Another Microbiologist Dies; This Time A Houston Hit & Run : Houston Indymedia

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/2343667

A reward of up to $20,000 was announced Thursday for tips leading to the arrest and charges of a hit-and-run motorist who killed a chemist walking in the Texas Medical Center. Robert Leslie Burghoff, 45, a postdoctoral fellow at Baylor College of Medicine's molecular virology and microbiology department, was walking to his car Nov. 20 when he was hit from behind by a white or light-colored cargo van that jumped the sidewalk in the 1600 block of South Braeswood.

Burghoff, a father of three who lived in The Woodlands, had been studying the Norwalk virus plaguing cruise ships.

Broken glass found at the scene was matched to a Ford E-series van, 1997 to 2004 model. A witness reported seeing a round insignia on the right back portion of the van, below the license plate, and suspected it was a city emblem, but no city-owned van of that description was found to have any damage, police Investigator Ronnie Miller said.
The van might also have a spider crack in its windshield, he said. Witnesses said the van had no side windows, but had two dark tinted windows in the rear.
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Articles about other deaths of microbiologists:

The Odds of That

By LISA BELKIN
NEW YORK TIMES
AUG. 11, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/11/magazine/11COINCIDENCE.html?pagewanted=7

When the Miami Police first found Benito Que, he was slumped on a desolate side street, near the empty spot where he had habitually parked his Ford Explorer. At about the same time, Don C. Wiley mysteriously disappeared. His car, a white rented Mitsubishi Galant, was abandoned on a bridge outside of Memphis, where he had just had a jovial dinner with friends. The following week, Vladimir Pasechnik collapsed in London, apparently of a stroke.

The list would grow to nearly a dozen in the space of four nerve-jangling months. Stabbed in Leesburg, Va. Suffocated in an air-locked lab in Geelong, Australia. Found wedged under a chair, naked from the waist down, in a blood-splattered apartment in Norwich, England. Hit by a car while jogging. Killed in a private plane crash. Shot dead while a pizza delivery man served as a decoy.

What joined these men was their proximity to the world of bioterror and germ warfare.

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re anthrax and the Wiley death:

Thinking the Unthinkable

By Wayne Madsen
a Counterpunch article
http://www.counterpunch.org/madsenanthrax.html

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From the Wilderness - February 14, 2002 by Michael Davidson --

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/02_14_02_microbio.html

In the five-week period from November 16, 2001 through December 23, 2001, five world-class microbiologists in different parts of the world were reported dead. Four undoubtedly died of "unnatural" causes, while the fifth's death is quite questionable.

In the ten weeks prior to December 12, 2001, two additional microbiologists were killed, and possibly another five. The period also saw the deaths of three Israelis holding high-level positions in either medical research or public health.

On November 16, 2001, Dr. Don C. Wiley, 57, vanished, and his abandoned rental car was found on the Hernando de Soto Bridge outside Memphis, TN. On December 10, 2001, Dr. David Schwartz, 57, was found murdered in his rural home in Loudon County, Virginia.

On December 12, 2001, Dr. Benito Que was found comatose in the street near the laboratory where he worked at the University of Miami Medical School. On December 14, 2001, Set Van Nguyen was found dead in the airlock entrance to the walk-in refrigerator in the laboratory he worked at in Victoria State, Australia. And on December 23, 2001, Dr. Vladimir Pasechnik, 64, was found dead in Wiltshire, England, a village near his home.