UPDATE -- As this post was being written, MSNBC reported that Bruce Ivins may have been obsessed with a particular sorority, and frequently posted messages about that sorority online -- particularly in Wikipedia. There was even a user talk page with a screen name associated with Ivins: JimmyFlathead. That screen name could be found directly connected to Ivins at Reunion.com. Ivins -- as JimmyFlathead -- was apparently obsessed with the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority and may have altered Wikipedia entries about the sorority.

Here's what someone wrote to JimmyFlathead regarding his "obsession" with that sorority: "I stand by my comment that most of the negative content on the page is merely there because you bullied folks with threats of adding negative content and through personal emails. I don't much care for the tone.

"Furthermore, I can't understand the obsession. Why do you feel the need to add all this? Why Kappa? All the fraternity and sorority pages have ongoing vandalism, I just can't understand why you are so intent to contribute vandalism and negativity to ours. Just trying to correct what I perceive to be unfair bashing for no good reason."

MSNBC also reported that a Kappa Kappa Gamma chapter is located just a few hundred yards from the mailbox investigators think the anthrax killer used to mail his messages of doom.

See: http://jimmyflathead.blogspot.com/ -- Possible blog begun by Ivins, based on screen name. One entry only. Also: JimmyFlathead's User contributions page at Wikipedia. That screen name contributed mostly to discussions about Kappa Kappa Gamma.

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Original Post

Anthrax researcher Dr. Bruce Edward Ivins killed himself with an overdose of Tylenol with codeine last week. Federal investigators were closing in, preparing to charge the 62-year-old microbiologist with the "Amerithrax" murders that took place just after 9/11/01.

At the time of his death, Ivins's therapist had a restraining order against him. In the papers filed for that order, Ivins was referred to as "homicidal" and "sociopathic."

If Bruce Ivins was a homicidal psychopath, the essence of a truly "mad scientist," it didn't necessarily show in the way he presented himself to the public.

Ivins and his wife were frequently mentioned in the Frederick News-Post, and beginning in the late 1980s, Ivins's own words were often published in the form of letters to the editor. What, if anything, could Ivins's own words reveal about his mind, about the way he viewed the world around him?

Bruce Ivins wasn't introduced to readers of the Frederick paper as a scientist. The paper first took an interest in Bruce Ivins, the juggler.

The article published in March, 1982 was about juggling classes being offered at a local high school. It portrayed an Ivins who was both self-effacing and a bit of a show-off. He'd been into juggling for at least 10 years at that point and would sometimes just start juggling fruit in the produce aisle at the supermarket.

Ivins said he was a "klutz," and juggling was his route to correcting that. While he was at the University of North Carolina, Ivins said he was a faculty advisor to the school's Juggling Association. In 1979, he and his wife moved to Gaithersburg, MD, and he formed a group called the Gaithersburg Jugglers.

Ivins told the News-Post reporter that he was more of a teacher than performer. According to him, most jugglers had a "real fear" of dropping everything they were using and being laughed off the stage.

The News-Post published a number of Ivins's letters to the editor after the Los Angeles Times' remarkable scoop revealing the scientist's status as the number 1 suspect in the storied anthrax letters investigation. A photo caption on the page said that Ivins wrote 8 letters to the News-Post editor between 1998 and 2004, but he'd actually begun writing to the paper in the late 1980s. Ivins's letters frequently seemed to provoke other readers.

In early December, 1989, Ivins wrote a letter defending Father Bruce Ritter from another letter writer from October that year. The October letter dismissed Ritter as an "extreme anti-porn propagandist" due to Ritter's membership in the 1986 U.S. Attorney General's Commission on Pornography.

Ivins wrote, "Bruce Ritter founded Covenant House in New York City several years ago. Since its beginning Covenant House has provided shelter — and the possibility of a new future — to thousands of teen- agers. These have been boys and girls who have left home, often due to intolerable conditions, or who have been thrown out of their homes." Ivins continued, expounding on the plight of the "throwaway kids" helped by Covenant House. He listed all the good things Father Ritter did for the children at Covenant House, giving them food and shelter, counseling if needed, even helping some runaways reconcile with their families.

Then Ivins struck an odd note: "I am well aware of organizations such as the Rene Guyon Society and Man-Boy Love, which promote sexual relationships between adults and children and 'sex before eight or else it's too late,' and which do not find child pornography particularly objectionable. I realize that there are social scholars who find nothing morally repugnant about photographs, movies or videos of children in explicit sexual situations, since they believe that this merely reflects our society's recognition that children are sexual beings."

According to Bruce Ivins, Father Bruce Ritter had "personally witnessed the destruction of youth through prostitution and pornography, and he knows that these 'victimless crimes' do indeed have very pathetic, very young victims. He is justifiably angered and saddened by them. His experiences with these unfortunate kids over the years has made him a vigorous opponent of exploiation of children for prostitution and pornography."

It was a ringing endorsement that expressed both the writer's compassion for these young victims and his affinity for what he seemed to view as Ritter's good cause.

Just one year later, Bruce Ritter stepped down from his position at Covenant House under allegations of financial and sexual impropriety. If Ivins ever wrote a public response to Ritter's disgrace, it isn't available.

In September, 1993, Ivins wrote a letter titled, "Opinions on NAMBLA Wanted." A portion of that letter read, "In a clear case of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, this past week the University of the District of Columbia denied the North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) the use of its campus facilities for the purpose of holding a conference [...] I would like to ask News-Post readers [...] to contribute their opinions to this page on the question of whether individuals whose sexual orientation is children should be protected from discrimination in employment, housing, adoption rights and other areas..."

Other readers responded in later editions of the paper with shock, essentially accusing Ivins of being a pedophile himself. Eventually he had to clarify what he meant. The News-Post published his clarification on Sept. 29, 1993: "Several persons have pointed out to me that I neglected to present my opinion on the subject and, realizing my oversight, I would now like to do so. I am totally opposed to NAMBLA and its goals. It is disgusting that such an organization even exists. Furthermore, it is frightening that laws which prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation will allow pedophiles to adopt children and to hold jobs where they will be in close contact with children."

In essence, Ivins was trying to bait readers of the News-Post, and it blew up in his face. On the Web, that's known as "trolling." Trolls post irrelevant messages in online forums in an attempt to bait other readers into emotional responses. Sometimes trolls play stupid, asking provocative questions to which they think they know the answer in a purposefully innocent manner, so that they may then "school" anyone who responds. Ivins seemed to fit the latter mold in his letters to the editor.

To be sure, there is doubt about Ivins's status as the newest and according to the FBI, most solid suspect in the anthrax case. Many of his co-workers at Fort Detrick have strong doubts about his guilt, and believe that pressure from the FBI essentially drove Ivins to suicide.

Though Ivins seemed to like attention and his steady stream of letters to the Frederick paper from the 80s up until just a couple of years ago showed a need to have his voice heard, to speak out, those things don't speak to a sociopathic personality. A little narcissistic, maybe, but only in a garden-variety way. Also reflected in Ivins's letters is a conservative outlook, leaning towards the libertarian. It would be all too easy to find thousands of posts on the Web right now from people who probably shared many of his views.

If the FBI and the forensic psychiatrists who called him sociopathic are right about Bruce Ivins, the motivations for the anthrax letters may always remain obscure. Since he researched and patented vaccines for the toxin, he may have wished to set up a scenario where he was some kind of hero, saving the day with a new and innovative solution to the random infections.

Whatever the case, it is easy to read about the juggling Bruce Ivins in the 80s, see photos of him smiling as he demonstrated his avocation at fairs and on stage, and understand in some small way why so many of his colleagues find it hard to believe that he could have killed 5 people for no sensible, easily-discernible reason. Maybe he was eccentric, conservative, even obsessive. But was Bruce Ivins truly a serial killer? Even if the FBI has solid scientific proof -- and they claim they do -- this is a case where it seems like doubts will always linger.