Justice Department Filing Casts Doubt on Guilt of Bruce Ivins, Accused in Anthrax Case

by Mike Wiser, PBS Frontline, Greg Gordon, McClatchy Newspapers, and Stephen Engelberg, ProPublica July 18, 2011, 8:03 p.m.

Update (7/19): On Tuesday, Justice Department lawyers retracted statements that question the FBI's finding that a former Army microbiologist mailed the anthrax-filled letters that killed five people in 2001.

This story was co-published with PBS FRONTLINE and McClatchy.

WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department has called into question a key pillar of the FBI's case against Bruce Ivins, the Army scientist accused of mailing the anthrax-laced letters that killed five people and terrorized Congress a decade ago.

Shortly after Ivins committed suicide in 2008, federal investigators announced that they had identified him as the mass murderer who sent the letters to members of Congress and the media. The case was circumstantial, with federal officials arguing that the scientist had the means, motive and opportunity to make the deadly powder at a U.S. Army research facility at Fort Detrick, in Frederick, Md.