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Syracuse -- The FBI has evidence that for the past 15 years someone in Syracuse has been panicking office workers with powder-filled letters threatening an anthrax attack.

The pattern is the same: A letter arrives with a mound of white powder inside. The writer claims it's anthrax. It terrorizes the poor soul who opens the letter and has to wait as long as 36 hours to find out it was only baby powder.

Then the terrorist disappears for months, even years.

For 15 years, through 21 scares in Syracuse and throughout the East, the FBI has tried to solve the mystery.

Now the FBI wants help.

The agency is sharing details about the chain of terror. It says the letters contained white powder with threats that it was lethal anthrax spores. But in each case, it turned out to be baby powder, detergent or other nonhazardous materials.

The letters also carry clues about the sender, including his penchant for the writings of a long-dead science fiction writer.

The FBI and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service are offering a $10,000 reward for information that leads to the conviction of whoever sent the powder in 21 threatening letters from Syracuse since 1997.

Ten of the letters went to a high school, a college, a business and a congresswoman’s office in the Syracuse area. The other 11 went to military and police associations, nonprofit groups, government officials, private businesses and TV celebrities all across the eastern United States, according to the FBI.

The mailings started long before the nationwide anthrax scare that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Five people died across the country that year after opening mail that contained anthrax. The FBI closed those cases in 2008 after determining a mentally unhinged scientist was responsible for the deaths and for unnerving Americans nationwide.

Anthrax threats became a cottage industry after the 2001 deaths, with the FBI investigating 2,500 reports of the use or threatened use of the material in 2002. By last year, the number of white powder cases that the agency investigated or responded to had dropped to 178 across the country.

The mailings from Syracuse never contained anthrax or any other hazardous material, FBI Special Agent Dan Capone said. Although some of the Syracuse-area cases were reported in the local media, none of the 21 mailings drew national attention.

The FBI frequently handles anthrax hoaxes, Capone said. But he knew of no other case where it appeared the same person had sent fake anthrax over as many as 15 years.

The FBI wants tipsters to call 1-800-CALL-FBI or go to its website at tips.fbi.gov. All information will remain confidential, the agency said.

The letters were sent from Syracuse in 1997, 1999, 2002, 2010, 2011 and this year. Why so many big gaps? The sender might have been in jail or ill, Capone said.

Five letters went to Bishop Ludden High School from 1997 to 2010, Capone said. Three went to Le Moyne College from 1999 to 2002. One went to U.S. Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle's office in Syracuse last year, just after a similar letter was received at Gaylord Bros., a library supplies manufacturer in North Syracuse, Capone said.

All of the Syracuse letters appear to be from the same person. The FBI’s profile points to a Syracuse-area man who’s at least 35 years old, has had significant contact with the mental health system and may have difficulty functioning independently.

More profiling: The man probably exhibits eccentric behavior that causes people to avoid him. He might talk of strange ideas that seem out of context and express annoyance over junk mail or fundraising efforts.

Those are some of the conclusions of forensic linguists and other experts at the FBI’s behavioral analysis unit in Quantico, Va., who studied the 21 letters, Capone said.

The letter writer seems to have no clear agenda or cause. His point changes from letter to letter, Capone said.

They include references to AIDS, abortion rights; 9/11 conspiracy theories; religion; the Iraq and Afghanistan wars; war crimes and atrocities; the 1993 Branch Davidian incident in Waco, Texas; the oppression of Muslims; the degradation of women; and home-shopping shows, the FBI said.

Tied to horror writer

One peculiarity stands out about the letters — many of them contain passages from the writings of H.P. Lovecraft, an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as "weird fiction." He died in 1937.

Lovecraft’s guiding philosophy was what he called “cosmicism,” or “cosmic horror.” It’s the idea that the universe is hostile to the interests of mankind, and his stories often express an indifference to human beliefs and affairs.

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Capone read three of Lovecraft’s books, looking for clues.

Some of the letters include a hand-drawn eyeball, which might be a reference to a specific Lovecraft character, Cthulhu, Capone said. It's a gigantic creature that lives silently under the ocean, waiting for a cosmic time to rise up. In one story, Cthulhu's described as having tentacles coming out of his face and one all-seeing eye.

Many of the letters include little drawings of daggers with dripping blood, Capone said.

He’s hoping someone might recognize the Lovecraft references and call in a tip.

The letters don't name Lovecraft, but many quote passages from his stories, Capone said. The agent picked up on the connection when he plugged certain sentences or series of words from the letters into Internet searches.



Quirks in the writing

The FBI’s not disclosing the letters, but a news release the agency planned for today includes two pictures of sections of the letters. The handwritten words are in block letters, printed in all capitals. The words are squished together.

One of the pictured letters starts out: “The paper and other materials that you are holding in your hands have been thouroughly (sic) contaminated with anthrax spores. Hopefully you and those around you will soon die a (blacked out word) painful death from anthrax. We have launched full scale attacks against companies that denigrate and discriminate against (blacked out word) and your company has the honor....”

The misspelling of “thoroughly” is repeated in some of the letters, Capone said.

The handwriting probably isn’t the author’s normal writing, he said.

“It’s block lettering, which appears to be someone trying to hide what their real handwriting looks like, but it’s consistent,” he said.

The agency’s hoping someone will recognize the handwriting or something else that’s included in the flier they’re sending to news organizations. Someone might know the special stationery that at least one of the letters was written on, with a preprinted drawing of a teddy bear.

Capone wouldn’t comment on whether the FBI was able to get DNA samples off the letters or envelopes. The agency does have leads, but he would not disclose them. He also wouldn’t say whether there were any suspects.

A puff of powder



Ginger Larson remembers opening one of the letters in May 2011. She works in the accounting office of the Gaylord Bros. factory in North Syracuse. She was sorting the mail that morning in a top-floor office when she opened the envelope to find a piece of folded, lined paper.

“When I opened it up, I got that little puff of powder, like baby powder,” Larson said. “That kind of took me back a little bit. Then I folded it right back up and got away from my desk.”

Firefighters and police responded, but they said they couldn’t tell whether the powder was dangerous until it was tested hours later at the state crime lab in Albany, said Guy Marhewka, the company’s president.

The office was evacuated for a couple of hours before police were able to determine the powder was a detergent, Marhewka said. He has no idea who would have had a motive to target his company.

Larson, 59, said she was concerned after opening the letter, but assumed she’d be all right because she wasn’t having any breathing problems.

She remembers the odd handwriting.

“It was funny writing,” she said. “Not a normal person’s writing. Printing, like a kid’s. There was a sword or something on the paper, with dripping blood.”

Shortly after that, the same mailer sent a letter with white powder to Buerkle’s office in the federal building in downtown Syracuse, Capone said. The office was evacuated.

Le Moyne College and Bishop Ludden got white powder letters on the same day in 1999, according to the FBI.

John O’Brien, head of security at Le Moyne, recalls two more white powder letters in 2002. In each case, the people who opened them were quarantined in the office where the powder was released, he said.

The buildings were evacuated each time, and police and firefighters arrived, he said. The people who opened the letters waited for hours alone, cut off even from rescue workers, before they learned that the powder was harmless, O’Brien said.

Contact staff writer John O'Brien at jobrien@syracuse.com or 315-470-2187.



FBI flyer