Anne Hull Article Catalogue

As FBI Paints Ivins as Killer, Friends Recall Him as Good, if Flawed
Two days before he was found unconscious at home, felled by a lethal dose of Tylenol and valium, microbiologist Bruce E. Ivins logged on to one of the "express computers" on the second floor of the library in downtown Frederick.

On the morning of July 10, Jean C. Duley decided she had a phone call to make. She had agonized all night. Her counseling client, Bruce E. Ivins, had announced in a group therapy session the evening before that he was a suspect in the 2001 anthrax investigation and had a plan to kill his co-workers.

Bruce E. Ivins was the type of colleague who would leave a package of M&Ms on the desk of his frazzled boss. He was a "Survivor" junkie who loved deconstructing the latest episode at work. He was known for his groundbreaking development of new-generation vaccines for anthrax but he also kept a flatulence machine in his office that he mischievously operated by remote control with unsuspecting co-workers.

More than a year before the anthrax attacks that killed five people in 2001, Bruce E. Ivins told a counselor that he was interested in a young woman who lived out of town and that he had "mixed poison" that he took with him when he went to watch her play in a soccer match.

Scientist, Counselor Recount Recent Turmoil in Anthrax Suspect’s Life
Late last fall, Bruce E. Ivins was drinking a liter of vodka some nights, taking large doses of sleeping pills and anti-anxiety drugs, and typing out rambling e-mails into the early morning hours, according to a fellow scientist who helped him through this period.

Floodwaters broke through an aging levee here Saturday, swallowing a section of the city's northeast side where authorities had evacuated about 200 homes and 35 businesses, as severe flooding continued to plague the state and other parts of the Midwest.

An Army hearing officer recommended yesterday that 1st Lt. Elizabeth Whiteside, a patient undergoing psychiatric treatment at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, should not face a court-martial or other administrative punishment for having endangered the life of another soldier and attempting suicide while in Iraq.

In a nondescript conference room at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, 1st Lt. Elizabeth Whiteside listened last week as an Army prosecutor outlined the criminal case against her in a preliminary hearing. The charges: attempting suicide and endangering the life of another soldier while serving in Iraq.

Department Responds to Appeals of PTSD Patient
The Department of Veterans Affairs this week doubled the disability benefits of a West Virginia soldier who has been fighting for more compensation since he returned from Iraq, and assured him that he will receive immediate access to more mental health services to treat his post-traumatic stress disorder.

When Her Soldier Returned From Baghdad, Michelle Turner Picked Up the Burden of War
M ichelle Turner's husband sits in the recliner with the shades drawn. He washes down his Zoloft with Mountain Dew. On the phone in the other room, Michelle is pleading with the utility company to keep their power on.

Soldier Is Told Paperwork Errors Will Slow Retirement
After nearly three years as an outpatient at Walter Reed Medical Center, Staff Sgt. John Daniel Shannon had begun the wrenching process of turning himself into a civilian.

On the military plane that crossed the ocean at night, the wounded lay in stretchers stacked three high. The drone of engines was broken by the occasional sound of moaning. Sedated and sleeping, Pfc. Joshua Calloway was at the top of one stack last September. Unlike the others around him, Calloway was handcuffed to his stretcher.

Everything in Ward 3D East is locked, even the windows. Located inside the District of Columbia VA Medical Center, only three miles from the Veterans Affairs headquarters where national health policies are made, the psychiatric ward is a refuge for mentally ill homeless veterans and those plagued by drug and alcohol addictions. This is where Lt. Sylvia Blackwood drove herself before the sun came up one April morning and stayed for seven grim days.

Troops Are Returning From the Battlefield With Psychological Wounds, But the Mental-Health System That Serves Them Makes Healing Difficult
Army Spec. Jeans Cruz helped capture Saddam Hussein. When he came home to the Bronx, important people called him a war hero and promised to help him start a new life. The mayor of New York, officials of his parents' home town in Puerto Rico, the borough president and other local dignitaries honored him with plaques and silk parade sashes. They handed him their business cards and urged him to phone.

Ray Oliva went into the spare bedroom in his home in Kelseyville, Calif., to wrestle with his feelings. He didn't know a single soldier at Walter Reed, but he felt he knew them all. He worried about the wounded who were entering the world of military health care, which he knew all too well. His own VA hospital in Livermore was a mess. The gown he wore was torn. The wheelchairs were old and broken.

Top officials at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, including the Army's surgeon general, have heard complaints about outpatient neglect from family members, veterans groups and members of Congress for more than three years.

The White House and congressional leaders called yesterday for swift investigation and repair of the problems plaguing outpatient care at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, as veterans groups and members of Congress in both parties expressed outrage over substandard housing and the slow, dysfunctional bureaucracy there.

For the past three years, Michael J. Wagner directed the Army's largest effort to help the most vulnerable soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. His office in Room 3E01 of the world-renowned hospital was supposed to match big-hearted donors with thousands of wounded soldiers who could not afford to feed their children, pay mortgages, buy plane tickets or put up visiting families in nearby hotels.

Walter Reed Army Medical Center began repairs yesterday on Building 18, a former hotel that is used to house outpatients recuperating from injuries suffered in Iraq and Afghanistan and that has been plagued with mold, leaky plumbing and a broken elevator.

The guests of Mologne House have been blown up, shot, crushed and shaken, and now their convalescence takes place among the chandeliers and wingback chairs of the 200-room hotel on the grounds of Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

Behind the door of Army Spec. Jeremy Duncan's room, part of the wall is torn and hangs in the air, weighted down with black mold. When the wounded combat engineer stands in his shower and looks up, he can see the bathtub on the floor above through a rotted hole. The entire building, constructed between the world wars, often smells like greasy carry-out. Signs of neglect are everywhere: mouse droppings, belly-up cockroaches, stained carpets, cheap mattresses.

Edward Richmond Jr. says he was doing his duty when he shot a civilian in Iraq, but the Army convicted him of manslaughter. His father's mission is to clear his name.

The father and brothers of John Mark Karr, the man arrested last week on suspicion of killing JonBenet Ramsey in Colorado the day after Christmas a decade ago, do not recall his ever missing Christmas dinner in Atlanta or traveling to Colorado after the holiday, a lawyer for the family said yesterday.

Five years before John Mark Karr was arrested this week as a suspect in the killing of JonBenet Ramsey, law enforcement officials in California investigating him on child pornography charges suspected he may have been involved in the death of the 6-year-old girl, according to a former attorney for the suspect.

The arrest of an American former schoolteacher in the decade-old killing of JonBenet Ramsey created a tangle of questions yesterday about whether the sensational crime has finally been solved, even as the suspect told reporters in Thailand that he had been with the child beauty queen when she died.