Scientist Bruce E. Ivins is believed to have committed the terrorist attacks via the mail using deadly anthrax back in 2001. The federal government was about to file charges against Ivins for the mailed attacks. Ivins has now killed himself according to Fox News.

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.

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

Tom Ivins, a brother of the scientist, told The Associated Press that another of his brothers, Charles, told him Bruce had committed suicide.

Ivins was an expert on anthrax inhalation and had published many papers on the topic. He was a leading expert in the field.

He saved the government a lot of time and money by taking his own life. He was a coward in life and was in taking his life as well.