Diane Ivins, widow of Army scientist Bruce Ivins, walks to a van en route to the Fort Detrick chapel for a private ceremony for her late husband on Wednesday, Aug. 6, 2008 near Frederick, Md. Ivins "was the only person responsible" for anthrax attacks in 2001 that killed five and rattled the nation, the Justice Department said Wednesday, backing up the claim with dozens of documents all pointing to his guilt. While the department was disclosing its case to the families of victims of the anthrax mailings, family, friends and colleagues gathered to mourn the loss of Ivins, who committed suicide last week.

WASHINGTON (AP) _ Army scientist Bruce Ivins had in his lab highly purified anthrax spores that were linked to the 2001 attacks that killed five and access to the distinctive envelopes used to mail them, the government declared Wednesday, releasing a stack of documents to support a damning though circumstantial case.



Ivins, a brilliant but deeply troubled man who committed suicide last week, was the anthrax killer whose mailings rattled the nation in the worst bioterror case in U.S. history, just a month after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, federal prosecutors asserted. They were backed by court documents that were a combination of hard DNA evidence, suspicious behavior and, sometimes, outright speculation.



Ivins' attorney said the government was "taking a weird guy and convicting him of mass murder" without real evidence. Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa called for a congressional investigation.