Due to the fact that the FBI didn’t pursue the right suspect in the 2001 anthrax attacks, they disregarded several early clues that drew attention to the top government scientist Bruce E. Ivins, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Last week, a federal judge unsealed a document, as well as other data which showed that, within some months of mailing the anthrax-laced letters in the weeks following the Sept. 11 terror attacks, the federal authorities were positioned to be aware of several significant clues pointing to 62-year-old Ivins.

The U.S. microbiologist, who is currently pinpointed as the government's lead suspect, committed suicide last month by taking a massive dose of Tylenol mixed with codeine.

The FBI agents and U.S. Postal Service inspectors decided to examine a hair sample recovered from a mailbox in Princeton, with the intention of linking Ivins to the anthrax-contaminated letters that were sent to Senate offices and media organizations.

 According to the statement of U.S. Attorney Jeff Taylor, there is “ample evidence” suggesting the Army scientist was the one who drove to Princeton and mailed the envelopes, which killed five people and injured 17, traumatizing a whole nation.

"He had the hours in the hot seat during the relevant times. We looked at the records when he was at work and when he would have had time to drive to Princeton, N.J," Taylor said in a press conference held last week. “There's also evidence I'll refer you to in the affidavits concerning where that mailbox was located in Princeton, N.J., in relation to some obsessive conduct on his part with regard to a sorority It's a chain of evidentiary items that, assembled together, leads to one reasonable conclusion, and that is Dr. Ivins mailed that anthrax in those envelopes from that mailbox in Princeton."

However, the hair doesn’t match the lead prime suspect.