Anthrax Probers Still Seek Md. Leads

Frederick Remains A Focus of Attention

The chatter at the Frederick Stamp Club rarely goes beyond talk about coveted and hard-to-find stamps. But a few months ago, two postal investigators joined the group's meeting to discuss a more pressing, deadly matter: anthrax.

The agents sat at a conference table in a Frederick County church and began to quiz club members, a mix of elementary school students and adults. They politely asked whether anyone had purchased a pre-stamped 34-cent envelope at a postal facility in the Frederick area, the type used in the series of mailings that delivered the lethal 2001 anthrax attacks.

"Unfortunately, none of us had purchased any envelopes in Frederick," said club member Jackson Cope, explaining that the agents wanted to know whether a certain blue-gray shaded envelope had been sold in the area.

It was an interesting night for the stamp club, but another in a long series of dead ends for law enforcement authorities. From stamp clubs to biowarfare research laboratories, the FBI and other agencies are continuing to seek the clues that will unlock the mystery surrounding the attacks that killed five people and sickened 17 others.

The spore-laden letters were mailed in pre-stamped envelopes to the offices of Sens. Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) and Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) and media outlets in Florida and New York. The people who died were two workers at the Brentwood Road postal facility in Northeast Washington, a Florida photojournalist, a New York hospital worker and an elderly Connecticut woman.

"We are going through and doing what we have to do to bring it to a resolution," said Michael A. Mason, head of the FBI's Washington field office. "We are working on this as actively as we did Day One."

About 30 FBI agents and 13 postal investigators are actively pursuing the case, dubbed "Amerithrax." In the past 33 months, agents have traveled to three continents and, according to the FBI, conducted more than 5,280 interviews, issued more than 4,480 grand jury subpoenas and contracted out thousands of hours of lab work, narrowing down the type of anthrax to a strain called Ames.

Yet the investigation keeps returning to the Frederick area, home to the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick. The lab, a possible source of the anthrax bacteria, once employed scientist Steven J. Hatfill, whose apartment in Frederick was searched twice by federal agents in the summer of 2002.

Described in August 2002 by Attorney General John D. Ashcroft as a "person of interest" in the probe, Hatfill is still viewed that way, according to law enforcement sources. They said they also have interest in a small group of other scientists, some of whom have no ties to Fort Detrick. The sources spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing the sensitive nature of the probe.

Hatfill, a medical doctor and bioterrorism expert, has not been charged with any wrongdoing. He has denied involvement in the attacks and has filed lawsuits against the Justice Department and the New York Times, alleging defamation.

The efforts in the Frederick area are being made as authorities try to finalize complex lab tests in hopes of tracing the anthrax to its point of origin. Scientists are hoping to match the gene sequence of the mailed anthrax or a contaminant found inside it to samples collected across the country and overseas, according to law enforcement authorities and other sources.

Scientists are continuing to refine the tests, which could take several months, law enforcement sources said. But the sources and scientists have cautioned that there are no guarantees that the tests will be of great benefit, because the nation's labs used to keep poor records of the whereabouts of anthrax stocks and who came and went at the facilities.

Fort Detrick, the largest employer in the city of Frederick, is one of several labs in the United States that have remained a focus of investigators. Early in the probe, investigators interviewed Fort Detrick's scientists; some were given polygraph examinations.

Last summer, the FBI spent about $250,000 and three weeks draining a pond in Frederick, acting on a theory that someone might have discarded contaminated materials there.