Marcy Layton
Appearances
Aftermath: Hunt for the Anthrax Killer
Episode 5: One Hundred Miles
They did something very similar to us, where they really looked very hard for any evidence of anthrax at the patient's home and other places and did not find evidence.
Aftermath: Hunt for the Anthrax Killer
Episode 5: One Hundred Miles
For these two people, it was like the one in a million chance. Maybe they ripped the envelope in a certain way and there was a few spores on the outside of an envelope that had touched the machines, that had touched the other letters, and that's possibly how they were exposed.
Aftermath: Hunt for the Anthrax Killer
Episode 5: One Hundred Miles
A colleague of mine at one of our small hospitals here in Manhattan called because he was concerned that he had a case of inhalational anthrax in his emergency room.
Aftermath: Hunt for the Anthrax Killer
Episode 5: One Hundred Miles
We were able to quickly confirm that she did indeed have inhalational anthrax. And it immediately raised the concern about whether there had been a second anthrax attack in New York City. Our biggest concern, was she the first and were there going to be many more to follow?
Aftermath: Hunt for the Anthrax Killer
Episode 5: One Hundred Miles
She wasn't a postal worker. She wasn't anyone that anyone would have directly targeted.
Aftermath: Hunt for the Anthrax Killer
Episode 5: One Hundred Miles
Unfortunately, we had very little information on where she had spent time during the 21 days before she got ill. So to try and figure out where she'd been, we went to her apartment looking for clues of things that she did, where she went to church, where she may have shopped recently. We were basically trying to put a timeline together of everywhere she was.
Aftermath: Hunt for the Anthrax Killer
Episode 5: One Hundred Miles
You know, I think what was really hard about her case is that, you know, I was in her apartment. Like, you sort of got to know her in this very personal way.
Aftermath: Hunt for the Anthrax Killer
Episode 5: One Hundred Miles
It has always been a concern that a bioterrorism attack would happen in a subway or one of the major train terminals. It was terrifying.
Aftermath: Hunt for the Anthrax Killer
Episode 5: One Hundred Miles
We felt like the right thing to do was to leave no stone unturned and trying to figure out how she was exposed. Because the concern about, you know, another attack in New York City was just so high.
Aftermath: Hunt for the Anthrax Killer
Episode 5: One Hundred Miles
I've had many anxious hours in this job over the years. Probably those were some of the most anxious.
Aftermath: Hunt for the Anthrax Killer
Episode 5: One Hundred Miles
We'd never found any evidence of anthrax anywhere around where we knew she had been. There was no anthrax in any of the stations we tested.