Wednesday, October 31, 2001

No anthrax in suspicious letter; 2 similar mailings found
By Erin LaMourie
Staff Reporter

The suspicious letter received Monday that temporarily evacuated the radio-TV-film department and the TCU Post Office tested negative for anthrax and is believed to have been sent from a woman in Pennsylvania, Bob Adams, Fort Worth U.S. Postal Inspector said Tuesday.

The woman’s name will not be released because no criminal act was committed and the letter did not pose a threat, Adams said.

“If I had (arrived first) at TCU, I don’t think I would have been concerned about (the letter),” he said.

TCU Police Chief Steve McGee said he does not know what information was in the letter.

Don Burelli, spokesman of the FBI, said more than 200 suspicious samples from around the Dallas-Fort Worth area have been taken to the FBI testing lab in Dallas since the end of September. The tests revealed no traces of anthrax in any of the mailings, Burelli said.

Adams said a nearly identical letter addressed to TCU was intercepted at the Fort Worth Post Office. He said the letter had similar writing on it and contained the same Southeastern, Pa. postmark.

Kelly Ham, TCU police detective, said he will meet with Adams today to examine the second letter.

Adams said there is no pattern of organizations where the woman sends letters. Her mailings are religious in nature and believed to have began before the terrorist attacks, Adams said.

The Fort Worth Post Office also intercepted a letter addressed to Coors Brewing Company in Golden, Colo. with a similar message but on the upper left hand corner of the envelope was the women’s return address instead of the word “clean!” that was written on the other two letters addressed to TCU, Adams said.

After being intercepted, the letter was sent to Coors upon the company’s request, he said.

Adams said he does not know the significance of the word clean written on the upper left hand corner of the letters addressed to TCU, but he said the woman could have been trying to communicate that the letters were free of any foreign substance.Coors representatives said Tuesday they did not know about the letter addressed to their company.

Erin LaMourie
e.m.lamourie@student.tcu.edu