Bronx Letter May Hold Clues in New York Death

Postal inspectors are searching for a letter sent to a Bronx address near the home of a woman who died of anthrax, after they determined it was processed at the same time as an anthrax-laced letter mailed Oct. 9 to Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), officials said Sunday.

The letter in question is one of about 300 being tracked by postal authorities who have used bar codes to reconstruct which pieces of mail passed through a sorter at the Trenton, N.J., postal hub within seconds of the Leahy letter. It was sent to an address not far from the apartment of Kathy T. Nguyen, a 61-year-old hospital stockroom worker who died of anthrax in late October.

Another of those letters--found to have a tiny amount of anthrax spores--was recovered Friday at a home about a mile from the residence of a 94-year-old Connecticut woman who died of anthrax last month.

Authorities cautioned Sunday that they still have too little evidence to blame cross-contaminated mail in the inhalation anthrax deaths of Ottilie Lundgren, the Connecticut retiree who never left her home alone, or Nguyen.

The women are the fourth and fifth anthrax fatalities since a bioterrorist attack was launched in September, and at least 13 others have been sickened.

“I wouldn’t call this a break in the [Nguyen] investigation,” said Sandra Mullin, a spokeswoman for the New York City Health Department. “It’s not clear if there was a letter and it’s not clear if it was received by anyone in the Bronx. This may be another dead end.”

Even if the Bronx letter is located, Mullin noted that postal records suggest it was processed immediately before the Leahy letter, reducing the likelihood that it could have been contaminated. The letters--like the anthrax-contaminated letter mailed to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.)--were postmarked Oct. 9 at the same distribution center.

Dan Mihalko, a postal inspector spokesman, said Sunday that there was no evidence that Nguyen or Lundgren received any of the letters believed to have passed through machines at the same time as the contaminated letters.

“We’re looking at a letter that went to the Bronx, but even that would be a bit like what we found in the Connecticut case,” he said. “Both would have required third-hand contamination to be an explanation” for the deaths.

In an attempt to track down all leads, investigators have interviewed employees at two businesses located at the Bronx address and are collecting environmental samples. The businesses were not named by investigators, but Mullin said they were close enough to Nguyen’s home to peak the investigators’ interest.

No employees at either business recall receiving a letter postmarked from Trenton, and there have been no reports of illness, Mullin said.

Results on the environmental samples are expected later this week, she said.

Still, the latest developments establish the first possible link between the women and mail that may have been cross-contaminated.

Meanwhile, in Connecticut on Sunday, state officials found trace amounts of anthrax on four mail sorting machines at a postal facility near Lundgren’s home. It was the first sign of contamination at the Wallingford facility, despite the building having been tested at least three previous times.

Federal health officials have warned that finding contamination can be difficult when there is only a small amount of bacteria.

Nguyen’s and Lundgren’s cases have baffled investigators who struggled to find a trail of anthrax spores to either of their homes. And in light of negative tests for anthrax at their homes or places they frequented, federal health officials have conceded that the more serious inhaled form of the disease might be caused by far fewer deadly spores than previously believed.