Anthrax attacks now being linked to US right-wing cranks By Chris Blackhurst 21 October 2001 In Wynnewood Manor they know her as Terry, the mother in her mid-30s who collected their mail every weekday for three years. Today, Terry is being treated for exposure to anthrax, and black-jacketed FBI agents are swarming over the route she took. The net is closing on the anthrax terrorists and Terry might just be their critical mistake. Terry did not pick up from public post boxes; she dealt only with residential addresses in Wynnewood Manor, a suburb of Ewing, New Jersey, a working-class town west of Trenton, the nearby city. Somebody left Terry a letter to post. If she checked the address, she may have been surprised to see it was for Tom Brokaw, the veteran NBC anchorman. What the suburban terrorist did not realise was that while the envelope to Mr Brokaw was stamped "Trenton, NJ", it also had a Postal Service bar code, which narrowed it down to Terry's sorting office. When she was found to be suffering from anthrax, the search narrowed: she was on duty the day the bar code was franked on Mr Brokaw's envelope; probably, she collected it. Teams of FBI officers questioned residents along the postal worker's tree-lined postal route. Samantha Pae, 34, her fiancé, and her fiancé's mother were interviewed by the FBI, who asked them how long they had lived in the area and whether they had noticed any suspicious activity or observed vehicles with out-of-state plates. Charlotte Piepszak, who has lived in the area for 30 years, said FBI agents asked her if she knew any chemists. One mailbox where the FBI suspects at least one anthrax-laced letter began its journey has now been identified. It has been taken away for tests. Thomas J Ridge, the Bush administration's new director of homeland security, confirmed the FBI "has been able to identify the site where the letters were mailed". At first, given the proximity of the anthrax mailshots to 11 September, the authorities thought they had to be linked to extreme Muslim fundamentalists, probably Osama bin Laden and his Al Qa'ida organisation. But in the last few days that view has changed, with the "crank" theory gaining ground. Investigators are increasingly convinced that a lone individual or group of people living in the US are behind the mailings of the white powder, which have claimed the life of a British-born picture editor and brought parts of the US media, political and economic infrastructure to a standstill. Despite the letters sent to Mr Brokaw in New York and to Tom Daschle, the Senate majority leader in Washington, calling for "death to America" and praising Allah, agents are quick to point out the messages do not mean anything. The letters could have been sent by a right-winger, trying to stir up racial tension in the wake of 11 September and using the hijackings as cover.
More: http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=100635
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