RSSBruce E. Ivins, 2001 Anthrax Suspect Commits Suicide as FBI & Justice Department about to File Charges
The anthrax incident took place in 2001 when the anthrax mailing scare gripped the United States following the attacks of September 11. The hysteria and scare that the anthrax letters caused paralyzed an already frightened post 9–11 America. People were literally afraid to open mail and any white powder became a potential bio-terrorism incident.
The focus by the Feds became Steven Hatfill until he was finally exonerated in the anthrax attacks of 2001 with a $5.82 million settlement. After nearly seven years, according to the LA Times, the Justice department was about to charge Bruce Ivans; however, they were too late. Ivans committed suicide from a drug overdose.
The scientist, Bruce E. Ivins, 62, who worked for the past 18 years at the government’s biodefense labs at Fort Detrick, Md., had been told about the impending prosecution, the Los Angeles Times reported for Friday editions. The laboratory has been at the center of the FBI’s investigation of the anthrax attacks, which killed five people.
Ivins died Tuesday at Frederick Memorial Hospital in Maryland. The Times, quoting an unidentified colleague, said the scientist had taken a massive dose of a prescription Tylenol mixed with codeine.
Tom Ivins, a brother of the scientist, told The Associated Press that another of his brothers, Charles, told him Bruce had committed suicide. (Yahoo)
LA Times: Apparent suicide in anthrax case
Ivins, whose name had not been disclosed publicly as a suspect in the case, played a central role in research to improve anthrax vaccines by preparing anthrax formulations used in experiments on animals.
Regarded as a skilled microbiologist, Ivins also helped the FBI analyze the powdery material recovered from one of the anthrax-tainted envelopes sent to a U.S. senator’s office in Washington.
Ivins died Tuesday at Frederick Memorial Hospital after ingesting a massive dose of prescription Tylenol mixed with codeine, said a friend and colleague, who declined to be identified out of concern that he would be harassed by the FBI.
- Jonathan Turley: Anthrax Suspect Commits Suicide as FBI Closes In
- BBC: Anthrax ‘suspect’ is found dead
- CNN: Anthrax suspect kills self before filing of criminal charges
UPDATE I: Feds promise to release details on anthrax murder suspect
UPDATE II: Social worker: Anthrax suspect was ‘homicidal’; Government researcher apparently killed himself as prosecutors closed
Ivins’ lawyer said the brilliant but troubled scientist was innocent but would never have a chance to prove it.
Friday’s sudden naming of Ivins as the top — and perhaps only — suspect in the anthrax attacks marked the latest bizarre twist in a case that has confounded the FBI for nearly seven years. Last month, the Justice Department cleared Ivins’ colleague, Steven Hatfill, who had been wrongly suspected in the case, and paid him $5.8 million.
Posted August 1, 2008 by Scared Monkeys 9/11, Arrest, Crime, Government, War on Terror | 11 comments |
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11 Responses to “Bruce E. Ivins, 2001 Anthrax Suspect Commits Suicide as FBI & Justice Department about to File Charges”
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Another article said that the government was going to seek the death penalty. That is perhaps the most obvious statement possible; anything less would have been an insult to the victims and to the American people.
Since this ‘person’ killed himself before being arrested and charged, one tends to conclude that he was in fact guilty.
We will never forget the fear that swept the country. The Florida office of the National Enquirer, an entire building, had to be decontaminated, I believe, and there was at least one victim.
A number of ordinary people just happened to be the recipients of envelopes laden with anthrax spores. It was hard to imagine, at the time, that this was not related to the 9/11 attacks.
As far as I know, today we are still at risk from this sort of indiscriminate potential terrorism. There’s no way to adequately protect ourselves.
All we can do is wonder why.
Now that this is back in the news … does everyone (anyone?) remember the death of Harvard professor Don C. Wiley in November 2001? I don’t swallow every conspiracy theory that comes along, but this always seemed suspicious to me.
Dr. Wiley was a professor of biochemistry at Harvard and was one of the world’s most prominent experts in viruses.
He was attending a scientific meeting in Memphis, Tenn. On the night of November 16 he left the meeting. At 4 a.m. his car was found on the Hernando deSoto bridge connecting Memphis and Arkansas; the gas tank was full.
It was first believed that he had committed suicide, presumably by jumping off the bridge. That “explanation” was laughed off by everyone who knew him.
In January 2002 it was determined that he had stopped the car on the bridge … possibly after being sideswiped or some kind of minor collision … and that a big truck going by had caused air currents that knocked him into the water.
His body was found far downstream in the Mississippi River in December 2001.
On October 1, 2001, just three days before the first reported anthrax case in Florida, the Hughes Center announced that a joint Harvard-Hughes team had identified a mouse gene that made mice resistant to anthrax bacteria. Professor Wiley had been in Memphis attending the annual meeting of the Scientific Advisory Board of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
I have read comments on a blog (now defunct, I believe) from a woman who worked on that bridge doing maintenance or something. She said that she was 5 feet tall and weighed 110 pounds, or something similar, and that she had never seen, experienced, or heard of any such thing.
I’ve also read that the railing on the bridge was tall enough so that the 6’3″ Wiley (I believe) could not have been blown off of it.
Something seems very odd about this to me.
What about the other fellow who just won that multi million dollar settlement from the FBI ? I think he was the one we all heard so much about in the press….I must have totally missed the stories on the guy…
Richard’s second comment is intriguing. Has anyone really considered who Ivins is or what his motives could have possibly been? Why has there been not a shred of evidence linking him to the letters? Also, it makes absolutely no sense, if you know anything about the guy, that he was the one who sent those letters.
I’m no fan of conspiracy theories either, but remember that scientist who was found dead in the UK a few years ago, also, conveniently, by suicide, in very suspicious circumstances?
Something very odd indeed.
SuzyQ (#3) … I think you’re referring to Hatfield, the scientist on whom suspicion centered for quite some time?
I really don’t understand why the media aren’t making a much bigger story out of this anthrax issue than is happening. Maybe they don’t remember how frightening this was … for God’s sake, weren’t anthrax spores found in Congressional offices? It seemed as if the whole thing was the result of some terror plot.
Maybe it wasn’t … maybe … but since it happened around the time of 9/11, it certainly seemed plausible. And regular people of no importance ingested this stuff, simply from opening their mail, and died.
The consensus now is that this scientist who just killed himself was acting alone, perhaps trying to test his cure. Isn’t it wonderful how the media give us instant explanations … I guess so we can get back to Hollywood, TV, and the real issues of importance.
Matthew (#4) … Here’s the text of an article on the Internet that might interest you. It’s about the series of suicides/deaths of GEC-Marconi scientists in Britain.
Coincidence? Perhaps, but it seems very odd.
One article says that one victim, a 26-year-old woman who worked as a personal assistant at this company, was found dead in a pond. The British police “explained” that she had bound and gagged herself, hopped across the road in that condition (and while wearing stiletto high heels), and jumped in the pond.
Seems like a lot of trouble to go to ….
Who Killed All Those
British Star Wars Scientists?
Did 22 SDI Researchers really ALL Commit Suicide?
9-7-7
Fifty-year-old Alistair Beckham was a successful British aerospace- projects engineer. His specialty was designing computer software for sophisticated naval defense systems. Like hundreds of other British scientists, he was working on a pilot program for America’s Strategic Defense Initiative–better known as Star Wars. And like at least 21 of his colleagues, he died a bizarre, violent death.
It was a lazy, sunny Sunday afternoon in August 1988. After driving his wife to work, Beckham walked through his garden to a musty backyard toolshed and sat down on a box next to the door. He wrapped bare wires around his chest, attached the to an electrical outlet and put a handkerchief in his mouth. Then he pulled the switch.
With his death, Beckham’s name was added to a growing list of British scientists who’ve died or disappeared under mysterious circumstances since 1982. Each was a skilled expert in computers, and each was working on a highly classified project for the American Star Wars program. None had any apparent motive for killing himself.
The British government contends that the deaths are all a matter of coincidence. The British press blames stress. Others allude to an ongoing fraud investigation involving the nation’s leading defense contractor. Relatives left behind don’t know what to think.
“There weren’t any women involved. There weren’t any men involved. We had a very good relationship,” says Mary Beckham, Alistair’s widow. “We don’t know why he did it…if he did it. And I don’t believe that he did do it. He wouldn’t go out to the shed. There had to be something….”
The string of unexplained deaths can be traced back to March 1982, when Essex University computer scientist Dr. Keith Bowden died in a car wreck on his ay home from a London social function. Authorities claim Bowden was drunk. His wife and friends say otherwise.
Bowden, 45, was a whiz with super-computers and computer- controlled aircraft. He was cofounder of the Department of Computer Sciences at Essex and had worked for one of the major Star Wars contractors in England.
One night Bowden’s immaculately maintained Rover careened across a four lane highway and plunged off a bridge, down an embankment, into an abandoned rail yard. Bowden was found dead at the scene.
During the inquest, police testified that Bowden’s blood alcohol level had exceeded the legal limit and that he had been driving too fast. His death was ruled accidental.
Wife Hillary Bowden and her lawyer suspected a cover-up. Friends he’d supposedly spent the evening with denied that Bowden had been drinking. Then there was the condition of Bowden’s car.
“My solicitor instructed an accident specialist to examine the automobile,” Mrs. Bowden explains. “Somebody had taken the wheels off and put others on that were old and worn. At the inquest this was not allowed to be brought up. Someone asked if the car was in a sound condition, and the answer was yes.”
Hillary, in a state of shock, never protested the published verdict. Yet, she remains convinced that someone tampered with her husband’s car. “It certainly looked like foul play,” Hillary maintains.
Four years later the British press finally added Bowden’s case to its growing dossier. First, there appeared to be two interconnected deaths, then six, then 12–suddenly there were 22.
Take 37-year-old David Sands, a senior scientist at Easams working on a highly sensitive computer-controlled satellite- radar system. In March 1987 Sands made a U-turn on his way to work and rammed his car into the brick wall of a vacant restaurant. His trunk was loaded with full gasoline cans. The car exploded on impact.
Given the incongruities of the accident and the lack of a suicide motive, the coroner refused to rule out the possibility of foul play. Meanwhile, information leaked to the press suggested that Sands had been under a tremendous emotional strain.
Margaret Worth, Sand’s mother-in-law, claims these stories are totally inaccurate. “When David died, it was a great mystery to us,” she admits. “He was very successful. He was very confident. He had just pulled off a great coup for his company, and he was about to be greatly rewarded. He had a very bright future ahead of him. He was perfectly happy the week before this happened.”
Like many of the bereaved, Worth is still at a loss for answers. “One week we think he must have been got at. The next week we think it couldn’t be anything like that,” she says.
This wave of suspicious fatalities in the ultrasecret world of sophisticated weaponry has not gone unnoticed by the United States government. Late last fall, the American embassy in London publicly requested a full investigation by the British Ministry of Defense (MoD).
Members of British Parliament, such a Labour MP Doug Hoyle, copresident of the Manufacturing, Science & Finance Union, had been making similar requests for more than two years. The Thatcher government had refused to launch any sort of inquiry.
“How many more deaths before we get the government to give the answers?” Hoyle asks. “From a security point of view, surely both ourselves and the Americans ought to be looking into it.”
The Pentagon refuses comment on the deaths. However, according to Reagan Administration sources, “We cannot ignore it anymore.”
Actually, British and American intelligence agencies are on the situation. When THE SUNDAY TIMES in London published the details of 12 mysterious deaths last September, sources at the American embassy admitted being aware of at least ten additional victims whose names had already been sent to Washington. The sources added that the embassy had been monitoring reports of “the mysterious deaths” for two years.
English intelligence has suffered several damaging spy scandals in the 20 century. The CIA may suspect the deaths are an indication of security leaks, that Star Wars secrets are being sold to the Russians. Perhaps these scientists had been blackmailed into supplying classified data to Moscow and could no longer live with themselves. One or more may have stumbled onto an espionage ring and been silenced.
As NBC News London correspondent Henry Champ puts it, “In the world of espionage, there is a saying: Twice is coincidence, but three times is enemy action.”
Where SDI is concerned, a tremendous amount is at stake. In return for the Thatcher government’s early support of the Star Wars program, the Reagan Administration promised a number of extremely lucrative SDI contracts to the British defense industry–hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars the struggling British economy can little afford to lose.
Britain traditionally has one of the finest defense industries in the world. Their annual overseas weapons sales amount to almost $250 billion. The publicity from a Star Wars spy scandal could seriously cut into the profits.
It would appear that only initial promises made to Prime Minister Thatcher hold the U.S. from cutting its losses and pulling out. A high-ranking American source was quoted in the SUNDAY TIMES saying, “If this had happened in Greece, Brazil, Spain, or Argentina, we’d be all over them like a glove!”
The Thatcher government’s PR problem is that the scandal centers around Marconi Company Ltd., Britain’s largest electronics-defense contractor. Seven Marconi scientists are among the dead.
Marconi, which employs 50,000 workers worldwide, is a subsidiary of Britain’s General Electric Company (GEC). GEC managing director Lord Wienstock recently launched his own internal investigation.
Here’s an article from Wikipedia which gives more information on the ‘suicide’ of the young woman referred to above:
Mysterious deaths of GEC-Marconi scientists
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Between 1982 and 1990 twenty-five British based GEC-Marconi scientists and engineers who worked on the Sting Ray torpedo project, and other US Strategic Defense Initiative related projects (better known as Star Wars), are known to have died in mysterious circumstances.
Police investigations found the deaths to be unconnected. The death of the British defence journalist Jonathan Moyle, who was found hanged in his Santiago hotel room on 1 April 1990, has been the subject of speculation as being connected to the Marconi deaths. [1]
Overview
In 1986 a Bristol coroner, Donald Hawkins, spoke of a possible “James Bond” connection between the deaths of two computer experts involved in key underwater defence projects. Since then the mysterious deaths and accidents of other defence workers came to light.
Most incidents occurred after the men have successfully completed important projects or left one job for another.
Four of the dead men were employees of the GEC group – three at Marconi and one at EASAMS. Two others worked at separate times at the Royal Military College of Science at Shrivenham. An investigation by Computer News established that most of the men were involved in computer simulation, a key part of defence procurement.
At the time GEC-Marconi was Britain’s only torpedo supplier and in 1986 was awarded a £400 million GBP order from the Ministry of Defence for advanced anti-submarine Sting Ray torpedoes. The Royal Military College at Shrivenham is also involved in a number of Britain’s leading edge defence projects. The college develops new testing devices for the Ministry of Defence and is engaged as a subcontractor to defence companies on research and development.
All the men involved were ambitious and demonstrated a special ability in their particular field. After every death, police gave unofficial press briefings which provided journalists with plausible, though unconfirmed, explanations for the accidents or apparent suicides. None of the men had any apparent motive for killing themselves. The major problem for the police has been the lack of any obvious signs of depression in any of the cases. Several British Members of Parliament have demanded a full government inquiry, including Labour MP and life peer Doug Hoyle, who was the co-president of the Manufacturing, Science & Finance Union. The Thatcher government refused to launch any sort of inquiry. The Pentagon also refused to comment on the deaths. The British government contends that the deaths are all a matter of coincidence.
The answer to the mystery may never be known, at least in the short term. As one investigating police officer said: “We’ll probably know all the answers when the papers are released in 30 years time.” NBC News London correspondent Henry Champ famously wrote, “In the world of espionage, there is a saying: Twice is coincidence, but three times is enemy action.”
Specific incidents
Vimal Dajibhai
Marconi Underwater Systems employee Vimal Dajibhai, 24, an electronics graduate and computer-software engineer who worked on the guidance systems of the Tigerfish and Stingray torpedoes, and also an SDI related simulation system, based at Croxley Green, Hertfordshire, was about to leave Marconi for a higher-paying job in the City of London, and was found dead 250 feet beneath the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol (a city with which he had no known connection), 100 miles from his home in London, on 4 August 1986. He had told his wife that he would be working late that night. The police report on the body mentioned a needle-sized puncture wound on his left buttock which led to the funeral being halted seconds before the cremation was to take place, reportedly so that a second post-mortem could be carried out by a Home Office pathologist. A police press conference later announced that the wound was caused by a bone fragment. Friends had confirmed that there was no reason for Dajibhai to commit suicide and denied that he had been suffering from depression or had any history of personal or emotional problems. At the time of his death, Dajibhai was in the last week of his employment with Marconi. An inquest was unable to determine whether Dajibhai had been pushed off the bridge or whether he had jumped and the coroner’s verdict remains open. There had been no reported witnesses.
Arshad Sharif
Marconi Space and Defence systems employee Arshad Sharif (also known as Ashad or Ashaad), 26, a London based computer analyst and programmer reported to have been working on systems for the detection of submarines by satellite, was also found dead in Bristol on 28 October 1986. Sharif allegedly drove to a public park not far from where Dajibhai had died and tied a nylon ligature around a tree and the other end around his neck, then drove off in his Audi 80 automatic car at high speed, decapitating himself. Marconi initially claimed Sharif was only a junior employee, although co-workers stated that he was apparently about to be promoted and take over the running of a department at Marconi’s Stanmore, Middlesex headquarters, and had worked for a time in Vimal Dajibhai’s section. Sharif spent the last night of his life in a rooming house, which he had paid for in cash and was reportedly seen to have a bundle of high-denomination banknotes in his possession. While the police were told of the banknotes, no mention was made of them at the inquest and they were never found. Prior to working for Marconi, Sharif had also worked at British Aerospace on guided weapons technology. Investigating officers maintained that he had killed himself because he’d been jilted by an alleged lover, whom he hadn’t seen in three years and who contends that she was only his landlady whilst he was working for British Aerospace in Bristol. Sharif also had a fiancée in Pakistan at the time. Authorities claimed to have found a taped message in Sharif’s car “tantamount” to a suicide note. On it, officers said, he’d admitted to having had an affair, thus bringing shame on his family. Family members who’ve heard the tape say that it actually gave no indication of why Sharif might want to kill himself. Sharif’s family were told by the coroner that it was “not in their best interest” to attend the inquest. He also had no history of depression, and there was absolutely no reason for him to be in Bristol at the time. The coroner’s verdict was suicide.
David (Edwin) Skeels
David (Edwin) Skeels, 43, an engineer with Marconi who was found dead in his car in February 1987. He was a victim of carbon monoxide poisoning, and a hosepipe was found which led from the exhaust pipe of his car. The coroner’s verdict was suicide.
David Sands
David Sands, 37, a senior scientist and satellite projects manager working for Easams, a sister company to Marconi, in Camberley, Surrey on sensitive computer controlled satellite radar systems, SDI and other air defence related projects, died when his car, carrying two additional five gallon petrol cans, exploded into flames as it crashed into the brick wall of a disused café at high speed in 30 March 1987. He had allegedly made a sudden U-turn on a dual carriageway while on his way to work and was found still wearing his seatbelt. The car exploded on impact and he was killed instantly. Sands, who was up for a promotion at the time, had just returned from a family holiday in Venice to celebrate the completion of a three-year command-and-control systems project. Given the incongruities of the accident, and the lack of a suicide motive, the coroner refused to rule out the possibility of foul play and an open verdict was returned. Information leaked to the press suggested that Sands had been under a tremendous emotional strain. Margaret Worth, Sands’s mother-in-law, claims these stories are totally inaccurate. “When David died, it was a great mystery to us,” she admitted. “He was very successful. He was very confident. He had just pulled off a great coup for his company, and he was about to be greatly rewarded. He had a very bright future ahead of him. He was perfectly happy the week before this happened.”
Victor Moore
Marconi Space and Defence Systems employee and design engineer Victor Moore, 46, had just finished work on infrared satellites at Portsmouth when he was found dead in February 1987 from a drug overdose. The coroner’s verdict was suicide, and is said to have instigated an MI5 investigation, the results of which remain secret. There is also a separate investigation into Marconi based at Portsmouth by the Ministry of Defence Serious Crime Squad.
Peter Peapell and Dr John Brittan
Two lecturers on top secret projects died in separate ‘accidents’ of carbon monoxide poisoning. Both had recently returned from America and had conducted research at the Royal Royal College of Military Science at Shrivenham, Oxfordshire:
The first, Peter Peapell, 46, a scientist, senior lecturer and underwater acoustics expert, was found dead beneath his car on 22 February 1987, with his face near the tail pipe and the door to the garage of his Oxfordshire home closed. He had been working on testing titanium for its resistance to explosives and the use of computer analysis to process signals emitted by metals, he was also a consultant on beryllium metallurgy(which is useful in nuclear weapons design). On the night of his death, Peapell spent an enjoyable evening out with his wife, Maureen, and their friends. When they returned home, Maureen went straight to bed, leaving Peter to put the car away. When she woke up the next morning, she discovered that Peter had not come to bed and went looking for him. Upon reaching the garage, she noticed that the door was closed. Yet she could hear the car’s engine running. She found her husband on his back with his head parallel to the rear car bumper and his mouth directly below the exhaust pipe, with the car engine running. Initially, Maureen thought her husband’s death was an accident. She presumed he’d gotten under the car to investigate a knocking he’d heard driving home the night before, and that he’d gotten stuck. However, the light fixture in the garage was broken, and Peter hadn’t been carrying a flashlight. The coroner’s inquest could not determine whether the death was a homicide, a suicide or an accident returning an open verdict, and police are unsure exactly how the accident happened with the circumstances of his death raising some elements of doubt. A constable of the same height and weight as Peter Peapell found it impossible to crawl under the car when the garage door was closed. He also found it impossible to close the door once he was under the car. His death was due to carbon monoxide poisoning, although carbon deposits from the inside of the garage door showed that the engine had only been running a short time. Yet, Mrs. Peapell had found the body almost seven hours after she’d gone to bed. According to Maureen Peapell, Peter had no reason to kill himself. They had no marital or financial problems. Peter loved his job, and he’d just received a sizable raise. According to colleagues he’d also exhibited “absolutely no signs of stress.”. Foul play has not been ruled out.
The second, Dr John Brittan, 52, a former computer science officer and Ministry of Defense tank batteries expert at the Royal Military College was also found dead in a parked car in his garage, on 12 January 1987. The engine was still running. The coroner’s verdict was accidental death by carbon monoxide poisoning. Dr. John Brittan had also worked at Camberley.
Stuart Gooding
On 10 April 1987 Stuart Gooding, 23, a post-graduate research student at the Royal Military College at Shrivenham was killed in a fatal car crash while on holiday in Cyprus. The death occurred at the same time as college personnel were carrying out exercises in Cyprus. He died instantly when his hire car collided head on with a lorry. The lorry driver was said to be unhurt. At least one senior employee at the college considered that the death could be significant. The coroner’s verdict was accidental death.
Avtar Singh Gida
Avtar Singh Gida, 27, who was employed under contract by the MoD Admiralty Research Establishment and Marconi Space and Defence Systems, disappeared mysteriously on 8 January 1987 while writing his doctoral thesis on underwater acoustic signal processing at Loughborough University, just three weeks away from its successful completion. Both mainland police and Interpol launched searches for him in several countries, without success. However, he was eventually found four months later on 8 May 1987 working under an assumed name in a Paris sweatshop for illegal migrants. He claimed that he did not know precisely how he had got there. No charges were laid and police considered the case closed. Allegedly, he later returned to his work and stated that he does not want to discuss his disappearance nor the death of his colleague, Vimal Dajibhai. His PhD thesis entitled Synthetic Aperture Sonar, was finally successfully submitted in 1988 [2]
Robert Greenhalgh
In 1988 Robert Greenhalgh, a contracts manager at ICL’s defence division at Winnersh near Reading, suffered multiple injuries after falling from a railway bridge on his way to work. The firm admitted he had been positively vetted and may have had access to secret UK and NATO data.
Shani Warren
Shani Warren (26) was a personal assistant in a company called Micro Scope, which was taken over by GEC Marconi less than four weeks after her death. Found drowned in 18in (450mm) of water, not far from the site of Greenhalgh’s death fall. Warren died on April 10, 1987, exactly one week after Gooding’s death and Greenhalgh’s injury. She was found gagged with a noose around her neck. Her feet were also bound and her hands tied behind her back. Coroner’s verdict: Open. (It was said that Warren had gagged herself, tied her feet with rope, then tied her hands behind her back and hobbled to the lake on stiletto heels to drown herself.)
References
Newspapers
“Demand government explanation of deaths, disappearance”, AP (19 March 1987).
“Defence Scientists Mystery Deepens”, Financial Times (3 April 1987).
“Open verdict on satellite scientist’s car crash”, The Guardian (23 April 1987).
Collins, Tony (30 April 1987). “Defence deaths: the facts behind the story”, Computer News.
“Mystery of the dead scientists: Coincidence or conspiracy?”, AP (6 February 1988).
“Britain baffled by deaths of 10 scientists involved in security”, AP (10 April 1988).
“Computer magazine says scientists’ deaths don’t add up”, AP (13 April 1988).
“Deaths which must be investigated”, The Independent (26 August 1988).
“Scientists’ deaths ‘not a plot’”, The Daily Telegraph (13 February 1989).
Magazine articles
“Who’s Killing The Star Wars Scientists?” (June 1989). Hustler 15 (12): 67–92.
Books
Collins, Tony (1990). Open verdict: an account of 25 mysterious deaths in the defence industry. Sphere Books. ISBN 0-7474-0146-2.
Kroll Inc., Jerome Hauer, Giuliani.
July 3rd, 1976, Germany- Kroll
[...] Brown, criminal profiler, discussing the Bruce Ivins Anthrax investigation. Is the case truly solved, and do the feds have the right [...]
You have mentioned the case oif the death of Jonathan Moyle. As I was myself drawn into this case, I can tell you that, contrary to what was claimed at the time, there was no attempt by the British Government to smear Moyle by alleging that he had died in a sex accident. I was then British Council Director in Chile, and read about the case in the local press. The descriptions of how his body was found tallied exactly with accounts of such accidents in books on Forensic Medicine, and I
You have mentioned the case of the death of Jonathan Moyle in Chile in 1990. Contrary to what was claimed by the press, there was no attempt by the British Government to smear Moyle by alleging that he had died in a sex accident. I was then British Council Director in Chile, and read about the case in the local press. The way in which he was found exactly matched descriptions of such accidents in medical textbooks. I was surprised that the Chilean authorities did not seem to have considered this explanation, but thought that Moyle had committed suicide; this was strongly opposed by his family. I happened to meet Malcolm Coad, correspondent of the Guardian at a reception, and asked him whether he knew if the accident theory was being considered. It was clear from his reply that he had himself been thinking along those lines. However, he chose to interpret my approach as being prompted by MI6 or the Embassy, which was not true. He ought to have realised that MI6 would never use a British Coun cil officer as a mouthpiece. This error by Coad fouled up the whole case, and induced Moyle´s family to enter upon a long and costly legal battle. It is true that they did eventually get a British Coroner´s verdict of unlawful killing, though I find that hard to accept. The important thing is to realise that Moyle´s death was NOT an example of the British authorities trying to hush up the death of a secret agent, and it therefore has therefore little or no relevance to the Marconi deaths or that of Gareth Williams. Beware of pressmen who don´t let the truth get in the way of a good story!