WASHINGTON — The FBI on Monday offered reporters a detailed look at the science behind the investigation of the 2001 anthrax mailings, which resulted in five deaths. Genetic signatures of the bacteria were prominent clues that eventually led the investigators to two Erlenmeyer flasks at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at FortDetrick in Maryland.
The investigation had implicated Army microbiologist Bruce Ivins as the perpetrator of the anthrax mailings. Ivins committed suicide last month while under investigation. An affidavit released by the FBI earlier this month described Ivins as “sole custodian” of the batch of spores having the telltale DNA.
But at Monday’s briefings officials conceded that about 100 people had access to the same anthrax batch, called RMR-1029. One other institution, which the FBI would not name, also had anthrax with the same genetic signature, investigators said.
The FBI had obtained an anthrax sample having DNA that linked Ivins to the mailings in early 2002, but the sample was later destroyed, said chemist Vahid Majidi, assistant director for the FBI’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate, who led the briefing with Christian Hassell, director of the FBI Laboratory.