The Anthrax attacks and the Connecticut Connection

Until recently, the only named person of interest in the 2001 anthrax attacks had been Dr. Steven Hatfill, a government bio-weapons researcher. Nothing seems to connect Hatfill directly with the anthrax attacks, and he makes sense as a suspect mainly because of his job. A few weeks ago, the FBI identified a new person of interest, Dr. Kenneth M. Berry, a physician with ties to the development of bio-terror counter-measures. Once again, the job fits, but this time there are additional ties which may prove important. These do not imply that Dr. Berry is guilty of these attacks, but they do suggest that the FBI may be getting closer to their real source.

Of all the Anthrax cases generated by the attacks, only one is truly puzzling: that of 94 year old Ottilie Lundgren of Oxford, Connecticut. She was seemingly unconnected to any of the media agencies and political organizations being targeted, geographically isolated from the other cases, and rarely left her home. Cross-contamination of her mail has been blamed, but anthrax spores were never found at her residence. Her case is an outlier in an otherwise fairly straighforward epidemiology, and any hypothesis which integrates her case more tightly with the others must be examined closely. Dr. Berry's identification as a person of interest adds a few data points which finally bridge some of the distance between Ottilie Lundgren's tragic death and the rest of the Anthrax distribution.

Dr Berry graduated high school and got his first medical job in Danbury Connecticut, 23 miles from Ottilie Lundgren's Oxford residence. His parents still live in the Danbury area. Along with 81 year old Connecticut inventor Ed Wicks, Berry started a business to market systems to clear office buildings of biological and chemical contaminants in the event of terrorist attacks.

Another Danbury area resident, Michael Kielty, has recently made the news. Mr. Kielty was killed in a small plane crash while on a flight from Waterbury-Oxford airport to New York, a trip he frequently made. Mr. Kielty was being investigated by the FBI for undisclosed reasons. He ran a
business which provides call answering services to medical professionals and which has two call centers in upstate New York, where Dr. Berry maintains a residence. Dr. Berry's other residence is in Dover Township, New Jersey. The Anthax letters were all post-marked in New Jersey.

Dr. Berry and Mr. Kielty have something else in common. They were both involved in unsuccessful anti-terror business ventures in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. Dr. Berry attempted to market Mr. Wicks' system for decontaminating buildings, and Mr. Kielty tried to sell the FAA a bar code scanner which he said would improve security at airports.

Whereas the Lundgren case was in many ways an isolated point before the identification of Dr. Berry as a person of interest, it now finds itself much more strongly connected to the other anthrax cases. Kielty and Berry, through their post-9/11 business ventures, connect the Oxford
area with counter terror efforts and thus with the 9/11 attacks. Wicks, the Connecticut inventor and Berry's business partner represents a link to Lundgren's generation. Berry has strong links to both New Jersey and the Danbury, Connecticut area.

Positing a strong Connecticut connection to the anthrax attacks seems a good way of explaining the seemingly inexplicable Lundgren case. The Berry-Kielty story may be the first step to establishing such a connection.

References:

news.newstimes.com...
abcnews.go.com...
www.nj.com.../base/news-17/109195442227900.xml