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WASHINGTON (AP) — A top U.S. biodefense researcher apparently committed suicide just as the Justice Department was about to file criminal charges against him in the anthrax mailings that traumatized the nation in the weeks following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to a published report.

The scientist, Bruce E. Ivins, 62, who worked for the past 18 years at the government's biodefense labs at Fort Detrick, Md., had been told about the impending prosecution, the Los Angeles Times reported for Friday editions. The laboratory has been at the center of the FBI's investigation of the anthrax attacks, which killed five people.

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Henry S. Heine, a scientist who had worked with Ivins on inhalation anthrax research at Fort Detrick, said he and others on their team have testified before a federal grand jury in Washington that has been investigating the anthrax mailings for more than a year.

Heine declined to comment on Ivins' death.

Norman Covert, a retired Fort Detrick spokesman who served with Ivins on an animal-care and protocol committee, said Ivins was "a very intent guy" at their meetings.

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Fort Detrick

Fort Detrick is located in Frederick, Maryland, in the heart of Frederick County, the third fastest growing county in Maryland. Fort Detrick is the center of the biomedical technology growth that has occurred in the county. Fort Detrick is located approximately one hours drive from Washington D.C. metro area and Baltimore, Maryland, easily accessible by major interstate highways. As an Army Medicine Installation. Fort Detrick is home to the United States Army Medical Research and Materiel Command (MRMC), the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and 36 other tenant organizations. The primary missions include biomedical research and development, medical materiel management and global telecommunications.

The mission of the U.S. Army Garrison and Fort Detrick is to Command, operate and administer the use of resources to provide installation support to on-post Department of Defense and non-Department of Defense tenant organizations; and to furnish automated data processing, financial management and logistical support as directed to selected Headquarters, Department of the Army staff and field operating agencies.

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Ivins was the co-author of numerous anthrax studies, including one on a treatment for inhalation anthrax published in the July 7 issue of the journal Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy.

Ivins died Tuesday at Frederick (Md.) Memorial Hospital. The Times, quoting an unidentified colleague, said the scientist had taken a massive dose of a prescription Tylenol mixed with codeine.