Four letters laden with Anthrax spores were discovered, all dated by an unknown author as "09-11-01," and all sent from Trenton, New Jersey. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) believes all four of the anthrax letters came from a single individual and were of the "Ames" strain. Two of the letters were postmarked September 18, 2001 in Trenton, one of which was sent to the New York Post (shown below) where it was handled by several staff members, and the other to Tom Brokaw of NBC, opened September 19-25 but not found until October 12, 2001 in case 2's file drawer (shown below). The New York Post letter, handled but not opened, was found on October 19, 2001. It was dampened before being discovered, turning the spore contents into a granular or clumped state.
The second two letters were postmarked on October 9, 2001 and mailed to the Washington DC offices of Senator Tom Daschle of North Carolina, Majority Leader (route shown at left, letter shown below) and Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, Chair of the Judiciary Committee (shown below, envelope only). Both letters went though Washington DC's Brentwood mail processing facility, which handles all incoming federal government mail (see map, 2). Both letters contained the same anthrax strain and were of the same potency.
The Daschle letter was opened in the sixth floor office at 9:45 am by an aide in the Senator's Hart Senate Office Building suite on October 15, 2001. It was believed to contain about 2 grams of powder comprised of 200 billion to 2 trillion spores. Based on nasal swabs, all 18 persons who were in the area of Daschle's sixth floor office tested positive for anthrax exposure, as did 7 of 25 (i.e, 28%) in the area of the Senator's fifth floor office (an open staircase connected the two offices).
The Leahy letter never arrived at his office. Instead an optical reader misread the hand-written 20510 ZIP code for the Capitol as 20520, which serves the State Department. As a result, the letter was routed to the State Department, where it arrived on October 15, infecting a State Department postal worker (case 20). Shortly thereafter, all mail was isolated and sealed in plastic bags for a latter search.
2007-10-05 04:31:12
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answer #1
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answered by sparks9653 6
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