Anthrax Case Is a Lure to Persons of Interest

How did the perpetrator transfer deadly anthrax spores to four envelopes linked to the outbreak without exposing himself in the process?

A recent theory -- given weight after the FBI dredged a pond near an Army biodefense lab where a "person of interest" in the case once worked -- is that the transfer occurred underwater, with the help of an airtight plastic box.

So Velis picked up plastic storage containers of several sizes from a hardware store and, accompanied by a reporter for a local radio station, trekked to Rock Creek. There he methodically submerged the boxes, one by one.

His conclusions: 1)Tupperware floats, and 2) Steven J. Hatfill is not guilty.

"Even the shoe box required strong pressure to put underwater and full pressure to keep underwater," Velis said. "You could manipulate something," such as pouring anthrax from a container into an envelope, "but only crudely

Despite what the FBI says, Hatfill -- once a top researcher at the Army lab near Frederick, Md. -- is not the only person of interest in the case.

The anthrax attacks have been a magnet for conspiracy theorists, political radicals and retirees with more than a little extra time on their hands.

The sleuthing, much of it played out on the Internet, started almost immediately after the October 2001 attacks. Even now, as the case threatens to drag on unsolved into its third year, there is no apparent end to it. Twists, such as news reports this month that Hatfill once helped build a mock mobile bioweapons lab as part of a military training exercise, continue to give people something to talk about.

"It is a fascinating mystery," said Ed Lake, a retired computer-systems analyst in Racine, Wis. "There really is a lot of information out there. Everybody comes at it from a different angle."

Before the anthrax attacks broke, Lake spent his time writing screenplays and honing a growing reputation among cyber-sleuths for exposing fake photos of nude celebrities. Now he runs a Web site called The Fake Detective. He says he has received more than 11,000 e-mails from people interested in the anthrax case, and corresponds with a dozen who think they know who did it.

He says a tracking service he uses for his Web site shows that the FBI and the Defense Intelligence Agency are regular visitors.