Anthrax Suspect May Have Had Sorority Obsession

The Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority at Princeton University might be the key to explaining why letters from the 2001 anthrax case were sent from Princeton, N.J., almost 200 miles from the lab from which officials believe the anthrax was smuggled, the Associated Press reports. Bruce Ivins, a former Army biowarfare scientist who killed himself last week as the Justice Department prepared to indict him on capital murder charges for the deaths of five people in the anthrax attacks, allegedly had a long-standing obsession with the sorority, federal officials say.

According to documents released Wednesday, the FBI documented through E-mails, chat-room postings, and interviews a decadeslong fascination. The FBI says it may have dated to Ivins's college days at the University of Cincinnati, where he may have been rejected by a sorority member in the 1960s, and may have continued through his post-doc years at the University of North Carolina.

Although the FBI could not find a direct link between Ivins and the Princeton chapter of the sorority, authorities thought it more than coincidental that the Kappa Kappa Gamma chapter office was just 100 yards from the mailbox from which the anthrax letters were sent.

In a Web posting traced back to Ivins, the anthrax suspect wrote, "Kappas are noted for being lovely, highly intelligent campus leaders. Unfortunately, they labeled me as an enemy decades ago, and I can only abide by their 'Fatwah' on me." Ivins also said that at one point he knew more about the sorority "than any non-Kappa that had ever lived," according to the Associated Press.

The Washington Post reports that Ivins often updated the sorority's Wikipedia page, using the name Jimmy Flathead, and posted in GreekChat, an online forum, that a sorority member was one of "two of the people (yes, they're friends) that I admire most in my life.... Both are world-renowned scientists and pioneers in their respective fields."

Nancy L. Haigwood, a former UNC grad student , outlined Ivins's obsessive interest in her sorority when their time coincided at Chapel Hill. From the Post:

According to Haigwood, now the director of the Oregon National Primate Research Center in Portland, Ivins's "intrusive" questions made her uncomfortable, but his curiosity did not end when they both left North Carolina.

In 1982, after Ivins took a job at Fort Detrick in Maryland and Haigwood coincidentally had moved to [nearby] Gaithersburg, Haigwood walked out of her apartment one morning and discovered that someone had spray-painted "KKG" in red letters on her boyfriend's car and on a fence behind their house. Haigwood reported the incident to the police and told them she suspected Ivins. "It was very upsetting," she said, but when she confronted Ivins, he denied that he did it.

Haigwood said she also thinks that Ivins wrote a letter in her name the next year to the Frederick News-Post, claiming to be a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma. The letter defended hazing. "No matter what the press may say about us, I'm still proud to be in a sorority, proud to be counted among our country's very best," it said.

Ivins's behavior prompted Haigwood to contact the FBI in 2002 after the American Society for Microbiology circulated a note saying that the person responsible for the anthrax attacks was probably a microbiologist and asking members to report any tips.

"I think the people who work with Bruce do not know him completely," Haigwood said.