Persons of Interest

Every now and then it's fun to drop by Ed Lake's site and see what the conspiracists are saying about Dr. Ivins and the anthrax letter case. For those not keeping score the case was officially closed a short while ago but it's still open in the minds of many doubters, some of whom will be attending a scheduled panel discussion about the case this Monday in Washington, DC.

While Ed has dismissed most of these 'true believers' (he's the Jack Webb of the internet--just the facts) he seems mildly intrigued with a last-minute addition to the panel, a 'terrorism expert' by the name of James Van de Velde. According to Ed's quick search and a explanatory subsequent email Mr. Van de Velde was added "because he was the DOD key government analyst on anthrax."

Lo and behold his resume indicates he has held top clearances and even interviewed a couple of AQ perps at GTMO suspected for their involvement in the AQ bio-weapons program. But there's more.

Seems Mr. Van de Velde was once a 'person of interest' in a murder case himself, much like Dr. Steven Hatfill, except in the former's case there was even less published evidence. Both were seemingly thrown to the media without formal charges due to lack of suspects.

What Ed didn't mention is even more interesting--details about the case--which seem to be right up his alley. Mr. Van de Velde was an educator teaching a military strategies political science course at Yale in 1998 when Suzanne Jovin, a popular 21 year old German-born student was brutally murdered off-campus. Keep that year of 1998 in mind while reading how Wiki describes her last day on earth:

After dropping off the penultimate draft of her senior essay on the terrorist leader Osama bin Laden,

A bit of a 'wow' sentence in hindsight. So, what did her draft thesis suggest?

[read the rest here]