Summer 2002: FBI Allegedly Harrasses Anthrax Attacks Suspect Hatfill’s Girlfriend

Steven Hatfill, the FBI’s prime suspect in the anthrax attacks at the time, has an unnamed Malaysian-born girlfriend that he has been involved with for several years. According to a complaint by Hatfill’s lawyer, in the summer of 2002 the FBI shows up at her Pacific Northerwest condominium with a search warrant and tells her that Hatfill has “killed five people.” They reportedly tear her home apart, leaving it “look[ing] like a war zone.” [Washington Post, 9/14/2003] These tactics will closely parallel how the FBI will pressure relatives of anthrax attacks suspect Bruce Ivins several years later. In early 2007, FBI agents will reportedly confront Ivins’s wife and son in public and ask his wife, “Do you know he killed people” (see March 2008)?