No Anthrax Found Near NYC Victim's Home

NEW YORK (AP) - Tests for anthrax came back negative Wednesday from two New York City businesses near the home of the city's only anthrax fatality.

Medical and criminal investigators had rushed to the sites over the weekend after learning that a letter addressed to one of them had gone through a New Jersey post office about the same time as anthrax-contaminated letters sent to two U.S. senators in Washington.

Detectives had hoped to find evidence that Kathy Nguyen, who died Oct. 31, contracted anthrax through the mail.

But the letter was not found, no one at either business had become ill and the environmental tests have now come back negative, said Andrew Tucker, spokesman for the city Department of Health.

The existence of the letter was determined when postal investigators analyzed the bar-code information stored on machinery at the Hamilton, N.J., post office on Oct. 9, when anthrax-laced letters to Sens. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., passed through the building.

One digit on the Bronx address was unclear, so investigators went to the home of Lodner Printing and nearby Art Autobody.