Remember the heady time of the anthrax case, when the Post devoted 32 chapters to the riveting drama of airborne spores invading big-time news networks, District postal workers, and one “person of interest” who turned out all innocent?

OK. Maybe not. Nearly seven years old, the anthrax case had the misfortune of terrorizing citizens between 9/11 and the Sniper. The case consumed very few other than the more intense strains of the scientific community, the creators of www.anthraxinvestigation.com and the friends and relatives of the wronged “person of interest” Steven Hatfill.

So this morning it came as a shock that law enforcement were still on the case. I read the Post‘s lead:

A Maryland bioweapons expert, who prosecutors were on the verge of linking to 2001 anthrax attacks that killed five people and terrorized the country, has died — apparently by suicide, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times.

Wow. I thought: Hatfill killed himself. All the media ever talked about was Hatfill. He had been pursued and pursued. The FBI tailed him. I spent time as a passenger in his world, hanging out with him at his home and generally taking in the utter terror of being called “a person of interest.” You can read that story here. Hatfill would get his revenge—a $2.8 million settlement with the Department of Justice made formal a few weeks ago.

Now we have a new person of interest—a dead man named Bruce E. Ivins, 62. According to the Post story a grand jury had been interviewing his colleagues. The Post writes: “Investigators were tightlipped in part because the investigation is ongoing, and also because of their experience with another onetime suspect in the notorious case.”

The anthrax case is now more riveting than ever.