Transcripts For WMPT Frontline 20111102

>> frontline is made possible by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. and by the corporation for public broadcasting. major funding is provided by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation. committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. and by reva and david logan. committed to investigative journalism as the guardian of the public interest. additional funding is provided by the park foundation. dedicated to heightening public awareness of critical issues. and by the frontline journalism fund, supporting investigative reporting and enterprise journalism. >> one florida man is in the hospital with anthrax. >> ...is hospitalized with inhalation anthrax. >> narrator: in october of 2001, just weeks after 9/11, there was a chilling new wave of attacks. >> a 63-year-old man diagnosed with anthrax has died. >> anthrax reported at a florida hospital. >> the disturbing news from boca raton, florida... >> another anthrax case, this one in new york... >> five more people in florida have tested positive. >> narrator: five deaths, attacks in florida and new york. >> ...anthrax anxiety... >> narrator: tens of thousands of americans were given antibiotics. >> ...anthrax exposure... >> ...through the mailrooms of every major newspaper, television network... >> newsrooms looked like crime scenes. >> narrator: the nation's capitol was hit. >> ...anthrax scare has now reached capitol hill... >> i just talked to leader daschle. his office received a letter, and it had anthrax in it. they will not take this country down. >> narrator: a massive fbi criminal investigation would soon be underway. >> the letter arrived in senator daschle's office on friday, and was opened and handled by an intern this morning. >> as an eager senate intern, the first thing that they needed us to do was open the mail. >> narrator: the envelope was on the top of the stack. >> i remember looking at it, and it looked like children's handwriting, and the return address was the fourth grade class. so i took the scissors and cut into the corner of the letter, just about an inch, and white powder immediately fell out all over me. >> she sees spores, and immediately puts her finger bravely on the ripped bit of the envelope to protect everybody from more spores coming out. >> it looked like baby powder. i was wearing a dark gray skirt and black shoes, and you could see it just vividly on the dark colors. >> narrator: the powder was anthrax, a deadly bacteria. >> it was a crime in progress because it is live anthrax spores. the fear was that it was absolutely spreading through the entire senate office building. >> narrator: this particular anthrax was highly floatable and potentially quite deadly. >> it travels hundreds and hundreds of feet. it takes months to decontaminate these offices. the spores are everywhere. they keep popping up. >> narrator: the contaminated buildings were closed. the intern and members of congress were given antibiotics. washington was in full crisis mode. >> we're looking, we're on the search to find out who's conducting these evil acts. >> narrator: the presidents' security advisors now had a new item on their agenda. >> not only are we dealing with the aftermath of 9/11, but suddenly, we have people concerned about anthrax being delivered in envelopes. >> narrator: the president demanded answers from the fbi. its new director was robert mueller. >> the internal pressures to solve that crime as quickly as possible must have been almost impossible to imagine, that somebody could sit with that and not feel a sort of daily, hourly, weekly sort of crushing weight. >> narrator: for the fbi, the powder was the murder weapon. but right away, they had a problem-- the fbi lab was not equipped to handle a bio-weapon like anthrax. >> it became important to get that evidence and get it processed, and in the laboratory, we realized we couldn't process it there, and we were going to... it was going to require that the evidence be taken somewhere else. >> the fbi had never dealt with a crime like this. they didn't have the tools, the expertise or anything else. those tools and expertise were at usamriid. >> narrator: usamriid-- the u.s. army medical research institute of infectious diseases. located in maryland, usamriid is the center of the army's bio- defense effort. they took the powder there to the lab of one of the army's top anthrax vaccine experts, dr. bruce ivins. >> his reputation was that of an extraordinary microbiologist. he did the truly preliminary snapshot assessments of this material because he was so good at what he did. >> he was just fascinated with the way it was just like a mist. it was so light, you couldn't weigh it. it was very dangerous stuff. >> narrator: ivins and the scientists at the army's bio-lab said this was something new. unlike the wet anthrax they worked with, the powder was dry and very deadly. >> he was the first one to describe it as "energetic." the material literally would float and waft within the bag, for instance. and so, when anyone brought a hand near the bag, a lot of these spores would migrate towards the hand. >> narrator: they knew this highly floatable anthrax was something special. ivins wrote a report for the fbi. "these are not garage spores. the nature of the spore preparation suggests very highly that professional manufacturing techniques were used in the production and purification of the spores." bruce ivins had spoken-- only a professional could have done the job. now, the fbi wanted to know where it had come from. they flew samples of the anthrax on a private jet to a high-tech lab in arizona. >> i went out and met the plane when it landed at the flagstaff airport. the ramp came down and this woman came off the plane with a box. i went over to meet her and she said, "dr. keim," and i said, "yes." she said, "this is the anthrax." and i said, "oh." >> narrator: dr. paul keim's specially equipped lab could tell the difference between the dna of one type of anthrax and another. >> we had one of the of the largest collections of different types of anthrax-- what we call strains of anthrax-- from around the world. >> narrator: when they looked at the fbi's spores, they were stunned-- all of them came from a single strain of anthrax, the ames strain. >> we were surprised it was the ames strain. and it was chilling at the same time. >> narrator: because it was so virulent, the ames strain was the anthrax of choice for the u.s. army's bio-weapon vaccine program. >> once you heard it was the ames strain, you began to think to yourself, "ah. this doesn't sound like a job from the outside. it sounds much more like an inside job." >> narrator: the home of the ames strain was the hot suites back in maryland at usamriid. >> oh, yeah, that pointed right at usamriid. that was our bug. that made it usamriid-- i mean, in my opinion. >> narrator: for decades, the labs there had been at the heart of america's bio-warfare program. they made germs there on an industrial scale. but by the '70s, bio-weapons were banned and the army focused on bio-defense. now, the fbi was beginning to believe someone had resurrected the dark arts of bio-weapons. >> is it a scientist that's gone rabid, basically, and decided they needed a cause for whatever reason to send out these mailings? >> there was a behavioral profile put together that suggested that it wasn't a foreign al qaedaist actor, it was more of a domestic type threat, you know, a dysfunctional adult in the united states who did this. >> narrator: they gave the investigation an official fbi name-- "amerithrax." the agents reasoned that the killer was a homegrown scientist, maybe even one of the scientists helping them on the case. >> that's quite a dichotomy, to have the experts who were helping you also be the suspects. but i think that's just the nature of this kind of event. it's the nature of this kind of crime that the people you have to rely on are the ones who are themselves capable. >> narrator: almost everyone was a suspect. >> we were heroes in the morning and suspects in the afternoon. and that, literally, was, on many days, how it played out. >> they had a list of questions, and one of the questions was, "did you do it?" i guess they have to ask that question. you know, "did you do it or do you know anybody that you think might have done it?" >> they would even suggest people. they would say, "what do you think about so and so?" and i'm a little afraid to tell you who they asked about, that one could get me in trouble, but it was... i laughed. >> the fbi begin to follow their playbook. this is a maddeningly slow process, and the political level wants results. they want the damned case cracked. >> without a clear suspect, the government has been frustrated for months. >> ...an unsolved puzzle... >> the hunt for a perpetrator is floundering. >> there's a growing sense of urgency. >> narrator: it was growing into one of the largest fbi cases ever. thousands of interviews, dozens of agents, millions of dollars. the white house continued to pressure fbi director robert mueller for answers. >> we met every day, and that was a subject that was a daily subject for months and months. >> you can imagine, the director of the fbi, bob mueller, comes in each time with a set number of things he plans to brief the president. and much to poor bob mueller's chagrin, president bush or the vice-president would say to bob, "so, how are we doing on the anthrax case?" and you could see poor bob mueller's shoulder's slump. he's like, "we're working on it." >> months go by. the case doesn't get immediately resolved because this is a stone-cold whodunit, and so the pressure starts to mount from outside. >> narrator: then, a columnist at "the new york times" entered the fray. >> "i think i know who sent out the anthrax last fall. he is an american insider, a man working in the military bio- weapons field." >> narrator: nicholas kristof began to insist the fbi pursue a man he thought could be the killer, a scientist he called "mr. z." >> he started running column after column, referring to z in various euphemistic ways, but all of us who were on the story knew exactly who he was talking about. >> narrator: according to kristof and others in the media, dr. steven hatfill had access to anthrax when he worked at the army's lab in maryland. >> nick kristof is not small potatoes. he is a well-respected, pulitzer prize-winning columnist. and he was hammering this point. >> he had access to anthrax spores. he's certainly got an incredible past that bears scrutiny. in his lectures, for example, he has talked a great deal about anthrax. >> we read the newspapers, we hear the news, we know what's going on out there. that asserted a lot of pressure on us, a pressure to "look, guys, we got to get this done." >> narrator: the fbi playbook calls for pressure, pushing a suspect for a confession. they decided to squeeze steven hatfill. it started with what the fbi calls "bumper lock"-- 24-hour surveillance-- and they let him know they were doing it. >> management was convinced he was the right guy. and so, as a result, there were intense surveillance-- bumper- lock type surveillance-- of dr. hatfill that went on for months. >> there is a brutal, sustained attempt by the fbi in these cases to turn or crack the suspect, and it doesn't look much like what happens on tv. it can be quite rough. and what they were doing to hatfill clearly was an effort to create pressure in the hope that he would crack. >> narrator: another playbook tactic is search and seizure. hatfill's apartment was taken apart. >> when they showed up for the raid, they brought the press. they brought the press en masse. they had them all over the place with their trucks, with their helicopters. >> he returns to his home to find a full-blown media circus-- helicopters swooping in the air, all kinds of camera crews around as his place is kind of being ransacked. >> today, the fbi searched the apartment of a former government scientist. they're looking closely for any clues... >> items taken from throughout his apartment will be analyzed. >> the apartment belongs to a former employee at the army's bio-warfare laboratory. the man... >> i think the public got the point. it meant, you know, this is probably the guy. "we got him. we're on him. relax. the case is going to get cracked." >> narrator: the fbi was hoping to find physical evidence that tied hatfill to the mailing, specifically, stray anthrax spores. but inside the apartments of both hatfill and his girlfriend, there were no telltale spores or equipment that could have been used to produce anthrax. >> what the fbi ultimately couldn't find was a spore or any kind of evidence that he had carried this out. >> i didn't see any real evidence. and that... you know, that obviously was troubling to me. and i had a lot of conversations with the case agents about, well, you might be onto the right guy, but you're not coming up with any evidence that says he's the right guy. >> the fbi, here, dealing with something very frustrating, which is they feel they've got their man but they can't find any spores. "where are the damn spores?" >> narrator: despite the lack of physical evidence, at headquarters, director mueller insisted his agents stay after hatfill. >> many people in management, in upper management, were convinced that dr. hatfill was the right guy. i mean, it was just very clear. and that they were not going to get off that train. >> narrator: mueller and the fbi wanted to ratchet up the pressure even more. and across the street at the justice department, mueller's boss, john ashcroft, did just that at a press conference. >> i'd be pleased to respond to questions. yes, sir? >> sir, is steven hatfill still a suspect in the anthrax case? >> mr. hatfill is a person of interest to the department of justice, and we continue the investigation. and for me to comment further would be inappropriate. >> this was really an extraordinary moment. their lips may have been saying, "we will not confirm that dr. hatfill is under investigation," but their body language was saying, "look, here. this is the guy." >> narrator: but steven hatfill did not do what the justice department and the fbi intended- - break under the pressure. instead, he went on the offensive. >> hatfill doesn't fold. on the contrary, the very sort of gregarious, energetic core of hatfill becomes filled with rage. "how dare they take me on?" >> i want to look my fellow americans directly in the eye and declare to them, i am not the anthrax killer. i know nothing about the anthrax attacks. i had absolutely nothing to do with this terrible crime! >> we were surprised. we weren't expecting him to do that. we didn't think it was at a point where he was going to go public with a position. >> john ashcroft has now twice publicly told the american people that i am a "person of interest" in last year's anthrax attacks. >> it was his life. it was his anguish. and he was not guilty of what he was being charged with. >> mr. ashcroft has not only violated justice department regulations and guidelines, which bind him, as the nation's top law enforcement official, but in my view, he has broken the ninth commandment: "thou shalt not bear false witness." >> he says that the fbi has mistreated him. what is your response to that? >> i have no comment in that respect. >> narrator: without a confession or hard evidence, the attorney general still couldn't seek an indictment against hatfill. director mueller was frustrated. his agents resorted to a technique rarely used by the fbi-- calling in bloodhounds. >> and their secret weapon has been a three-member team of bloodhounds. >> just stand still. don't move, please. >> many people in the fbi would say this was probably one of the low points. >> the team includes this dog, named lucy, from the long beach california police department, and two others from california, tinkerbell and knight. >> narrator: the anthrax letters had an unusual scent. the fbi said the dogs picked up that scent at the exact same place-- steven hatfill's apartment. >> ...former u.s. government scientist, steven hatfill... >> to the people who saw him as a viable suspect, the dogs were just one more piece of a matrix of circumstantial evidence. >> narrator: then, after a tip, the fbi thought the bloodhounds had found the location of hatfill's bio-weapons lab, supposedly hidden near a pond in the maryland woods. >> it seemed a bit of a stretch that you could track an odor or a smell to a location months and months and months after someone had been to a particular spot by a lake. but they believed that that had some real potential. >> narrator: investigators had come to believe hatfill somehow had produced the deadly anthrax powder in an improvised underwater lab. >> engineers are draining a maryland pond today... >> ...draining a pond looking for evidence related to the anthrax attacks. >> ...almost a million and a half gallons... >> the pond is a huge undertaking that will take three to four weeks and cost of about a quarter million dollars... >> i think the draining of the pond is the most outstanding example of really loony tunes behavior, instead of whatever kind of deliberate investigatory techniques should have been used. >> in one of these ponds, they found a plastic box with a hole in the side of it. and they brought it down and they showed it to everybody. and they said, you know, "what do you think this is?" >> narrator: they thought they might finally have something. they took it to usamariid, the army lab. >> he brought down this plastic container. the fbi had brought... they had delivered to usamriid. >> narrator: dr. john ezzell, who worked at the lab, was also a consultant for the fbi. his speech is now impaired by parkinson's disease. ezzell had bad news for the fbi. >> to me, it looked like some sort of a version of a turtle trap. dave wilson from the fbi turns around and starts walking out of the lab and says, "my god, you mean i just spent $20,000 today on a turtle trap?" and i say, "well, you may have." ( laughs ) >> a turtle trap. yes, they did find a turtle trap. we were chuckling. but of course, for steve, it's a bittersweet chuckle, because he's still on the receiving end of the joke until his name is clear. >> narrator: it would take nearly five years before hatfill was officially cleared. he won a $5.8 million judgement against the united states government for invasion of privacy. at the white house, the president continued to insist the fbi wrap up the case. >> five years into this case, there's still no suspect. and that was unacceptable in the biggest case in fbi history, the biggest act of bioterrorism on u.s. soil. >> narrator: mueller reassigned the chief investigator and brought in a new team. >> the mandate was to look at it with fresh eyes and determine, is there something that needs to be done with the investigation that hadn't been completed yet? >> narrator: ed montooth had worked counter-terrorism and homicide. science and bio-weapons weren't his strong suit, but he believed they held the key to the case. >> the fbi has been locked in for way too long on the wrong track. at this point, science is going to take a major role in this investigation. >> narrator: there was a promising new lead in the science-- a clue from the spores-- at a civilian lab run by top genetics expert claire fraser-liggett. >> the idea is very much like the way that dna sequence is used in human forensics today. >> narrator: the idea was simple-- comb through the dna of the ames strain found in the letters. >> that could be used as a way to trace back to a potential source flask and do attribution. >> narrator: the scientists found a marker, a way of tracing the dna of the ames-- microscopic mutants known as morphs. >> that is potentially very valuable information because it allows you to say, there's a murder weapon here. we might be able to identify the exact flask, the exact collection of where this came from. if we can match what's in the attack powder, the mutants, to mutants in some flask somewhere, we may have a real clue. >> so, all of a sudden, now, we had a molecular marker that could be used to try and trace back to where this material may have come from. >> narrator: the fbi believed the deadly spores matched one particular flask of liquid anthrax labeled rmr-1029. more than 100 people had access to the flask. but the fbi decided to focus on one, the primary custodian, their own consultant, dr. bruce ivins. >> bruce ivins, he was the guy that controlled that flask. it was in his possession, and that told the investigators that maybe bruce ivins was the guy. >> narrator: the fbi discovered ivins had spent a lot of time alone at night in the lab. >> his lab hours spiked in august and then, really, september and october of 2001. never before and never after had he shown anything like that-- those late night and weekend lab access hours. that was extraordinary. >> narrator: they questioned ivins. >> ultimately, at the end of the day, he had several different stories. for instance, one of them was, "well, i just liked to go in there to get away from a bad situation at home and be left alone." >> ultimately, i think in one of the interviews, he conceded, "i just... i don't have a good reason." >> narrator: ivins' colleagues got wind of the fbi's suspicions. ivins' boss asked him about it. >> i said, "bruce, you know, they say that you were keeping odd hours." i said, "i know you work a lot of, you know, odd hours, all of us do, you know. but do you remember what you were doing there? what were you doing?" he said, "do you remember what you were doing in the suite ten years ago?" you know? >> narrator: in fact, frontline, propublica and mcclatchy newspapers have taken a close look at ivins' lab work records. the fbi chart was based on the night hours in only one lab. but our research shows it was not unusual for ivins to work late at the other labs and offices throughout the army complex. and during those days the fbi found suspicious, ivins was, in fact, conducting a number of time-sensitive experiments in the lab. >> he was in the middle of a very important vaccine test experiment. he had a series of animals that had been vaccinated, and so he was in there checking his animals. >> narrator: and many of ivin's colleagues say that even that many hours in the lab wouldn't have given him enough time to produce the anthrax. >> the fbi insinuated that bruce did this in a week in the laboratory at nights. and we all knew that that wasn't, in fact, reasonable, it wasn't practical. and, given the limitations of the laboratory, just wasn't possible in that timeframe. >> narrator: ivins' colleagues also insist it would have been impossible for him to produce the powder unnoticed. >> people notice things that are unusual in the suites. they find out what's going on. somebody would ask him, "bruce, what experiment's going on? what are you doing here?" your life depends on questions like that. and so, it's just... he couldn't have, in my opinion, known that he would not be observed. >> narrator: and the fbi did not find any physical evidence-- spores or remnants of anthrax dna-- on the equipment they believe ivins used to make the powder. >> i would find it surprising that you could take a piece of equipment in which you had grown any bacterial organism, whether it be anthrax or anything else, and get it completely clean, where there was no trace. now, does that mean it's impossible? no. but the amount of time and effort that would likely need to be put in to making that happen would be enormous. >> narrator: but who was bruce ivins? he appeared to be a consummate professional. >> bruce was a well-known, well- respected member of the anthrax research community. he was doing this cutting edge work on the development of new vaccines. >> he was almost a legend of sorts in the field of development of an anthrax vaccine. >> narrator: in 2003, the department of defense had awarded him its top civilian citation. and his friends told the fbi he seemed to be fun-loving. >> i remember him juggling. to me, he was much more of a kind of a dick van dyke character. i mean, he just... he saw things as being funny a lot of the time, and then... he also knew that he was funny. he also knew that he was comical. so, that's the person i knew. >> narrator: but the fbi believed they had uncovered a darker side of bruce ivins. montooth and his agents dug into ivins' insurance records and thousands of his emails. >> the subpoena of emails from usamriid was quite massive. it was, like, 30 terabytes of material. >> narrator: they were looking for unstable behavior. they turned it all over to a forensic psychiatrist. >> it was a mountain of records, ten years of medical insurance information and pharmaceutical records. >> narrator: they found a history of psychiatric problems- - some of it in emails... >> "there is some sinister monster waiting inside me for the right chance to escape." "there are some things that are eating away that i feel i can't tell anyone!" "i get incredible paranoid, delusional thoughts at times." >> the emails revealed two sides of dr. ivins. in the space of 24 hours, you might see some emails that are very emotional, expressing anger, frustration, even agitation. but then also, emails that were to colleagues that-- very, very professional, very succinct, very direct. >> narrator: in ivins' past, investigators came upon something that seemed important. when ivins was on a fellowship in the '70s, he developed an interest in one of his colleagues. >> he was a little bit of an odd duck. he was persistently friendly in a way that scientists typically are not. it seemed as though bruce wanted more attention than he was getting. >> narrator: it got worse when ivins discovered haigwood was a member of kappa kappa gamma sorority. >> he seemed to take an inordinate interest in it, and i remember at one point saying, "bruce, this is just way beyond the bounds." you know, "i don't want to talk about this anymore." >> narrator: years later, bruce ivins couldn't forget nancy haigwood, and he couldn't forget her sorority. >> i came home from work one day to discover that the fence outside our home and the car that belonged to my fiancé had been spray-painted with red paint, with kappa kappa gamma. and, of course, when i saw kappa kappa gamma, my first thought was, "this has to be bruce ivins." >> he found out where she lived and vandalized her car and spray-painted kkg, i think, on the sidewalk or the fence in front of her house. she really was, i think, an embodiment of kappa to him. >> narrator: ivins' kkg obsession gave investigators an idea. they returned to the mailbox where the attack letters had been mailed. >> it was a very busy street corner opposite princeton university. we then started doing searches around the street location and came up with a kkg reference. it's about 30 to 60 feet from our box. >> narrator: the kkg administrative offices were actually 175 feet from the mailbox on the fourth floor of an office building. but to the fbi, it was more than a coincidence. >> we knew it was a really big deal. it is a way to connect dr. ivins to that crime, to the location where the letters were mailed. >> narrator: at fbi headquarters, they had something they believed was even stronger- - they thought they had caught ivins intentionally misleading them about the alleged murder weapon, rmr-1029. >> it just showed us his willingness and deliberate attempt to mislead us, and actually tell us mistruths. >> narrator: the fbi had found matches between the anthrax in the letters and one particular source. >> samples start coming back positive. and all of those samples that turn out positive have all been drawn up originally from bruce ivins' 1029 flask. >> narrator: but the sample bruce ivins gave them from rmr- 1029 did not match. to investigators, it was proof ivins was trying to mislead them. >> this is the only one we know of that wasn't right, that didn't come back to what it was supposed to be. >> and so, they instantly began to wonder if this wasn't an attempt to obscure the fact that rmr-1029 was the source of the anthrax letters. >> narrator: ivins insisted it was an innocent mistake, but prosecutors didn't believe him. >> this was the ultimate act of deception, to mislead and misdirect the investigation. if you send something that is supposed to be from the murder weapon, but you send something that doesn't match, that's the ultimate act of deception. that's why it's so important. >> narrator: but there was more to the story. ivins had submitted another sample two months before the one the fbi found suspicious. that sample was a positive match. >> if you were purposely trying to deceive someone, you would submit an incorrect sample both times. why would you submit one correct sample and one incorrect sample? it doesn't seem to be the act of a clever criminal, certainly. >> narrator: and an exhaustive review of more than 27,000 pages of fbi documents by our investigative team shows that ivins had provided yet another sample, and the fbi knew about it. they redacted the information from documents released to the public. we discovered an unredacted version which shows ivins provided the sample to a scientist working with the fbi. it was also a positive match. and as to that claim that ivins was the only one to submit a negative sample-- it has been newly challenged. >> i had various samples from rmr-1029 sitting aside in my refrigerator. in the subpoena, in the collection in 2004, the fbi took all of those. they were all negative. >> interviewer: but how can that be? >> exactly. >> narrator: the justice department's lead prosecutor, rachel lieber, disputes dr. heine's allegation. and we asked director mueller to answer our questions about the fbi case. he declined to participate. the fbi had been watching ivins at home and at work, but they still didn't have one crucial piece of evidence-- the anthrax spores they had never found in the hatfill investigation. >> it was time. they were going to have to do a search of his office, his home, his car, everything. they're looking for a spore. >> narrator: montooth knew the search would put ivins on full alert. >> at that point, we decided that we were going to do our search warrants. and that would be, really, the time when we would tip our hands to dr. ivins that we would... that we were seriously looking at him. >> narrator: but ivins' mental health was fragile. the fbi psychiatrist was warning too much pressure could push him over the edge. >> this was a middle-aged white male with concerns about his health, struggling with substance use, both in terms of prescription drugs and alcohol. this is somebody who was at risk for suicide. >> the arguments go back and forth. is it worth it to go overt? could we risk seeing our main suspect kill himself or go hurt others? and they say, "well, we don't really have any other choice. we're going to go in." >> narrator: on november 1, 2007, postal inspectors and agents from the fbi descended on ivins' home. >> we went up to his residence and started an actual search warrant. simultaneously, we had teams of postal inspectors and fbi agents go interview the family members. and it was at that time dr. ivins learned that, not only was he being interviewed, but his family was being interviewed and the search was going on. >> narrator: they were after spores. they sent in special teams and sealed off the house. >> they execute search warrants at his house, for his cars, at the daughter's apartment, everywhere. and freeze-wrap his cars and cart them away. essentially, looking for any hint of anthrax. >> narrator: but there were no anthrax spores to be found, not in his car and not in his house. to the fbi's own science consultant, it raises serious doubts. >> the fact that no spores were found-- the smoking guns you would have expected to see if he had been the perpetrator weren't there. that's an aspect of the investigation that i think represents a big hole, and really gives me pause to think about, you know, how strong was this case against dr. ivins? >> narrator: without spores or other physical evidence, the fbi was left with a circumstantial case-- odd hours in the lab, a history of mental problems, his peculiar interest in a sorority, and a belief he had tried to mislead them. now, the fbi wanted a confession. and they had leverage-- they knew his history of mental problems, and in his basement, they had discovered his darkest personal secrets. >> what we did find were kind of some unusual things, like he was conducting a shooting range in his basement. he had numerous stun guns and things like that. >> there's women's underwear found. there's guns found. there's all kinds of strange stuff. there's lyrics dedicated to christa mcauliffe, the astronaut who died on the space shuttle. so all kinds of strange little stuff. >> narrator: they called ivins to washington for a formal interview. >> i think that he was nervous. understandably, i think anybody, when they're brought into a room full of fbi agents and prosecutors-- it's not the most comfortable experience. >> he wanted to help them because he thought, by helping them, it could bring this misery to an end. and he was convinced that they wanted to do the right thing. i was not. >> narrator: they began by digging into ivins' interest in kappa kappa gamma. >> and he sat there and said, "oh, you don't understand. it's an obsession, and you can't understand it." >> he methodically explained to us about his habit of driving three or four hours in any given direction to visit kappa kappa gamma houses. >> he basically admits to sneaking into one of kkg's on- campus chapters and stealing their secret cipher book so that he's got all their secret codes. >> the things we suspected, based on just our investigation, were now confirmed by dr. ivins as somebody that had no qualms about conducting late-night surveillance on sorority houses, to see the comings and goings of the coeds to determine when is it safe to break into a house. >> narrator: the guns, the women's underwear, the kappa kappa gamma obsession-- ivins' most humiliating secrets. >> he is now seeing his world come apart. if he's innocent, he has to be feeling that he's going to get crucified. and if he's guilty, he sees the walls closing in. >> he had this feeling that everybody knew, like, everybody was perhaps looking at him, including his coworkers. >> they were using a technique that law enforcement does all the time. and that shows desperation, which is: push the person, lie to the person, try and get him to make some admission. they were headed towards "getting their man." they themselves admitted that they were trying to rescue the reputation of the fbi. >> narrator: at the end, bruce ivins was a wreck, but he wouldn't confess to being the anthrax killer. >> under this kind of pressure, steven hatfill called a press conference and denied that he was the guy. bruce ivins is not made of such stern stuff. and it is clear from records that we can now have access to-- his emails and so on-- that bruce ivins begins to crumble. he is not strong enough to withstand this kind of pressure, and he begins to spiral downward. >> narrator: and the fbi knew it. >> we had him under surveillance at different times. and we would see him walking down the street, muttering to himself, sometimes acting somewhat incoherent. >> it became apparent to us, and we became concerned of it, that he was devolving or starting to lose composure and control. >> narrator: at the army lab, they revoked his access to the hot suites. some of his colleagues were told not to talk to him. >> bruce became, at this point, totally isolated. he stopped coming to the social things. it was starting to take a real toll on bruce, what they were doing, what they were saying to him. >> the federal government is essentially undressing this very secretive, dark, troubled man. he does things that he knows are completely outside the bounds of what are acceptable within the community in which he lives. >> narrator: bruce ivins finally broke. it happened during a group therapy session. >> he spoke about having a gun being delivered to him, and that he was going to go out in a blaze of glory. he ended the session, as i understand, by saying to one of the patients at the group meeting, "you'll see me in the papers." >> narrator: police reports say ivins threatened to take revenge on his colleagues. >> he wasn't going to face the death penalty. he described his plan-- the bulletproof vest, a gun, a list of co-workers, people that had wronged him. >> narrator: the next day, police forcibly removed bruce ivins from the lab. >> i think that was the worst thing that happened to him. >> the base police and the local police showed up and hauled him out of the building. >> being walked out of the place he'd been working at for more than 25 years, where he'd been a trusted and productive colleague, i knew that would have a huge impact on him. >> to listen, press... ( beep ). >> jean, this is bruce ivins. i just wanted to tell you how, just, disappointed and betrayed i feel about what happened. >> narrator: he made a call to his therapist, who had petitioned for him to be involuntarily confined to a mental institution. >> i got arrested by the police. i had the guys with the guns. got roughed up. and it was a terrible experience. the fbi, they're all over my family and all over my case. >> narrator: two weeks later, ivins returned home. with the fbi watching his house, he left a note for his wife. >> i have a terrible headache. i'm going to take some tylenol and sleep in tomorrow. please let me sleep. please." >> narrator: that night, a year and a half after the fbi first started investigating him, bruce ivins took a large dose of tylenol pm. it destroyed his liver and shut down his kidneys. he collapsed in the bathroom. >> he clearly can't take it anymore, and he chooses a very terrible way to die, downs a bottle of tylenol. and it has to have been a slow, agonizing death. >> narrator: he would die in the hospital a few days later. >> a day filled with questions about a major new development in the case of the 2001 anthrax attacks. >> a top u.s. bio-defense researcher has apparently committed suicide. >> news that ivins had become the focus of the fbi's anthrax investigation. >> narrator: at the fbi, director mueller presided over an all-out scramble. they had lost their man. they put together a hastily arranged press conference. u.s. attorney jeffrey taylor spoke for mueller and montooth. >> we stand here today firmly convinced that we have the person who committed those attacks, and we are confident that, had this gone to trial, we would have proved him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. >> narrator: just days after his suicide, the government publicly made its case against bruce ivins. >> we have a flask that's effectively the murder weapon, from which those spores were taken that was controlled by dr. ivins. dr. ivins was working inordinate hours alone at night. he had submitted a questionable sample of anthrax from his flask. he had detailed threats in his group therapy session. he had, "incredible paranoid delusional thoughts at times." based upon the totality of the evidence we had gathered against him, we are confident that dr. ivins was the only person responsible for these attacks. >> narrator: a few days later, ivins' family and colleagues gathered for a memorial service. >> the church was full. i mean, you know, most... most people... most mass murderers don't have that kind of loyalty. it was really sad. it makes me sad to think about it. and it was heartbreaking, having to get together and talk about him and know he's dead. >> narrator: the scientists had watched the fbi operate for nearly seven years, first in pursuit of steven hatfill, and then with the death of bruce ivins. >> i was upset. i had a feeling right then when that had occurred that, you know, again, that the fbi had some role in this. i mean, because of the way that he had been stressed and the way he had been treated. i think they broke him probably a little harder than they thought they would. >> he was hounded to death. whether he was innocent or guilty, i think that pressure is what pushed him over the top. could the fbi have done it differently? i don't know. >> there are calls this morning for a congressional investigation into the 2001 anthrax attacks. >> fbi director robert mueller is on capitol hill today... >> many questions remain about the... >> narrator: on capitol hill, where two of the attack letters had been sent, mueller faced the congress and the cameras. >> i have grave doubts about sufficiency of evidence for proof beyond a reasonable doubt. >> i believe that there are others out there that could be charged with murder. >> there are many unanswered questions the fbi must address. >> we have looked at every lead and followed every lead to determine whether anybody else was involved, and we will continue to do so. >> narrator: mueller couldn't stop the second-guessing. he made a surprising move. >> because of the importance of the science to this case... >> narrator: he handed over the scientific evidence to the national academy of sciences for review. >> ...to undertake an independent review of the scientific approach used during... >> okay, let me interrupt... >> ...the investigation. >> let me interrupt that point... >> narrator: it was a risk. the fbi was asking an independent board of scientists to review the crucial piece of their evidence, that flask they believed was the murder weapon, rmr-1029. >> they're questioning this. they're looking into the science the fbi used to link... >> what does this report mean for the fbi investigation? >> narrator: when the report was finally released, there was a surprise.... >> it is not possible to reach a definitive conclusion about the origins of the b. anthracis in the mailings based on the scientific evidence alone. >> narrator: in a carefully worded statement, the national academy of sciences questioned the fbi's assertion that ivins' flask was the murder weapon. >> the scientific data alone do not support the strength of the government's repeated assertions that rmr-1029 was conclusively identified as the parent material to the anthrax powder used in the mailings. >> narrator: the report found the genetic fingerprint that pointed to ivins' flask wasn't necessarily one-of-a-kind. >> it's not possible to really put a very precise linkage between the letter samples and the flask. >> narrator: it called into question the centerpiece of the fbi's case. >> you couldn't be absolutely certain that the attack powder was made from rmr-1029 based on the science the fbi had used. and that's a serious thing. if it's not the murder weapon, the whole foundation of the case is in jeopardy. because if that's not the murder weapon, then you have to go back to the beginning and say, "well, what was and who had access to that?" >> narrator: the report concluded the fbi overstated much of the scientific evidence against ivins. >> it isn't possible to reach a definitive conclusion based on the scientific evidence alone. it's very important for us to understand the limits of science in an investigation such as this. >> today, a report that undercuts the fbi's case against the alleged anthrax attacker. >> a panel of scientists came out questioning the fbi's findings. >> ...scientifically strong as the fbi made it out to be... >> raising fresh doubt about the investigation. >> narrator: at the justice department, they continue to insist the case is stronger than just the science. >> it's not just the science. it's not just strange behavior on the part of dr. ivins. it's not just an obsession or two. it's not just the mailbox. it's the confluence of all these things taken together. that's compelling evidence. and only when you take a step back and you look at all the evidence taken together can you realize that this is the right person. >> narrator: but after a decade, 600,000 man-hours, and tens of millions of dollars, one of the key scientists who worked on the investigation says she's not convinced the government has made its case against bruce ivins. >> this was not an airtight case, by any means. for an awful lot of people, there is a desire to really want to say that, "yes, ivins was the perpetrator. this case can reasonably be closed." but i think... i think part of what's driving that is the fact that, if he wasn't the perpetrator, then it means that person is still out there. %ç=$ next time - frontline undercover in syria. >>the military has turned against the people. >>reporter ramita navai, with never before seen footage smuggled out of the country. >>a sniper shot him in the head. >>the first inside look at the revolution. >>these people are back on the streets they are absolutely fearless. >>if they don't go out the regime will hunt them down until they are all dead. >>syria undercover. a frontline special report. >> frontline continues online with a closer look at the anthrax samples bruce ivins provided investigators, more about ivins from his friends and colleagues... >> well-respected member... >> ...trusted and productive... >> excerpts of ivins' emails and more of the 27,000 documents collected during this investigation, plus catch up on our reporting about a controversy inside the justice department over whether ivins could have made the anthrax in his lab. then, tell us what you think at pbs.org. >> frontline is made possible by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. and by the corporation for public broadcasting. major funding is provided by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation. committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. and by reva and david logan. committed to investigative journalism as the guardian of the public interest. additional funding is provided by the park foundation. dedicated to heightening public awareness of critical issues. and by the frontline journalism fund, supporting investigative reporting and enterprise journalism. captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org for more on this and other frontline programs, visit our web site at pbs.org. frontline's "the anthrax files" is available on dvd. to order, visit shoppbs.org or call 1-800-play-pbs. frontline is also available for download on itunes. turn to pbs... for stories that define the american experience. it was wild and out of control the flash apparently official revealing our strengths... it shall be called the hoover dam our struggles. he said it is madness beyond measure putting you into history... and taking you to the moment. we have a liftoff these are our stories. it's felt experience our american experience. only on pbs. >> susie: i'm susie gharib with a "nightly business report" newsbrief. stocks tumbled for a second straight day as greece's plan for a vote on cost-cutting measures fueled worries that the euro zone bailout might fall apart. the dow fell 297 points, the nasdaq lost 77, and the s&p 500 off 35 points. bank of america scrapped its plan to charge customers a $5 monthly debit card fee. the bank's decision came after a wave of customer outrage. rival banks including j.p. morgan chase and wells fargo have backtracked from plans to charge customers for using their debit cards. tomorrow, federal reserve chairman ben bernanke holds a news conference after the central bank releases its interest rate decision. for more financial news, tune in to "nightly business report" weeknights on this public television station.

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