When the mailings with sugar packets marked "anthrax" arrived at Sacramento television stations last month, some employees simply threw them away.
A local rock radio station tried to play the compact disc contained in the letters, thinking it came from the band Anthrax. A pregnant newsroom worker who opened the one that came to The Bee started to toss it, then notified the human resources department after consulting another employee.
But the same mailing resulted in the evacuation of a congressman's office in Modesto and a hazardous materials response at the San Diego Union-Tribune, where emergency officials went in wearing protective gear.
"When these incidents do occur … it is a costly exercise in getting all the FBI responders out there," said Sacramento FBI spokesman Steve Dupre. "Even though a lot of them aren't real, it still causes a lot of chaos and expense."
There has not been a real anthrax attack in the United States since the 2001 anthrax mailings that killed five people, sickened 17 others and shut down Congress.
But Marc Keyser still worries about the state of the nation's emergency preparedness, as well as Osama bin Laden's plans to continue attacking the nation.
"This nation's got to deal with reality," Keyser said this week during an interview in his small Sacramento apartment.
Keyser, it should be noted, is the 66-year-old former teacher indicted Thursday by a federal grand jury for allegedly mailing out 120 letters nationwide containing packets of sugar marked "anthrax." The packets were accompanied by CD copies of his book, "Anthrax Shock and Awe Terror," which notes on the cover that "America has never been in such graver (sic) danger."
It is not the first time he has been accused of a hoax anthrax mailing, and he doesn't deny he did it.
"Nothing was meant to happen," said Keyser, who faces 10 counts of hoax mailings and three counts of mailing threatening communications. "It was a warning of the dangers we face."
Keyser, who is free on $25,000 bail, faces up to 70 years in prison if convicted on all counts.
His attorney, Assistant Federal Defender Rachelle Barbour, said Keyser simply has been trying to warn the public of the danger he sees.
"The last thing Marc Keyser wants is for people to focus on him and miss the most important fact of this story: that years after Sept. 11th, we are still very vulnerable to biological attack and that our government has not done enough to protect us or to prepare for this possibility," she said.
Keyser says he has been working on the warning for a year, writing the book as a way of letting people know that their government has done nothing to prepare against another anthrax attack.
"It's not difficult at all," Keyser said. "A team of 10 terrorists in two cities could launch a devastating attack."
Keyser is an unassuming man who speaks softly and slowly, as if to make certain his listeners understand the threat. On Wednesday, when The Bee visited him, Tom Cruise's "Mission Impossible" was paused on his television screen and the paperback "All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten" was on a coffee table.
Next to it was a small notebook open to a page where the words "God's Plan" were written in blue ink. Nothing was written below that.
Before agreeing to be photographed, he changed out of his sweat shirt and into a neat, striped dress shirt, brown corduroy jacket and khaki pants.
He did not wear shoes or socks. He did wear glasses and a serious expression as he tried to explain how he came to the conclusion that he had to act to warn Americans of the threat.
"I don't know, really," he said. "Call it a vision. I've just seen this happen. I don't have a degree in terrorism."
He does have an undergraduate degree in history and a teaching certificate from the University of Nevada, Reno, and taught preschool and third grade in Nevada for a number of years.
"I have a passion for teaching," Keyser said in a separate interview last week. "I have a system out for teaching reading to children 1 and 2 years old."
Keyser, who says he was married and had a son but has been divorced for 20 years, indicated that he subsists on Social Security.
He would not discuss details of the case against him, which includes an allegation that in the hours between FBI agents first interviewing him Oct. 29 and then returning with an arrest warrant later that day, he had prepared a new stack of mailings.
He conceded that he had not tried to hide the origin of the mailings, including his name and return address on the envelopes that went to media and other outlets nationwide. But he said he has not mailed any since his arrest.
"Yes, we're done with the mailings," Keyser said.
The U.S. Postal Service undoubtedly would be pleased to hear that.
Postal Inspector Hilary Smith said that in the fiscal year that ended Oct. 1, officials were called out 4,655 times nationwide because of concerns about packages and envelopes. Of those, 1,761 involved suspected explosives, and 2,744 were for unknown substances.
None of the incidents resulted in anything dangerous being found, she said.
The Postal Service has had biohazard detection devices in all 272 of its massive sorting facilities – including the one in West Sacramento – since 2003, and none of them have ever gone off, even for a false alarm, she said.
"The important thing is that would-be mailers realize it is a federal offense to mail hoax items, and the penalties include five years in prison," Smith said. "In any of these types of mailing hoaxes, all sorts of law enforcement agencies are coming out. It does take significant resources."
Call The Bee's Sam Stanton, (916) 321-1091.
