Second Alleged Senate Anthrax Letter Found

Nov. 16, 2001 -- The FBI discovered a second letter they suspect is laced with anthrax that was addressed to Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy, investigators said today.

FBI officials said that the letter appears to be "in every respect" similar to the one opened in Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle's office on Oct. 15.

The contents of that envelope puffed easily into the air and spread widely through the Hart office building, exposing dozens of people to bacteria. Director of Homeland Security Tom Ridge described the Daschle letter as a weapon.

Officials said the new letter was postmarked Oct. 9 from Trenton, N.J., had the same handwriting and the same phony return address from the Greendale School in Franklin Park, N.J. There is no Greendale School in Franklin Park.

Investigators discovered the letter today while going through more than 250 barrels of unopened mail that was impounded immediately after the discovery of the first letter in Daschle's office. Hazardous materials experts began sorting through unopened mail addressed to the Capitol earlier this week at a facility in Northern Virginia.

The second letter has not been opened, the FBI said, but sources told ABCNEWS the bin where it was discovered was "completely contaminated" with anthrax anyway. The letter is on its way to a lab in Ft. Detrick, Md., for further testing.

Leahy's office is in the Russell Senate Building. It is not clear whether the suspected letter ever made it to his building or remained confined with the impounded. Capitol Hill Lt. Dan Nichols said the Russell Building and Dirksen Senate Office Building — which contains a post office— on Capitol Hill will be closed as a precaution to allow investigators to take environmental samples for anthrax detection.

However, health official said there was no reason to believe anyone who works in the Capitol Hill Buildings has been infected with anthrax because 6,500 people have been given nasal swabbings, and no one who works on Capitol Hill has tested positive for the deadly infection.

"We feel that there will be no incident of the disease from this latest letter," said Capitol Hill physcian Greg Martin said. "First off, we very confident because five weeks have passed since the first letter was found, and the window of infection is very small. We've done extensive nasal swabbing and no one has tested positive for the cutaneous or inhalation form of the disease."

Four people have died since the anthrax outbreak began, 17 others have been infected, and dozens more have been exposed. At least two of the deaths and many of the other cases have been linked to the mail sent to the Capitol.

Multiple Letter Theory Validated

Investigators had suspected there was more than one letter responsible for the outbreak. Until today, officials had located three tainted letters nationwide, one each sent to Daschle, NBC newsman Tom Brokaw and The New York Post. All the letters were sent out of Trenton. Last weekend, anthrax was detected in the offices of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Sen. Larry Craig, D-Idaho, and Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., in the Hart Senate office building, and the office of Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, D-Md., in the Longworth House office building.

Earlier this week, State Department officials reported that eight out of 55 samples collected from the agency's mail facility in Sterling, Va., tested positive for anthrax, supporting the theory that a second contaminated letter had passed through the mail system. Two of the samples, State Department Department spokesman Richard Boucher said, were obtained from two separate mail sorters and the six others from a third sorter.

Government officials have said the anthrax sent to Daschle's office was potent, milled to the right texture to infect human lungs, and containing an anti-clumping agent that makes the spores float through the air more easily.

FBI profilers say anthrax-laced letters to Daschle, NBC News and The New York Post were likely mailed by the same person, an angry young man with a grudge who may be familiar with the Trenton, N.J., area.

The letter sent to Daschle's office exposed 28 people to anthrax and closed various offices on Capitol Hill for almost three weeks. One State Department mail handler became ill with inhalation anthrax last month, a case that officials speculated resulted from cross-contamination with a letter mailed to Daschle.

Leahy praised the FBI's efforts today. "FBI Director [Robert] Mueller informed me immediately, and I appreciate his call," he said in a statement. "This is a law enforcement matter and I will leave it to the proper authorities to report what they know and the procedures they are taking. I am confident they are taking the appropriate steps and that eventually they will find this person.

"Our Senate leaders and officers did the right thing in isolating the Senate's mail, and my staff and I appreciate all that is being done to resolve this threat."

The Leahy letter is the first fresh clue in investigation, and the FBI and police in New York had been focusing intently on the death of hospital worker Kathy Nguyen, who had no known links to the government or media offices that have been the targets of the mailings.

See a timeline of the anthrax attacks and the investigation.