FREDERICK, Md. – Bruce E. Ivins, the late microbiologist suspected in the 2001 anthrax attacks, told his psychotherapist after learning he was about to be indicted that “he was going to go out in a blaze of glory, that he was going to take everybody out with him,” she said.
Social worker Jean C. Duley also said Ivins left her a telephone message in mid-July, after she had alerted police to his threats, telling her that that her actions had made it possible for the FBI “to now be able to prosecute him for the murders.”
Duley testified at a Frederick County District Court hearing July 24 in a successful bid for a protective order from Ivins. The New York Times obtained a recording of the hearing and posted it on its Web site yesterday.
Duley testified that Ivins had tried to poison people even before the 2001 attacks.
“As far back as the year 2000, the respondent has actually attempted to murder several other people, either through poisoning . . . he is a revenge killer. When he feels that he's been slighted or has had – especially toward women – he plots and actually tries to carry out revenge killings,” she said.
Duley added that Ivins “has been forensically diagnosed by several top psychiatrists as a sociopathic, homicidal killer. I have that in evidence. And through my working with him, I also believe that to be very true.”
Duley told the judge she was “scared to death” of Ivins.
Ivins, 62, who worked at an Army biodefense laboratory at Fort Detrick, Md., died Tuesday, two days after taking an acetaminophen overdose, as federal authorities were preparing to charge him in the deaths of five people poisoned by anthrax sent through the mail.
Duley told the court that she had known Ivins for six months and had been meeting with him for group sessions weekly and for individual counseling every other week.
She said that on July 9, Ivins showed up for a group session “extremely agitated, out of control.” She said that when she asked him what was wrong, he said he had obtained a gun and described to the group “a very long and detailed homicidal plan” to kill his co-workers.
Duley said she called Ivins' two lawyers and the city police, who went to Ivins' workplace and had him committed for a psychiatric evaluation.
