"You know what we do to moles? We kill them!": Did Bruce Ivins Troll YouTube?

Dr. Bruce Ivins, the man the FBI says created the anthrax letters that killed 5 people just after 9/11, may have been a bit of a troll on YouTube, among other sites. It appears as though he was leaving strange comments as recently as 4 weeks ago.

In an add-on to this post, I detailed some of "JimmyFlathead's" activities on Wikipedia, and how Bruce Ivins's screen name on Reunion.com matched him to JimmyFlathead. Ivins's/Flathead's Wikipedia activity dovetails with a report published today indicating Ivins's long-term obsession with the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority.

Five months ago, a woman named Deb posted her first attempts at juggling on YouTube. She received this comment from a user with the screen name "bruceivi": "Way to go, Deb!!!! You probably don't remember me but I'm your sister Jen's Godfather, Bruce. Where did you learn to do all that great stuff? Did you ever try two in each hand? Start with doing two in one hand, then do two in the other, then you can put them together, either alternating throws or throwing at the same time. I used to juggle as stress relief - it's hard to think of other things when you're tossing stuff in the air and trying to keep gravity from winning! - bruce"

Bruce Ivins's juggling hobby has been noted in many reports since the LA Times revealed his status as the FBI's number 1 suspect in the "Amerithrax" investigation.

While bruceivi's comment to Deb was pleasant and supportive, the same screen name was attached to a series of comments left on an entirely different video just 4 weeks ago. The comments were so unpleasant that others kept ranking them down, 'burying' them.

The clip was from Episode 7 of Season one of the ABC reality series, The Mole. You don't need to know much about the show to read the comments from brucivi and wince.

bruceivi posted that readers should "Put the next 3 comments from bruceivi together."

The comments put together as suggested are scary, even for comments left on a YouTube video:

Steve had a great chance to Kill Kathryn that would go down as the primo moment in reality TV.

After the fake fainting he'd say, "Kathryn, do you know what a mole is? It's a blind useless,animal that humans hate. And do you know what we do to moles? We kill them!"

[...]

With that he should have taken the hatchet and brought it down hard and sharply across her neck, severing her carotid artery and jugular vein. Then when she hits the ground, he completes the task on the other side of the neck, severing her trachea as well. The "Blind" mole is dead and Steve is a hero among heroes! I personally would have paid big money to have done it myself.

[...]

Maybe something really dreadful will happen to Kathryn Price. If so, she will richly deserve it! The least someone could do would be to take a sharp ballpoint pin or letter opener and put her eyes out, to complete the task of making her a true mole!

The commenter seemed to almost immediately think about what he'd written, posting, "Sorry if my comments offended people. This occurred several years ago. It was meant as a macabre twist to a pretty lame reality show [...] burceivi. [sic]"

It will be interesting to find out if Kathryn Price ever received any suspicious packages in the mail. A screen capture of the comments can be seen below.