An odd mix of relief and disbelief for survivors, families

Ernest Blanco is a man of fortitude and faith.

After a near-lethal struggle with anthrax that left him weak and sick for months, the mail room clerk remained convinced that the FBI would find out who sent the deadly, bacteria-filled letters that killed five people and made 17 people ill, even as the investigation stretched into its seventh year.

For Blanco, now 80, Friday's news that a prime suspect had committed suicide was long-awaited and he greeted it with relief.

"I think that'll be the last of it," said Blanco, who still works for tabloid publisher American Media.

Survivors of the anthrax attacks and relatives of the victims expressed a range of emotions Friday, from gratitude to skepticism.

"It's closure, and that's the important thing," said Joseph Curseen Sr., the father of a postal employee who was killed by anthrax.

Mary Morris, widow of postal worker Thomas Morris, said she deeply appreciated the news.

Survivor Patrick O'Donnell, 42, who sorts mail in Hamilton, N.J., had mixed emotions.

"It seems like it just never ends," he said. "This is the last thing I wanted to hear. I do not want to say anything bad. This [Ivins] family is going through enough."

He said he believes he still might have symptoms from the anthrax spores. "Mental, physical, I'm tired all the time, headaches," he said. He's trying to put it behind him, but said "every three or four months, something happens and it brings it back to square one."

David Hose, of Winchester, Va., who was hospitalized after inhaling anthrax spores in 2001, said Friday that he did not believe the government's account. Hose, a supervisor at a State Department mail facility in Sterling, Va., in October 2001, had filed a $12 million lawsuit against the government. He suggested that the government was trying to set up Ivins as a fall guy in a case.

"Don't believe it," he said of Friday's news. "The poor guy probably died of a heart attack. Would a doctor choose Tylenol as his form of suicide?"