More Anthrax, More Mystery

By Michael Lemonick

Two months after the first cases of anthrax were diagnosed, the FBI still knows next to nothing about who has been spreading the disease through the mail and why--and the death of Ottilie Lundgren of Oxford, Conn., from inhalation anthrax makes things even more confusing. It's hard to imagine that the woman, 94, was a target. Her mailbox had no sign of the bacteria, and though her aging immune system may have been less resistant to spores than a younger person's, investigators are baffled. Unlike Kathy Nguyen, the New York City hospital worker who died four weeks ago after contracting an equally mysterious case of anthrax, Lundgren rarely left her house. The FBI hopes that retracing her forays will lead to a clue as to where she picked up the bug.

Meanwhile, FBI investigators are exploring new theories of who might be behind the anthrax terror. One idea: the culprit had collected the spores a while ago but did not send them until pushed over the edge, perhaps by the events of Sept. 11. "Did somebody close to him get killed in the World Trade Center, in the Pentagon or on one of the planes?" asks an investigator. Still, that does not explain Ottilie Lundgren.

--By Michael Lemonick. Reported by Elaine Shannon

With reporting by Elaine Shannon