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Second NJ postal worker has skin anthrax
By Lori Hinnant, Associated Press, 10/19/01
EWING, N.J. - As investigators fanned out over the route of a mail carrier with skin anthrax, a second New Jersey postal employee was diagnosed with the disease, officials said.
A 35-year-old Levittown, Pa., man who sorts and loads mail at a regional mail center in Hamilton Township tested positive for skin anthrax Friday. The man had developed a skin rash and was being treated at a Pennsylvania hospital.
Tests on a third postal employee, a maintenance worker who also works at the Hamilton office, were pending.
The mail carrier is suspected to have handled a letter postmarked Trenton on Sept. 18 that was sent to NBC anchor Tom Brokaw. A second letter mailed to U.S. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle was postmarked Oct. 9, after the woman was infected.
The woman's route consists of about 250 addresses where she delivers mail from the West Trenton post office in Ewing.
The woman, whom authorities have not identified, did not remember handling any unusual mail on her route, said mail carrier Jim Bittenbender. He said the woman's route consists mainly of homes and apartments, and some businesses.
"We pick up thousands of letters from this office. One letter carrier may pick up hundreds. It's something you just don't remember," he said Friday.
The woman does not pick up mail from public boxes, Bittenbender said, meaning any outgoing mail would likely come from home or business mailboxes.
Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge, said Friday the FBI had been able to identify the site where anthrax-tainted letters had been mailed to Daschle and Brokaw.
"It was a mailbox," he said of the letter postmarked from the Trenton, N.J., area.
Linda Vizi, an FBI spokeswoman, said officials would not identify the area, but evidence teams will be out talking to residents and visiting homes and businesses.
"Now that we do have one postal worker, it provides the FBI with a source for continued specific investigation," Vizi said. "We are now able to concentrate on this individual's routes and her daily activities with the post office in order to try and find out the source of the anthrax."
The West Trenton postal facility makes about 9,000 deliveries a day, according to manager Kevin Roberts. Ewing, where the office is located, is a working-class municipality of apartments and single-family homes that makes up one of Trenton's three suburbs.
The office is one of 46 facilities in Central New Jersey that feeds into the Hamilton regional office.
Postal officials were examining video surveillance tapes to try to determine the source of the letters. They are also examining the envelopes for clues; both envelopes were pre-stamped.
Clinton Van Zandt, a former FBI profiler who now does threat assessments for companies, said generating a suspect profile from the anthrax-tainted letters involves forensic and behavioral investigations.
In the forensic probe, authorities would look for DNA from saliva or from a stray hair that might have dropped inside. DNA can offer information about the sender's sex and race, he said.
Investigators also would look for fingerprints on the envelope, handwriting, and the type of pen ink used.
"If it's a pen of which two were sold in New Jersey last month, that might be of assistance," he said.
Investigators will also have to question if the sender is associated at all with the Sept. 11 terror attacks, he said.
The sender is "trying so hard to identify it to the events of Sept. 11. One has to question why the writer tries that hard, because it would be so obvious," Van Zandt said.
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