FOUR LETTERS FOUND

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. 

On November 16, 2001, the Leahy letter was found, then after special preparation, was opened on December 6 in a laboratory setting  (see photo). It contained about about one gram of anthrax, made fresh no more than two years before it was sent. The contents of the enclosed letter were identical to the wording of the Daschle letter. The anthrax spores in the Daschle and Leahy envelopes were uniformly between 1 and 3 microns in size, and were coated with fine particles of frothy silica glass. More investigation is underway.

Also processed at the Trenton, New Jersey postal facility was a small number of letters sent to the Southern Connecticut Processing and Distribution Center in Wallingford, Connecticut (see map).  Here letters arrived on October 11 that had been cross-contaminated with anthrax spores from the October 9 Daschle or Leahy envelops.  Anthrax spores were found on mail-sorting equipment (see photo) in Wallingford. One letter that went through the Wallingford distribution center was found in Seymour (see map), nearby to Oxford (see map) where case 23 resided. Likely case 23 was infected via a similar cross-contaminated letter that came in contact with mail in the distribution center in Wallingford (not discovered).

Most uncertain is the origin of case 22, although there is a connection between case 22's neighborhood and the Trenton, N.J. post office.  A printout from the post office showed that an unrelated letter went to a shop around the corner from case 22's home.  This unrelated letter was processed two minutes after the Leahy letter and 18 minutes before the Daschle letter. Thus the mail sent to case 22 might also have been cross-contaminated with spores from the Leahy or Daschle  envelops.  Alternatively, case 22 might have had contact with one or more of the unrecovered September 18th letters following their disposal in Manhattan, similar to case 19 and case 21.  Click here for a graph of possible exposure sources for case 22.

Many months later on March 1, 2002, a final case of cutaneous anthrax arose in Texas in one of several private laboratories contracted by CDC to analyzed the multitude of environmental samples that emanated from the contaminated letters (addenda).  The lab worker cut himself while shaving, the next day handled an anthrax specimen without gloves, and touched the anthrax spores to his chin.  

SEVEN LETTERS SENT

The person(s) who caused the outbreak probably mailed seven letters containing anthrax spores and similar written messages from Trenton, New Jersey.  Five of the letters were sent on September 18 (postal facilities, cases 3, 4 [probable cross-contamination]), one going to American Media in Boca Raton, Florida (cases 5 and 7) (not recovered); a second to the New York Post (cases 1, 19, 21) (recovered); a third to Tom Brokaw of NBC News (cases 2, 6) (recovered); a fourth to ABC News (case 8) (not recovered); and a fifth to Dan Rather of CBS News (case 9) (not recovered).  On October 9, two more letters were sent from Trenton, N.J. (cases 10, 11, 12, 13, 18 [probably cross-contamination]) via Brentwood mail processing facility (cases 14, 15, 16, 17), one to Senator Tom Daschle (recovered) and the other to Senator Patrick Leahy (case 20) (recovered).  Letter(s) cross-contaminated with the Daschle and Leahy letters were sent from Trenton, N.J. to Wallingford, CT, with at least one letter probably going to Oxford, CT (case 23).  The final anthrax case in the outbreak remains a mystery, but possibly arose from contact with the September 18 letters or cross-contamination with the October 9 Leahy letter in Trenton, New Jersey. To do so, spores from the Leahy letter would need to have adhered to an envelop of another letter destined for the Bronx, New York City (case 22). 

In summary, the 22 cases (one was removed by CDC) that comprised the American Anthrax Outbreak of 2001 likely had contact with one or more of seven spore-laden envelopes.  A final case, bringing the total to 23 but not considered by Professor Frerichs to be part of the initial outbreak (see addenda), occurred months later in a Texas laboratory worker following direct contact with a vial of anthrax spores. 

Click for news account of New York Post anthrax letter (10/21/01)

Click for news account of Ames strain in letters (10/26/01)

Click for description of Ames strain and weaponizing procedure (11/12/02)

Click for news account of problems with envelope content analysis (11/29/01)

Click for speculation on spore seepage through envelops (11/30/01)

Click for news account of cross-contaminated mail in Connecticut (12/1/01)

Click for news account of fumigation done in Daschle's office (12/2/01)

Click for news account of cross-contamination in Wallingford, Conn. (12/2/01)

Click for news account of cross-contamination in Bronx, New York City (12/3/01)

Click for news account of new thoughts about anthrax exposure (12/3/01)

Click for news account of letter connections in the Bronx (12/4/01)

Click for news account of opening of Leahy letter (12/7/01)

Click for news account of letter-tracking process (12/7/01)

Click for MMWR account of Brentwood postal facility anthrax testing (12/21/01)

Click for news account of difficulties with anthrax spore investigation (12/27/01)

Click for news account of over-looked studies on cross-contamination  (2/11/02)

Click for news account of planned Brentwood postal facility cleanup (3/26/02)

Click for follow-up of Texas laboratory worker (4/4/02)

Click for FBI characterization of anthrax in Leahy letter (4/8/02)

Click for news of unusual coating of anthrax in Leahy letter (4/11/02)

Click for or news account of planned Hamilton postal facility cleanup (4/12/02)

Click for news account of likely Wallingford, Conn. cross-contamination (5/1/01)

Click for news account of laboratory analysis of letters (5/7/01)

Click for theory on role of mail sorting equipment (5/9/02)

Click for theory on few spores needed for cross-contamination (5/14/02)

Click for brief FBI update on content of anthrax letters (5/18/02)

Click for CDC case designation of Texas laboratory worker (6/7/02)

Click for news account of planned Hamilton postal facility cleanup (6/10/02)

Click for news account of Brentwood postal facility cleanup (6/14/02)

Click for news account of people in Hamilton Township, NJ postal area (6/23/02)

Click for news of possible health effects of irradiating mail (7/2/02)

Click for news account of irradiating mail sent to Washington DC (7/29/02)

Click for news account of past developments (9/02/02)

Click for news account of past developments (9/18/02)

Click for one-year follow-up of anthrax outbreak - part one (10/7/02)

Click for one-year follow-up of anthrax outbreak - part two (10/8/02)

Click for news of coating of anthrax spores (10/28/02)

Click for news account of FBI's use of "reverse engineering" of anthrax (11/2/02)

Click for news account of immune response to anthrax in Daschle letter (11/12/02)

Click for news account of vaporizing quality of anthrax spores in office environment (12/10/02)

Click for dramatic account of early cases and 16 month follow-up (3/03)

Click for news account of cleanup of Brentwood postal facility (5/18/03)

Click for two-year follow-up of anthrax survivors (9/18/03)

Click for new information on two distinct varieties of anthrax in mailed letters (7/4/04)

New York City Letters

Postmarked Sept. 18, 2001

Washington DC Letters

Postmarked Oct. 9, 2001

Enlarged New York Post envelop

Very enlarged text of New York Post envelop

Enlarged New York Post letter

Very enlarged text of New York Post letter

Enlarged Tom Brokaw envelop

Very enlarged text of Tom Brokaw envelop

Enlarged Tom Brokaw letter

Very enlarged text of Tom Brokaw letter

Enlarged Senator Daschle envelop

Very enlarged text of Senator Daschle envelop

Enlarged Senator Daschle letter

Very enlarged text of Senator Daschle letter

Enlarged Senator Leahy envelop

Enlarged Senator Leahy letter