu-like symptoms. At first, he was diagnosed with meningitis and pneumonia, but treatment wasn't working the way the doctors and specialists were anticipating. A rod-shaped bacteria was discovered by an infectious disease specialist, Dr. Larry Bush, which immediately caused alarm bells to ring internally, as it is a characteristic of anthrax.

Bob died on the 5th of October, a day after it had been announced to the public that he had somehow inhaled anthrax and three days after being hospitalized. Experts began the arduous investigation into figuring out how this had all happened, beginning by taking samples at his home and working backwards by tracking his previous movements. The thinking was that this may have been some freak accident.

While we now know that these were targeted attacks, the presumed source that infected Bob had never been found. That's, man, I get why it's so scary. He literally died within like three days. That is such a quick. Yeah. And the theory was, oh, well, he must have drank water. Yeah. Which like, whoa. Okay. Crazy.

So there's a quote here from a statement from Frank Panella from the Department of Health, Florida. The quote is as reads, they're sampling the soil, talking to people he interacted with, looking at where he went. They're also looking into various hospitals to see if there are any other people with the same kind of symptoms. We're going through everything to make sure we're catching every angle. Right now, we're still considering it an isolated case. It's not contagious and we're thankful. I wonder how quickly he was still thankful for

This changed very quickly. There were no real leads until two days after Bob passed away when his work offices were shut down due to the investigation. After a thorough combing through of his belongings, his keyboard was tested and discovered to contain anthrax spores. When his co-workers were also tested, it was also found that the male supervisor, Ernesto Blanco, had anthrax spores located in his nose. What? They were just living up in there? That's rough. How did it not go deeper?

Nose hairs, baby. Oh, yeah, that's the natural defense. That's why you don't trim or pluck your nose hairs. Gotta stay safe. Keeps the anthrax out. Upon this news, the American Centers for Disease Control and Prevention responded by sending enough relevant antibiotics, enough to cover 1,000 patients, to Palm Beach, Florida, but they still had no idea what they were dealing with.

on the 10th of october do you think if we lived in a world where there was like a covert-like situation uh where you know there was a real concern that anthrax was going to infect everyone the government would mandate nose plugs if that's the only way that it really like hits you hard is through the nose because you could you could probably be fine with your breathing through your mouth still unlike with covert you just need to plug up your nose right

I guarantee you that breathing it through your mouth is equally as dangerous. Maybe. Yeah, I didn't think that through, but it always hits the spot, doesn't it? What does breathing through your nose do that breathing through your mouth wouldn't? I don't know. I don't know. Just that mention of Ernesto Blanco's nose confused me, I guess. If anything, that means the nose is safer because it can catch it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. True. Where do you think air through your nose goes?

To a different set of lungs, I guess. To a different set of lungs. To your anthrax lungs, not your non-anthrax lungs. It was, all right, it was a joke that went off the rails. That didn't pan out the way I envisioned. I'm going to keep reading. On the 10th of October, another colleague of Bob's tested positive enough, though she wasn't showing symptoms. A frustration begins to show and workers are concerned with the amount of time, five days, took the health authorities to realize that anthrax was in the building.

Antibiotic Cyprofloxacin was quickly put into 24/7 production to ensure that there was no shortage due to the growing chance that there would be a mass outbreak event in the uncertain future.

Casey Chamberlain was about four months into her apprenticeship at NBC Nightly News in New York City. It was hosted by a man named Tom Brokaw, who was a well-known and well-respected TV journalist at the time. Casey would help with general things around the office, like answering the phone, logging tapes, and rather importantly,

Opening the mail. At this time, the work environment was draining as they had been covering the news of 9-11 endlessly, given that it was obviously a New York production. But I assume every single news station in America was just as, you know, overworked at this point in time. Everyone felt emotionally and physically exhausted. It was a week after 9-11 when Casey began to clear through mail that had long since been piling up. She would open up and wade through the incoming letters, some full of admiration. You all right?

Yeah, so I was sneezing. Some of hate, some filled with shit, literally. We all receive those types of letters. But one in particular made her pause. The handwriting was almost childlike, blocky, and written entirely in capital letters. And it read, and this is the text of the letter, 9-11-01. So it was dated on 9-11 too. See, this is what I mean. It was the same week as 9-11. Yep.

This is next. Take penicillin now. Death to America. Death to Israel. Allah is great.

so yeah i mean did someone clip jackson just saying all of that out of context please don't i want to visit america in the future so i think we should just play that on loop someone should make a short of that and upload it and that's it that's no context just uh just him saying oh good please no don't get me banned it's all i have but yeah so obviously themed around the concept of 9-11 as well

So I wonder if this was sent after 9-11, though, and the guy making the letters was just, you know, inspired by the messaging of 9-11, I guess. Yeah, well, I think that's what it means by this is next. True, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's obviously, yeah, okay. Good point. Competing this strange message was what looked like a mix of brown sugar and sand. Casey, after showing people in the office...

Wait, she walked around showing people the brown sugar and sand? She's like, does this smell funny to you? Can you please snort this for me? Yeah, I guess it was a different time. I feel like if I received a letter full of a weird substance, I would immediately start freaking out. You would never consider something like this. Yeah, back then. But now, with the idea of the anthrax mail letters and stuff like that, you have the comparison. Yeah.

So after showing people in the office, she decided to put it in a pile to be looked over by her colleague, Erin O'Connor, Tom Brokaw's assistant, who would often reply to the letters on his behalf. After work, Casey went straight to her boyfriend's apartment to decompress. The mysterious and foreboding letter quickly gone from her thoughts as just a simple work oddity. However, it may have left her mind, but it did not leave her body. Days later, Casey woke up extremely ill.

Thinking it may have been an allergic reaction to starting a new medication, she immediately got some antibiotics and returned to work merely three days later. So I think they factor in the fact that she got the antibiotics immediately as to the reason why she survived. It's so scary to imagine the fact that if she... Because I do this often. When I have flu-like symptoms, I don't bother taking any medicine. I just kind of work through it. Yeah, because you can't swallow the pills as established. Okay. I don't take the liquid syrup.

Okay. That exists too. I just wanted everyone to know that to be clear about that. Yeah, but you probably do this too, right? If you have a simple flu, you don't... Oh, sure. I just let it happen. I just ride it out. And if I need to record or present myself, I will take Dayquil or something. But otherwise, I just suffer through it. Yeah. I would be a million percent dead. I am not getting antibiotics in this scenario. I'm super dead.

With anthrax, you need to take the antibiotics and the treatment as soon as symptoms show up, basically, to stand any chance of surviving, even in situations where it's not like the aerosolized intake version of the disease. So...

Like even if you get it through a cut or something, it's very important that you get treatment immediately. And the fact that the symptoms are just like the flu means that, you know, a lot of people won't get treatment, which is what makes it scary. My question is, why does the letter say take penicillin now? It's like, don't you want them to not take penicillin?

There is an interesting theory that I think I recall about why this happened. So I guess we'll get to that towards the end of the episode. If it's not in the document, I'll bring it up at the end. But yeah, I think there is a reason why maybe he didn't want people actually to die. Perhaps. Not sure. Okay.

Erin had also taken time off work as she also developed the same symptoms. And just as a reminder, Erin was the co-worker who she left the letters to. So she developed the same symptoms as well. Both experiencing high fevers, swollen glands, and a strange sensation of something running through their veins.

The media had begun to report on the case of Bob in Florida, who had, if you don't recall, just passed away. But no one thought it connected to what was happening at the NBC offices, as these appeared to be to those involved in office illness. On her day off, Casey got a call ordering her to come to the office. The urgency in the call scared her, and she immediately knew something was wrong. When she arrived, she was ushered into a black car to be taken to the FBI for interrogation.

That's an extreme jump up. Did they think that she did it because she passed off the letter to her friend? Well, they have to interrogate everyone and work their way backwards, right? They know this person got sick and this other person's okay. So that's suspicious, right? Yeah, but no, she was also sick. She would have called off for time of work. Yeah, but she is better and Aaron is not currently. True. Yeah.

It was here that Casey learned that Erin O'Connor had tested positive for anthrax exposure. The questioning went on for hours, with Casey not able to contact her family to tell them where she was. Her parents were terrified, hearing of anthrax reports at the NBC office, and unable to get a hold of their daughter, they obviously feared the worst. And the FBI wasn't offering up any answers either. Well, you also have to remember, this was immediately after 9-11. It cannot be fully stated.

how terrified everyone and paranoid they were about like terrorist attacks at the time, especially in New York City. I have a friend who is an Egyptian guy and he was a photographer in the city. And this was like, I think this was like 2002 or three.

So a few years after. So it was a little bit after 9-11. And he was just in New York taking pictures of like... He was taking cool shots of the subway system and of trains going by. And he got a visit from Homeland Security.

Yeah, just for taking photos. They like came to his house. They're like, hey, but because he's like dark skin, they're like, hey, buddy, don't do that. Like, yeah, everyone was super paranoid about it all the time. Yeah, that makes sense. So I think even if that's not that part.

Jackson's like, yeah, that's right. You better. Make sure you profile. We need more profiling. Egyptians or Arabians or any kind of aliens taking pictures. That's Jackson. Yeah, sure. When her dad finally got into contact with Casey, he rushed down to New York to be with her.

Good dad. I don't think my dad would do that. And they were tucked away into a hotel for a week while people in hazmat suits took vials on top of vials of her blood and gave her antibiotics to take for 100 days. Her and her boyfriend's belongings in his apartment were destroyed and both of their apartments thoroughly cleaned.

Casey was left scared and paranoid, though ultimately safe. Both women recovered, thankfully, due to the quick medical intervention that immediately prescribed cyprofloxacin. Due to the method of infection, fortunately stemming from cutaneous means, both women were at a lower mortality risk, though this still had a substantial mortality risk if they didn't start treatment as quickly as they did. Cannot be understated how dangerous anthrax is, believe it or not.

All right. Tell me about the letter to the senator. So this is a letter that went through Senator Doschle. I believe that's how it's pronounced. The letter read 9-11-01. You can't you cannot stop us. We have this anthrax. You die now. Are you afraid? Death to America. Death to Israel. Allah is great.

I mean, I get that it's trying to, like, the person writing it is probably trying to sound like a, you know, someone who doesn't speak English natively, let's say, with the, you die now. But all it makes me think of is, like, if a caveman got anthrax. It sounds like a joke, yeah. You die now. You die now. We have anthrax, you die now. Yeah. Yeah. Well, investigators were dealing with several confirmed cases of anthrax in New York City, along with the death of Robert. Two letters marked from Trenton, New Jersey, were making their way to Senators Tom Doschle and Patrick Lee.

Leahy. How's that? Lee? Leahy? I'd probably pronounce it Leahy. Leahy, sure. Both were members of the Democratic Party, with Tom being the majority leader and Patrick being the head of the Senate Judiciary Committee at the time. The letter directed to Tom made its way to the hands of an intern, Grant Leslie, who opened the letter. He was immediately confused when a white powder fell over his lap and shoes.

The letter had already made its impact, but the writing, written in the same blocky childlike letters seen in the New York letter, was equally alarming. This happened on the 15th in the midst of all of the other chaos, meaning that Grant and her colleagues were very quickly tested and came back positive for anthrax.

In interviews years later, Grant recounted the story, explaining how communication with the investigators was messy and unorganized. Now, to be fair, it was a pretty, like, irregular thing to occur. Yeah, this isn't, like, standard training. Yeah.

They don't plan for this kind of thing, typically. Plus, as you said, probably 90% of the FBI was focused on other things at the time and then quickly had to be diverted to this new threat. The end of 2001 was a busy fourth quarter for the feds, I'd say.

Yeah, no vacation time then. The government mail service was shut down and the unopened letter that was intended to make its way to Patrick Leahy was found in one of nearly 250 impounded mail bags nearly a month later. It had been misdirected due to a zip code being misread and ended up in Sterling, Virginia, where postal worker David Hose inhaled spores from the contact with the letter.

David himself fell ill, falling into a near-death coma for nearly three weeks. The letters to the senators contained around one gram of pure anthrax spores. By now, investigators knew that this was clearly a targeted and concerted effort to sow discontent and anxiety, as well as potentially as a means of assassinating individuals.

Due to the nature of the investigation just starting, however, they knew very little about intended targets, intended goals, and of course, the person or group of people responsible.

The notes paired with the anthrax mentioned Allah as well as a persecution goal targeting Israel and the United States of America. Who is this Allah? Who is this Allah guy I keep hearing about? Who is this Allah? Sounds like a sitcom. Yeah, just the way that's worded is funny.

However, international and domestic terrorists have been known to obfuscate their actual goals, actual targets, and their own personal allegiances by shrouding them in scapegoats and the current event of 9-11 made a very useful scapegoat and the investigators were keenly aware of this fact. If the person intended to create chaos, they were certainly successful.

So what's your gut feeling about the anthrax attacks? Do you think there was any particular motive behind it? Other than just general terrorism, like just to scare targets and like make people afraid of

Yeah, you know how, what's his name, Ted Kaczynski, he had a pretty, you know... Ted Kaczynski? Never heard of him. Well thought out manifesto espousing his ideology and his, you know, his opinions, let's say, and why he did what he did. Do you think there was something like that for this, or do you think it was simply to create chaos? Well, I think the manifesto, quote unquote, assuming this isn't a red herring, is said by the death of, to America, death to Israel. So it's like, you know, they hate the...

um they hate america and american allies in the middle east would be um just that in general terrorism things as far as i mean same as 9-11 right it's not like there was a man of i mean there was like statements from bin laden afterwards and him claiming it but it's not like they printed a speech on the side of the airplanes it goes without saying what the purpose of the attacks is it's to cause fear and panic yeah but if this was just a domestic terrorist uh

Like, and he just wanted to sow discontent or anxiety or chaos. And he just wanted to kill as many people as possible. Just like, you know, a rampant serial killer would. Then he could just be using this to kind of like hide his real, like make it harder for the investigators to find him by putting a, like a political spin on it more or less. Yeah. Yeah. That's certainly possible. Uh, I would just have to see more evidence of it.

But, I mean, it could be possible that if someone wanted to create... Okay, so what's this... If this isn't someone who is actually from the Middle East trying to attack the United States, then what is the goal of this person? Exactly, that's what I'm trying to...

espousing yeah like because i don't think it'd be like a false flag attack because it's not like in uh october of 2001 you needed a reason to drive american hatred for the middle east i think that was a pretty well established which okay so if it is a person not of that agenda let's say they're using that agenda to cover their tracks more or less then it could be something like the uh what was the episode we did on the tainted penicillin was it penicillin

The tainted medication. No, I know what you're talking about. The Tylenol murders. Yeah, Tylenol murders. I don't know why I couldn't think of that. If it was something like the Tylenol murders, for example, where this person had an intended target, but they wanted to cover their tracks by sending it out to a bunch of different people as well, and then adding on this anti-American agenda in the letters and stuff to further hide their tracks, then this could have just been a single assassination attempt

obfuscated by all this other shroud around it to confuse investigators. Yeah. It's possible. I think. I'll take this next one and then you can take the long chapter on the scientist. Okay.

All right. So in total, five people died directly from the anthrax letter attacks. Bob was the first victim, the first to handle contaminated mail on the 5th of October. A man named Thomas Morris Jr. died on the 21st. He was working at the Brentwood Postal Facility in Washington, D.C., and had handled contaminated mail himself. At the same facility, Joseph Kersine was also exposed to anthrax and died one day later.

I've heard it described that the anthrax attacks were basically like the mail handling industries. It was their 9-11, basically, because everyone working in mail at the time was just terrified because obviously they're the ones usually handling the mail the most. Yeah.

At the same facility, Joseph Kirstein was also exposed to anthrax and died one day later. Over in New York, Kathy Wynn passed away on the 31st. She was a hospital supply worker, and while it had never been identified how she was exposed to the spores, it was thought that she had handled or been near contaminated mail.

The last victim was Ottilie Lundgren, who died on the 21st of November. Ottilie was a 94-year-old resident from Oxford, Connecticut. That's so sad. Going through your entire life and then dying from a random letter, I'm assuming. That's so sad.

Similarly, there was no automatic link identified between locations or individuals targeted in the attack, but it's thought that she may has also been exposed to contaminated mail somehow, since this was the main method of sending out these anthrax spores in this attack.

Including those who died, there was a total of 22 confirmed cases of anthrax infections stemming from this. Six suffered from inhalation, while 11 from cutaneous anthrax infections. Thankfully, due to a broad messaging of the symptoms and a strong supply of antibiotics as well as the limited scope of the attack, the victims were kept relatively low compared to the potential of an anthrax-related doomsday scenario.

So yeah, not many people obviously died and the amount of people affected was rather low, but I think that speaks more to the fact that the person responsible for this, I don't think they were, they didn't plan like subsequent attacks maybe, or they didn't intend it to hit as many people. Like I feel like if someone went in with the goal of at this time killing as many people as possible, it would have been probably way more successful in that sense.

Yeah, I mean, like, if you did something like this on a large enough scale, you would get a huge kill count. I also wonder how they were able to produce and package it so effectively, because I feel like you would just die handling this stuff repeatedly. Which speaks to a level of experience with it, surely. Professionalism, yeah. Yeah. All right. Talk to us about the scientist, or the main suspect in the case. So...

It would take the FBI seven years of arduously investigating leads before ultimately landing on the prime suspect for the deadliest biological attack in America, Bruce Edward Ivins.

Bruce was a microbiologist and after that, well, depends on what you call a deadly biological attack. I would argue smallpox blankets were much more effective, but that's neither here nor there. Bruce was a microbiologist and after the 1979 anthrax outbreak in Svetlovsk, now Yekaterinburg, Russia, he began to research the bacteria and became an expert in the field.

Considered a suspect from as early as 2002, Edwards was never brought in front of a jury as his life ultimately instead ended in suicide. Interesting. Bruce was born in Lebanon, Ohio on the 22nd of April in 1946. His childhood was not an easy one, directly reminded often by his mother, Mary Johnson Ivins, of just how unwanted he was.

She would recount stories to Bruce about how she would attempt to miscarry the pregnancy by sitting at the top of a staircase and sliding down the bumpy steps. Oh, Jesus. She told him that? That's pretty rough. Oh. Mary wasn't just unhappy with her three sons, but she expressed her anger and frustration towards her husband, Thomas, in front of the boys, often physically abusing and threatening to kill him.

Surrounded by this abuse from the day, Bruce fostered a seed of hatred within him that ultimately carried into his adult life. You know, this Mary woman doesn't sound very nice to me. You know what I say about domestic abusers? I say they're a big meanie. Yeah, I don't like it. That's no good. Almost as bad as sending out anthrax to a bunch of people. Almost. Almost. Right, almost there.

Bruce was, however, incredibly intelligent and maybe in an attempt to be away from home as much as possible, he joined many extracurricular activities in his school years. He was rather unpopular with the other kids at school, and he experienced many cases of rejection by the girls he tried to talk to, upsetting him, but also building and adding on to the resentment fueled by the belief that he was unwanted by everyone.

He went on to study at the University of Cincinnati, graduating with honors and going on to get his PhD in microbiology in 1976.

While at university, Bruce attempted to court a member of the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority, but was again rejected. What ensued was a decades-long obsession with college sororities. This is sad. What the hell? I wasn't expecting this level of sadness. It's always pathetic to me when serial killers or people who do something as atrocious as murder, their motive is always like, I never got the girls. A woman rejected me. Yeah, it's like, shut up. Good lord. You have nothing else going on.

Obviously, it shouldn't lead to murder or killing people, but a life full of rejection and ostracization has to sting a bit. I can understand feeling resentful. Yeah, I'm just saying it makes it pathetic, right? Oh, it's absolutely pathetic. And scroll up. Look at Bruce in high school, 1964. There's a picture of him in this document. He was a good-looking kid. He looks good. He looks fine. So it must have been something personality-wise that really...

uh you know pushed people away i feel the mass serial killer definitely didn't have a personality issue so that's yeah but i'm saying like he's i don't he looks fine it's not something like he was inherently he's fine physically repulsive to people yeah it's probably just because he was a very incredibly annoying person to be around yeah

It didn't come to light until he was being investigated by the FBI later in life. Bruce would make secret trips to the KKG houses at different universities all across the country, sneaking inside and even stealing personal belongings. I'll let you imagine what those personal belongings were. I guess you're going to miss the panty, right? That was just a rite of passage back in the 60s, wasn't it? Everyone did that. Well, the 70s.

I don't know about everyone, but that was a thing with college sororities to steal girls under. I'm not saying it was good. I'm not encouraging it or endorsing it, but it was absolutely a thing back then. It was in every single college comedy movie of that time. I cannot believe it worked between Spongebob. That is insane. True, yeah. That was an episode. He would also take his anger online too, writing long posts about the sorority using various different made-up and anonymous usernames.

One particular member, Dr. Nancy Hagwood, took the brunt of Bruce's resentment. Wait, wait, wait. So wait, he was still writing long posts about the sorority on the internet, which means he was in... Years later. He got a PhD in 1976 and the internet would have been like maybe 15 years later. So he was still harboring resentment like 20 years later about sororities. It would seem that way. This guy had issues. Yeah, yeah.

One particular member, Dr. Nancy Hickwood, took the brunt of Bruce's resentment. Colleagues with Bruce, she later reported on how unsettling interactions with him were and how he would become very intrusive and strange. She felt as if he wanted to get closer to her, but she felt deeply uncomfortable by him and his presence.

He went on to harass and stalk her for decades, damaging her property and stealing her important research notebooks. Something that Nancy suspected for years, but was only confirmed when Bruce was interrogated later in life. To Bruce, Nancy was his mother, rejecting him and laughing at him. His obsessive thoughts led him to wanting to murder her.

This dark, resentful person was ultimately hiding inside a successful scientist who married in 1975 to who would become his lifelong partner, Diane Ivins, who ran a childcare center out of their home. A year after he began focusing his research on anthrax, he was hired at the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases in Maryland to look for a possible vaccine to the bacteria.

He was successful co-inventing two patents for anthrax vaccine technology. He was one of the leading scientists on anthrax at the time and went on to receive the Decoration for Exceptional Civilian Service for his service. Okay, so he literally created anthrax vaccines. That would explain how he was able to spread the anthrax, like you said, through letters without contaminants.

contaminating himself obviously. He's just juicing up like punching himself with it every time he deals with it. No he was clearly an expert. Bruce was undergoing psychiatric treatment for many years experiencing depression anxiety and paranoia and was given medication to help with his mental health. Although he was successful in the workplace his female colleagues quickly began to experience the other side of him. Bruce would send emails containing dark and concerning themes reflecting on his mental health struggles and his obsessive thoughts.

The tone of the emails could shift from normal to erratic, and alarming statements made the recipients feel quite threatened by him. He wasn't only sending emails from his business email account, he was also sending inappropriate emails from anonymous accounts. This is one of those emails to a woman named Mara Linscott where he said, Occasionally I get this tingling that goes down both arms. At the same time, I get a bit dizzy and get this unidentifiable metallic taste in my mouth. I'm not trying to be funny, Mara. It actually scares me a bit.

Other times it's like I'm not only sitting at my desk doing work, I'm also a few feet away watching me do it. There's nothing like living in both the first person singular and the third person singular. That's concerning. He's lost it. Do you think he thought that he was being quirky there and interesting? Maybe. He's like, look at me. I mean, maybe in his own mind. He was like, woohoo, aha, she'll think I'm so special. She'll love this. She'll think I'm so interesting with my metallic taste in my mouth.

But he had a wife. This is what's confusing to me. This wasn't like a loner incel who never knew love. He had a wife.

Well, I'll say this for one. There are plenty of people who are married who never experience love, right? Like they marry just because like they're both at the age to do it and one of them and they're both like successful and want to partner up or whatever, right? And there's also he probably had some underlying mental issues, especially with all the conditions he had and stuff like that or he developed something when he was young, you know, at a point it was too late. So even if he had a wife and even if, you know, he loved her to some degree, um,

it seemed that there was certainly underlying so there was something something lacking in his what he wanted from life and yeah his mental illness overtook everything bruce felt that his life was crumbling due to the issues in his personal life two female colleagues that he was obsessed with quit and once again he felt unwanted rejected bruce believed that he had inherited something evil from his mother

This dark, depressed, vengeful attitude that almost seemed like a different person entirely. This other person inside of him wanted to do harm and he expressed to psychiatrists that it didn't feel far off. One of the women he was obsessed with, Mara, had no idea how close she was to death. Bruce recounted one time that he drove up to watch her play soccer, accompanied with a jug of wine that he had spiked with poison, and tended to give it to her after the match.

Mara had actually been injured in the match, making her unable to hang out with Bruce afterwards. This injury may have ultimately saved her life. Bruce told his therapist that he had the expertise to create lethal poisons and use them. He described himself as an avenging angel of death.

That's a lot. A jug of wine is also funny. Like walking up to a woman and being like, I made this for you and it's just a jug. Yeah, like a medieval jug. Like a gilded jug. You know the poison chalices in all those medieval stories? Literally. It has like a skull on it. Skull on it, yeah. It's all red and like cartoon mist is like pouring out of it.

Yeah, that's great. Avenging Angel of Death. What was he avenging? His own... Himself. Past, yeah. Yeah, he was... Because Stacey's always go after the chat. It's not the nice guys like me. Yeah. I'm here for the little guy. I just...

I'm getting back at the world for... He's wearing the Joker face paint. You get what you deserve, Anthrax.

I bet he had like a whole bunch of like a line set up like a witty one liner when he would pass her the wine if he had have got to that point thank god for that soccer injury whatever that was oh you broke your leg well I hope it's nothing to whine about oh god hey that was good on the fly as well grats man you should become an incel

I'm clearly made for it. Hey, honey, I have news. I have a change of career. I've been promoted to incel. I have been promoted. Bruce's therapist was bound to duty to call the police, telling him that any sort of homicidal threat needed to be reported. Calm and collected on the outside, the therapist was scared. What would Bruce do? When she called the police in the next few days, she was surprised by their reaction. Brie later heard that no crime had been committed and that no further action was going to be taken.

One psychiatrist who once saw Bruce described him as a, quote, overstretched rubber band, declaring that he was ready to snap.

Throughout this, Bruce continued to work and handle the deadly bacteria anthrax. He was never once mental health tested while he worked with the material. Yeah, that should probably be a thing that needs to happen in those kinds of scenarios. I should probably look into that at some point. If he's a psychiatrist, he's literally phoning 9-11 and saying, yo, check out this dude. He terrifies me and he may kill. And the police are like, well, who doesn't give you the heebie-jeebies? Am I right?

Well, it was a woman, so just a typical Stacey attitude, probably. She didn't understand Bruce's gentlemanly... Stacey didn't understand nice guys. She didn't get the fellas. She was too afraid. I feel the need to say that that's a joke, and Bruce is clearly a lunatic. I don't want to get shit... What? Really? No. I thought you were being completely serious. I don't want people to take that seriously.

I thought you were being completely serious. What? That's crazy. Whoa. What do they do on Reddit? They do like slash S when you're sarcastic or slash J when you're joking? No, it's slash J. S is serious, I think. Oh, well, not that then. I take that one back. Yeah, why don't you start saying Reddit emoticons in real life? That will help you, I'm sure. That won't make me look like an incel. So how was he connected to the Anthrax letters?

Four years after the attacks, the FBI had already exhausted a number of leads. As the letters were sent immediately after the 9-11 attacks, authorities questioned whether it was linked to Al-Qaeda or other terrorist organizations. There's also a man named Stephen Hatfill who was investigated.

Stephen was a virologist and former researcher at the Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases and 2002. It was the primary suspect after matching some aspects of the psychological and criminal profile created by the behaviorologist at the FBI. Stephen ended up suing the FBI due to the invasive investigation and the professional and personal damage the investigation did to him.

That particular case was settled for nearly $6 million, although he had said that his life has been devastated by this beyond what money can repair. Of course, there were many other leads, many turned into dead ends, but everything changed with one simple discovery. You can sue the government for investigating you?

Oh, you can sue him for anything. In the United States, you can sue anyone for anything. That sounds so great. A judge can throw it out if he thinks it's stupid, but you can sue anyone for anything. At Ruby Ridge, what's his face? Harris, I think was his name. The guy who was at Ruby Ridge with the Weavers. After he shot a federal agent in what was ruled to be self-defense, but after he shot a federal agent, he sued the government for attacking him in the first place and won. He won $300,000-something thousand.

America sure sounds great. I'd love to be out of Sue anyways. It sure is, buddy. Anyone you want, anytime, name your price. That's the freedom. That's the freedom I hear all about, I guess. The freedom to sue. That's what it's all about. The FBI noted that a mailbox nearby to the KKG sorority house in Princeton University contained anthrax spores that matched the ones used in the attacks four years prior. Was he still obsessed with the sorority? One answer also laid within the bacteria itself.

Used in the attacks was a strain called ames, which was a specific kind of anthrax that was used in government laboratories, including the one Bruce worked in. It also matched perfectly to a batch stored in a flask labeled RMR1029, a flask under the control of Bruce Ivan. The genetic testing of this was what led investigators to realize that Stephen Hatfield could not have sent the letters as he did not have access to the material used. But who did? Bruce.

Everyone who had access to the materials during the time of the crimes was ruled out due to various eliminating factors, leaving only him remaining. Bruce had the capability. He would often find himself at the lab by himself, alone, at night, and on the weekends around the dates of the attacks. According to the Department of Justice reports, he had never exhibited this type of behavior before.

You mean he had never attempted to anthrax the entire United States before? That's crazy. This man has never killed people in a mass biological attack before, so there's no reason to think he'd be doing it now. Yeah, his defense lawyer probably tried that. Thank you, DOJ. Very cool.

When the FBI asked him about this behavior, of him being at the lab alone at irregular hours, he was unable to give any legitimate or compelling reason. Oh man, you couldn't come up with anything creative for that? You couldn't have been like, I was jacking it at work because I couldn't do it at home? I'm having an affair. Just say something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. As suspicion surrounding Bruce was growing, it became clear to the FBI that he had been experiencing psychological problems.

They began to dig through his emails, his trash, and they obtained his computer hard drives. They even started tracking his movements by placing a GPS on his car, but they needed to go a step further. In 2007, the FBI obtained a search warrant for his home, which they executed on November 1st. They found multiple items of interest, including a rather large amount of letters that were addressed to various media figures and members of Congress, some around 20 years old.

They also found three handguns, two stun guns, a taser, computer snooping software, and they also found what appeared to be a firing range in his basement. Wait, sorry, is there a difference between a stun gun and a taser? Yeah, so a stun gun typically is the kind that fires out like a probe to strike you, and a taser is like a handheld that arcs that you poke someone with. Yeah, yeah.

Typically you can use a stun gun as a taser but not the other way around. So tasers are the things that women use in self-defense, right? It's not like they're carrying around stun guns. Yeah, I think you have to get... I've never tried but I'm pretty sure there's like... Yeah, I think there's something about getting a stun gun like... Hold on.

If a stun gun is harder to get than a gun in America, that's going to be insane to me. That's probably accurate, actually. There's weird regulations around stuff, dude. Like there's,

There will be random regulations around different stuff relating to firearms, firearm adjacent things. There's some states you can't buy knives that are a certain length or you can't buy... You can't buy katanas, but you can buy an AK-47. Or you can't buy handheld weapons that are used exclusively as a weapon like brass knuckles or something, but you can buy a gun. Can you buy a stun gun in the USA?

Except for Rhode Island, most states allow one to possess a stun gun subject to specific stun gun laws by state and restrictions for civilian use. You use a stun gun... I don't even think you can carry pepper spray over here without a license. I think so. That's funny. Stun guns are outright illegal in Hawaii and Rhode Island, it would seem. That's interesting.

Okay, so in most of your legal carry states for weapons, stun guns are no restrictions. But some states you have to have a license, you have to have restrictions, stuff like that. I should buy a stun gun. You should, and then you should sting yourself for a video. Okay, hold on. Some of these are just calling a taser a stun gun. Well, that's what I was saying. I thought they were kind of similar, but...

I think you're right, though. I think there is a distinction between the two. Like you said, stun guns shoot out the probes. Yeah, well, I'm looking right now and it looks like I can order a stun gun, a brand new fancy one. They go as high as $1,700. That's a lot. You should still do it. I mean, it would pay for itself if you do it in a video. You know what? I think I'm going to go ahead and order a stun gun. I think. Nice. I think we're going to do that. Sounds like fun.

I don't think I have to, yeah, I can just have it delivered to my door. Alright, well, there's a side quest. Have you ever been hit by a stun gun before? No. No, I haven't. You have to do it in police training so everyone knows who the cop has, and it's not fun from what I've heard. No. Seems kind of mean to make people do that, to become a cop. Well, the reason you have to do it to become a cop is so that you're not willy-nilly about using it, right?

Yeah. So that if someone... The idea is if someone... Do they do that with guns? Do you have to shoot yourself first before you're like, okay, I should do this? Ideally, if you pull out a gun, you understand you are taking someone's life, which should be already ingrained in you by societal and moral standards, right? But the issue with a taser is that it doesn't kill someone, but it makes them stop what they're doing. So they have police officers...

stunned with it. So that way, anytime they walk into a McDonald's and there's an argument, they're not just like, okay, like imagine though, if they did like, they're like, they're conscious of like the pain they're inflicting, like only necessary. I've seen so many videos that are people getting hit by stun guns and then just fucking like hulking out and still, still going and people like them having to shoot like three or four times with the sun gun to actually have an effect. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, it just depends on what the altercation is or something like that. There's different scenarios, different severities of...

What goes down with it? Typically, if you're more muscular, it's more effective on you because stun guns, the reason they make you seize up is because it basically activates all like your muscles at once. You tense up everywhere. But if you're like fat, then it just like shocks you on the fat and you don't seize. That's why normally you'll see like overweight people in like fights with cops and like they'll be stunned and just keep punching or running or whatever. But if they hit like a muscular person, they like they fold and just collapse on the floor.

They become like Electro or something, like a super villain with all the electricity coursing around their fat. Yeah. Yeah, pretty much. I remember seeing this one video of like this...

this girl she was like overweight and she like pulled a gun on the police and was like trying to shoot him and he was like he had a taser in her stomach just shocking her over and over and she just had zero reaction she didn't scream or anything she was just trying to angle the gun around the whole time like very awkwardly fighting like it had zero effect so it depends on the person well fat is nature's body armor

It is, unironically. In 2007, the FBI obtained a search warrant for... Oh wait, we already read that. Accompanying this was a bulletproof vest, reinforced body armor plates, and a lot of ammunition and gunpowder. Ultimately, here's what the FBI concluded. He had opportunity. It was determined that the anthrax boards used in the attack came from the batch RMR 1029, which was created and managed by Bruce Iben.

In the days prior to the attack, he was alone at the lab during the night and weekend and had all the necessary equipment to prepare and dry the anthrax. His behavior of staying at the lab alone was unusual and suspicious. He was one of the few people capable of making the highly refined spores.

Motive. Bruce was under significant professional and personal stress and pressure. He had devoted 20 years to the anthrax vaccine program and was receiving criticism from fellow scientific peers due to potency problems and possible contributions to Gulf War Syndrome. He feared the program would get shut down shortly if there was no major breakthrough. But of course, after the attack, the program continued with new importance and support.

The motive could have possibly been job security, in a way, proving to all the need for more research into anthrax vaccines with his deteriorating mental state providing the backdrop for the motivation. Yeah, that's what I was going to bring up earlier with the fact that maybe he didn't want to kill people. Maybe he just wanted to scare people into caring enough about his work so that the job wouldn't get shut down. For most people, I would be like, that's a stretch, but this guy seems crazy enough that's like, yeah, maybe. Yeah.

I mean, it's not so much that he didn't want to kill people. It's probably more so that he just didn't care if they died or not. That wasn't his goal. I want them to need me. I need to be important. Wait, it does tie into his, like... Obviously, he had enormous self-esteem issues stemming from rejection for the majority of his life. So that would tie in nicely to that. Like, he wanted people to need him, like you just said.

Yeah, I think like, oh, I'll be their hero. They'll remember me. Yeah, again, I think if his goal was simply just to kill people, I think he could have been more efficient about it. You know what I mean? He could have actually been way more successful with that goal. Yeah, so I don't think his goal was necessarily to kill. It didn't seem like it to me.

Maybe. I don't know. It's hard to say. Then mental health and links. As we have gone over, Bruce had significant mental health struggles and violent obsessive tendencies, which may have contributed to his motive and ability to commit the crimes. He was previously described by a psychiatrist as, quote, homicidal and sociopathic.

When tracking the envelopes used in the attacks, one led them back to Maryland where Bruce lived. They also linked the language in the letters to him. Although written as if they were from someone with a terrorist group, they found that the phrasing and content outside of the religious context was actually similar to things Bruce had said.

There were also secret codes found in the letters. Is that implying that Bruce was relatively like Death to Israel, Death to the United States? Yeah, he often said that. Around the water cooler at work. There were secret codes found in the letters. Certain characters were more bold than others. Bruce had fascinated by codes and he had made an effort to try and hide a book about codes from the investigators during the investigation.

He also showed signs of guilt. He sent messages to CDC right after the first attack with nonsense explanations on how he may have inhaled anthrax. He also took unauthorized samples from anthrax around his work building and then went on to decontaminate his office, something he should have reported but did not.

And when they tried to obtain samples of the anthrax in batch RMR1029, he submitted, quote, questionable samples. So yeah, he did it. Yeah, I have no doubt in my mind that this is the guy. This rare breed of anthrax comes from his lab and he was a homicidal person who wanted to... And then at the same time the anthrax was happening, he just said that, I think I inhaled anthrax. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, this guy did it without a doubt. Hold on, I want to look and see what letters were bold. TTR

A-T... I can't make out which one. It's T-T-A-A-A-T. Maybe he just naturally bolded those letters. Maybe they were just letters that... I don't know. I can't make tits or tails of it. But anyway... Oh, wait. Sorry. Through all of this, he was unable to explain his behavior when confronted.

He was warned by his lawyers that he may face a death penalty if he was found guilty and he felt the pressure of the FBI closing in all around him. He sent disturbing emails to former colleagues. One of these is an email he sent to a former colleague that reads, I'm sorry that you have abandoned me. You were the one person I knew I could bare my soul to and tell everything to. And now you have abandoned me.

You have put me on your dark list. I lose my connections. I lose my years. I lose my health. I lose my ability to think. I lose my friends. What do I have left but eternity? That's menacing. This guy sounds like he could have been from current year kind of insane people online.

I see these kinds of messages all the time. I don't know if you knew this Jackson but people have been insane before the internet. Well this was also 2007 so it's not too long ago. Yeah so he definitely listened to Linkin Park and whatnot. I tried so hard. He wears eyeliner dyes his hair black. Shit like that. Just an edgy teenager inside.

During this time, Bruce was also posting comments on an internet forum about a reality TV show called The Mole, where his comments consisted of ranting about violently killing a contestant named Catherine Price, as well as other incredibly disturbing things. And he knew at this time that he was under investigation as well? Apparently.

contestant named Catherine Price as well as other incredibly disturbing things. He believed that she deserved it and he ranted about how he would pay to do it himself. So hold on, she was just a contestant? She was just a random contestant on this show. I'm looking it up now. She's just a random person on the mole. Did we investigate where all these victims went to college and perhaps if they were in any sororities or not? Yeah.

No, I think the attacks were genuinely random. Probably, yeah, I think so. It was sent to media companies. That's where most of the... Well, it was sent to believable targets of a terrorist organization from the Middle East. That's why I picked them. Yeah, true. In a group therapy session, Bruce appeared to the group angry and upset, talking about how he was the prime suspect in the investigations, but he was not going to face the death penalty.

He was going to, quote, take out everyone who wronged him. He was going out in a, quote, blaze of glory. This was immediately reported, and the next day he was taken into custody for further questioning. You mean to tell me this support group wasn't very supportive about that? Yeah, go into a support group and be like, I'm going to kill everyone. I'm going to go out blazing. They're like, yeah, okay. Yeah, then he's fucking angry because they weren't supportive about it.

And then sure enough, 48 hours later, Bruce would be found dead by overdose. So yeah, I think we're pretty open and shut. The feds got him, boys. Now, this is actually insane because I knew nothing of the anthrax poison. I just heard of them. And the fact that it was right after 9-11 committed by a guy who developed the anthrax vaccine because of his weird obsession with women and like people that are wrong. That is wild. That is insane.

And it's crazy how long it took them to connect. I think they connected it fairly early, but it took them still like seven years to actually arrest him or get close to that point, to the point where he felt the need to commit suicide. Reading the information here, it seems fairly obvious that this guy was the one that did it, right? Yeah. That's pretty wild. Yeah. Super wild. Okay. Okay.

So hoaxes and the end. The nature of a substance like anthrax and its devastating effects meant that every case reported, real or not, needed to be seriously investigated. There were thousands of anthrax hoaxes all across the United States, and these have continued throughout the year. Even in 2019, a man who had a dislike for women in general, an incel, mailed envelopes containing white powder to 15 female politicians with the envelopes clearly labeled anthrax,

When in actuality, they just contain flour, protein powder, and bicarbonate soda. Well, in that case, I feel like he still would have sent anthrax if he probably knew how to do it, right? I mean, it was clearly just to incite fear. Yeah. He was probably afraid that too much missing would have tipped bells earlier. So he just did fake anthrax mailings. Yeah.

A threat like this is a federal crime and the man was sent to jail. Even Jennifer Lopez was targeted with a hoax. Not Jennifer Lopez.

According to news articles, a weird love letter arrived at American Media Inc., the same place Bob Stevens, that's Robert Stevens from before he was one of the first victims that actually died from the anthrax attacks, the same place he worked at. Inside the envelope was a letter to the singer, a star of David, and powder that had been variously described as bluish or soapy or white and powdery. The letter was passed around by various members in the office, including that Bob Stevens. Wow.

After being investigated by the FBI, the letter was dismissed as a potential spreader for anthrax, even though they did not actually have possession of the letter saying, quote, we are not in the possession of the Jennifer Lopez letter, but it does not appear to be a valid lead. End quote.

Apparently the FBI believed that it was simply detergent in the letter and that was the end of it. This does go to show how often this type of attack happens though. Even Bob Stevens was the victim of a hoax before he ultimately would die of the genuine anthrax attack. But wait, I thought they didn't know how Bob Stevens died, remember? They didn't find the source of it. So who's to say that that letter that they weren't able to find wasn't actually anthrax then?

Yeah, well, it's just saying that this was before. This was some time before no one got sick because everyone passed around the letter and stuff. It's saying that all the time this kind of thing happens where it's like, ooh, here's something creepy. Death to you, whatever. And it's supposed to freak you out. Yeah, so it was coming even before the anthrax attacks. It's rare that someone actually has weaponized anthrax samples. Not a lot of places that comes from. Yeah.

These hoaxes obviously peaked around the end of 2001 and 2002, with people believing that they were the next anthrax poisoning victim, with this scare spreading across the entire United States. While the genuine cases quickly cleared up and the genuine attacks stopped rather quickly, the shockwaves still endured for many years to come. The case was officially closed in 2010, with the main suspect, Bruce, having died a few years prior.

As the FBI firmly believed Bruce to be the most obvious and most likely assailant, the decision to close the case was ultimately an easy one. And that ends the story of the anthrax letter attacks. Yeah, that was way more interesting than I was expecting, honestly. The fact that, like you said, it was around the same time as 9-11, and the fact that the person involved in the attack, or that instigated the attack...

was probably a guy that created vaccines for anthrax. That's crazy.

It's like a movie scenario. You wouldn't expect it to be something real. But yeah, that guy 100% did it. No question about it. Very tragic that people had to die because of his little... Lunacy. His lunacy. Yeah, it's tragic. But it also goes to show that even people who are in very high realms of education and seem to know what they're talking about can also be absolutely insane. Perhaps more so. There's a lot of really smart but very...

crazy people. Remember the TempleOS guy? He made an entire operating system. Oh my gosh, yeah. That's another tragedy. Yeah. Just because they're smart doesn't mean they're not potentially also dangerously insane. Let that be a lesson for all of you.

That's going to do it for this episode of Red Thread. Thank you very much for joining us. Really appreciate you guys showing up and supporting the show. Big thank you to the sponsors for supporting the show as well. Please go check them out if you feel the sponsors look cool to you. Also,

The show notes are in the description as per usual, as well as links to our audio platform. So you can listen on the go. Just go check out the description. There's a bunch of links down there. The show notes are great. You can read along and, you know, look at our sources for the information and stuff. But other than that, that's everything from me. Isaiah, did you have anything else?

I believe that should do it. Thank you so much to everyone for watching. It means a lot. Hopefully next time we can have our favorite guest back. And yeah, stay away from Anthrax. Hopefully he comes back in one piece. Thank you very much for joining us and we'll see you next time. Bye guys. Bye.