According to the account of a fellow scientist, Bruce E. Ivins, the main suspect in the case of the 2001 anthrax attacks, drank a lot during his last fall, took large numbers of pills and was typing ranting e-mails late at night.

The FBI agents harassed the well-known scientist for a long period and even went so far as to offer Ivins' own son and daughter millions of dollars and a new sports cars to convince them to testify against their father. They even confronted the entire family in public at a shopping mall, according to a report by The Washington Post.

The fellow scientist, who spoke with reporters of The Washington Post in conditions of anonymity, said hat Ivins "was e-mailing me late at night with gobbledygook, ranting and raving" regarding the FBI's "persecution" of his family. During that period, FBI agents reportedly showed Ivins' daughter photos of the anthrax victims while telling her that her father was responsible for their deaths. Five people were killed in the period following the September, 11 terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center.

Her twin brother was tempted with a $2.5 million reward and any sports car he wanted to testify against his father in the "Amerithrax" case, as the source put it.

"You killed a bunch of people," the agents told Ivins when he was with his family at a shopping mall in Frederick, Md.

"Do you know he killed people?" they asked his wife.

Ivins was a much respected microbiologist who had worked for many years to design a better anthrax vaccine. He died in a Frederick hospital on August 1 after taking an overdose of painkillers (Tylenol with codeine). The anthrax attack, the only deadly biological attack to take place on U.S. soil, came after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and killed 5 people, sickened 17 others and caused panic throughout the nation.