Complex Combed for Anthrax Clues

Aug 1, 1:20 PM (ET), By CHRISTOPHER NEWTON

http://apnews1.iwon.com/article/20020801/D7L4MREO0.html

WASHINGTON (AP) - FBI agents wearing protective gloves searched trash bins Thursday at the apartment complex of a former Army researcher considered a "person of interest" in the anthrax investigation.

The search at Detrick Plaza Apartments is connected to the government's anthrax investigation, according to two U.S. government officials, speaking on condition of anonymity.

At the apartment building, the lids of the two trash bins were open, and a dark blue van was parked nearby with its back doors open. White cardboard boxes sat next to the bins.

Federal investigators already have searched the home of former researcher Steven J. Hatfill and questioned him about last year's deadly anthrax mailings.

On June 25, FBI agents, some in protective clothing, removed computer components and at least a half-dozen garbage bags full of material from Hatfill's apartment. But officials said no trace of anthrax was found in his home or at storage unit he rented in Florida.

Hatfill keeps a residence at the apartment building, but has rarely lived there since his apartment was searched, a U.S. official said.

The apartment complex is outside Fort Detrick, where Hatfill worked for two years for the Army Medical Institute of Infectious Disease, center of the nation's biological warfare defense research.

Hatfill worked at the facility until September 1999. Although he probably had access to anthrax, his primary duties didn't involve working with it, a spokesman for the base has said.

The FBI has identified Hatfill as one of 20 to 30 scientists and researchers with the expertise and opportunity to conduct the anthrax attacks, but investigators say he is not a suspect.

Five people died from inhaling anthrax spores mailed last fall.

[Hope they find something soon. Wearing those gloves at work makes the fingernails soft and easy to chip and tear. sometimes painfully.]

-- Anonymous, August 01, 2002