No Physical Evidence

One suspects that the traditional media is pretty much done with the anthrax case, having wrung all it can from the lurid tales of Bruce Ivins' obsessions with sororities and emails depicting a dark side and mental instability. But two aspects of the case stick out like sore thumbs - 1) nobody can place Ivins at the scene of the crime, and 2) the scientific evidence is woefully lacking.

The FBI is hanging its case on the fact that Ivins took an administrative leave on September 17, 2001, at which time they believe he drove to Princeton and mailed the first batch of letters. But it's very unclear whether that narrow window was enough for the 3 1/2 hour ride.

Ivins normally got to work early--around 7:30 AM. Assuming his brief stay was half an hour (are they suggesting he went in and picked up the anthrax? and if so, did anyone ask why he'd do so during daytime hours?), he would have had eight hours to drive to Princeton and back. That's certainly doable--Google says the drive takes 3 hours and 25 minutes. Who knows whether Ivins sped much in his 1993 Honda Civic (in 2001, he also had a 1996 Dodge van; he did not yet have his 2002 Saturn). But even if he went faster than Google says he should have (he would have been driving on I-95, after all, which pretty much requires speeding), he almost certainly would have hit rush hour traffic at least once in his drive, if not twice.

In other words, Ivins could have made the drive, but just barely.

And why Princeton, of course; the Kappa Kappa Gamma connection is extremely weak, and no witnesses placing him at the scene have come forward (in fact, the FBI never even bothered to ask). In addition, if Ivins did mail the letters in that window, the postmarks would have been for the wrong day.

If the Post's reporting about Ivins' September 17 activities is accurate -- that he "return[ed to Fort Detrick] for an appointment in the early evening, about 4 or 5 p.m." -- then that would constitute an alibi, not, as the Post breathlessly described it, "a key clue into how he could have pulled off an elaborate crime," since any letter he mailed that way would have a September 17 -- not a September 18 -- postmark. Just compare the FBI's own definition of "window of opportunity" to its September 17 timeline for Ivins to see how glaring that contradiction is.

And the scientific evidence is even more sketchy. In fact, the FBI provided almost no scientific testing evidence despite dumping hundreds of pages of documents about the case. They banked on the press foregrounding the lurid details and not the hard facts.

Meanwhile, virtually nobody with a science background in microbiology has stepped forward in support of the FBI's conclusion that Ivins was likely the one and only person involved in the 2001 attacks, said Gigi Gronvall, a senior associate with the Center for Biosecurity at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

"[Federal officials] came out and said they'd made the case, but they didn't actually present that science. So it really can't be evaluated," Gronvall said in an interview. "They talked about the genetic signature but they didn't elaborate on what that was. We want to know how they were able to determine that that one flask contained the parent train of what was sent out."

Dr. Meryl Nass' entire blog is worth reading to dissect the numerous holes in this case, but in particular you can check this post about the lack of conclusive evidence. It's damning. Go read it.

This investigation is maddening and I guess we're all going to have to keep screaming about it until key questions are answered.

... I think this aspect of the investigation merits a read, too. Almost everyone who has been suspected as the anthrax killer has ended up eroding under the pressure, because the FBI has hounded these people to the breaking point. They've ruined lives to cover their own asses and now they're pinning the whole thing on a dead man. It's a history of shameful conduct.