Hair at post office not anthrax suspect's

WASHINGTON, Aug. 14 (UPI) -- Hair recovered from a mailbox in Princeton, N.J., doesn't match the lead suspect in the deadly 2001 anthrax attacks, federal investigators said.

FBI agents and U.S. Postal Service inspectors analyzed the data to try to place Fort Detrick, Md., scientist Bruce Ivins at the location where the anthrax-laced letters were sent to U.S. Senate offices and media outlets, sources told The Washington Post

The hair sample was among the evidence that still mystify investigators in the case, which apparently ended after Ivins committed suicide July 29 as federal prosecutors were preparing to indict him. Friends and former colleagues say they want to know about the DNA advances authorities say pointed to a flask in Ivins's lab, the Post said.

Defense lawyer Paul F. Kemp said he wonders "where Ivins could have possibly stored this anthrax without any employees seeing it, or if he took it home, why there was no trace" of the spores, despite repeated FBI searches.

The Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday said it will call FBI Director Robert Mueller to testify at a Sept. 17 hearing and the House Judiciary panel is seeking to conduct a separate oversight hearing in September, the Post said. The hearings could be the first public forum in which the FBI's handling of the case and the strength of the evidence against Ivins is examined.

The anthrax mailings killed five people and forced thousands to receive vaccines.