Scientist respected ... and feared

FREDERICK, Md. — Bruce Ivins arrived in July at a group-counseling session at a psychiatric center in Frederick with a startling announcement: Facing the prospect of murder charges, he had bought a bulletproof vest and a gun as he contemplated killing his co-workers at the nearby Army research laboratory.

"He was going to go out in a blaze of glory, and he was going to take everybody out there with him," said a social worker in a transcript of a hearing at which she sought a restraining order against Ivins after the threats.

The ranting represented the final stages of psychological decline by Ivins that ended when he took his life this week, as it became clear that he was a prime suspect in the 2001 anthrax attacks.

For more than three decades, Ivins, 62, had worked with some of the world's most dangerous pathogens and viruses, trying to find cures in case they might someday be used as a weapon. Now he was being questioned about his possible role as the culprit in the nation's worst biological attack.

To some longtime colleagues and neighbors, it was a startling and inexplicable turn of events for a churchgoing, family-oriented germ researcher known for his jolly disposition; the guy who did a juggling act at community events and composed satirical ballads he played on guitar or piano to departing co-workers.

"He did not seem to have any particular grudges or idiosyncrasies," said Dr. Kenneth Hedlund, a retired physician who once worked alongside Ivins at the Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases in Frederick. "He was the last person you would have suspected to be involved in something like this."

But to some anthrax experts, while reserving judgment on Ivins' case, his identification as a suspect fit a pattern they had long suspected might explain the crime: an insider who wanted to draw global attention to biodefense.

Ivins, the son of a pharmacist from Lebanon, Ohio, who held a doctorate in microbiology from University of Cincinnati, spent his entire career at the elite Army-run laboratory that conducted high-security experiments into the world's most lethal substances, ranging from anthrax to Ebola.

He first turned his attention to anthrax — putting aside research on Legionnaire's disease and cholera — after the 1979 anthrax outbreak in the Soviet city of Sverdlovsk, which killed at least 64 people after an accidental release at a military facility, said Hedlund, who worked with Ivins at the time.

The work became more intense after the 2001 anthrax attack, as the field grew tremendously, with billions of dollars in new federal support for research on anthrax and other potential biological weapons and to buy new drugs or vaccines to handle a possible attack.

Ivins was among the scientists who benefited from this surge, as 14 of the 15 academic papers he published since late 2001 were focused on possible anthrax treatments or vaccines, comparing the effectiveness of different formulations. He also worked on the investigation of the anthrax accounts, although this meant that he, like other scientists at the Army's defensive-biological laboratory at Fort Detrick, was scrutinized as a possible suspect.

Ivins and his wife, Diane Ivins, raised their two children in a modest Cape Cod home in a post-World War II neighborhood right outside the gates of Fort Detrick, and he could walk to work each day.

He was active in the community, volunteering with the Red Cross and serving as the musician for many years at a Roman Catholic church. His also showed off his music skills at work, playing the songs he scripted about friends who were moving to new jobs.

"Bruce was an enthusiastic guy," said David Franz, a former head of the Fort Detrick laboratory. "He always was upbeat, with a big smile. It was, 'Colonel Franz, let me tell you what I'm doing.' I think of him as a geek, his pants too short and his pocket protector showing. He had a kind of 1960s look."

But as investigators intensified their focus on Ivins, his life began to unravel. Local police records show unusual calls dating back to this past spring. For at least six months this year, he had been attending group counseling at a psychiatric center and had apparently been seeing a psychiatrist.

W. Russell Byrne, a former of colleague of Ivins' at the biodefense laboratory, criticized federal agents as having needlessly harassed Ivins and his family. "They searched his house twice and his computer once," he said.

He said Ivins was recently escorted away from the laboratory by the authorities and "disgraced in a place he spent his whole career. That was so humiliating. It's hard to believe."

In court records, filed after Ivins discussed his plans to kill his co-workers, a social worker who led the sessions, Jean Duley, said that Ivins' psychiatrist had "called him homicidal, sociopath with clear intentions."

She went on to say that the FBI was looking at Ivins and that he would soon be charged with five murders, the same number of deaths in the anthrax attacks.

"He is a revenge killer," Duley explained to a Maryland District Court judge in Frederick in July, as she sought a restraining order against Ivins. "When he feels that he has been slighted, and especially toward women, he plots and actually tries to carry out revenge killing."

After Ivins made the threats July 9 about possibly killing his co-workers, he was detained at work and taken to a hospital before being transferred to a nearby psychiatric hospital. He was later released but forbidden from going to Fort Detrick.

The police had come to Ivins' home in response to a call early Sunday from the fire department for assistance; they found him unconscious on the bathroom floor. He was transported to the hospital and died two days later.

His family has made no public statement about the investigation or about Ivins' suicide. But his children placed messages on their Facebook pages, saying goodbye to their father, hinting at the torment he went through in his final months.

"I will miss you Dad. I love you and I can't wait to see you in Heaven," his son, Andy Ivins, wrote. "Rest in peace. It's finally over."