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CNN CONNIE CHUNG TONIGHT
Sniper on the Loose: Mysterious Call Placed to Police
Aired October 21, 2002 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CONNIE CHUNG, HOST: Good evening. I'm Connie Chung.
Tonight, "Sniper on the Loose": a mysterious call to police. Was this the sniper?
ANNOUNCER: This is a special edition of CONNIE CHUNG TONIGHT: "Sniper on the Loose."
Police get a phone call. Is the sniper trying to send a message?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHARLES MOOSE, MONTGOMERY COUNTY POLICE CHIEF: The person you called could not hear everything that you said. The audio was unclear. And we want to get it right. Call us back so that we can clearly understand.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: Tonight: how to open a dialogue with a killer.
Breaking the pattern:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MOOSE: None of the victims have been of anything close to school-age.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The sniper has never shot anyone on a weekend.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're scared to pump gas.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: An unpredictable killer.
Plus: A deadly sniper case 10 years ago finally ended after a four-year manhunt. What does it take to catch a killer? Tonight: cracking the case.
This is CONNIE CHUNG TONIGHT. Live from the CNN Broadcast Center in New York: Connie Chung.
CHUNG: Good evening. Tonight: an astounding development in the sniper hunt. Did the sniper actually call police only to have them miss what he said? It's an unusual twist in this case. And we're going to hit on every development. A morning raid fizzled. There was the phone call that apparently fell through. That left police pleading with the mysterious caller to call them back. And there are reports of a note hinting at demands for money.
So where does the investigation stand?
CNN's Kathleen Koch joins us now from the investigation nerve center in Rockville, Maryland -- Kathleen.
KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Connie, it is a path fraught with problems, communicating perhaps with the killer -- police, for the second time in one day, trying to reach out to someone involved in the killings, perhaps the shooter, perhaps an accomplice, perhaps someone else.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MOOSE: The person you called could not hear everything that you said. The audio was unclear. And we want to get it right. Call us back so that we can clearly understand.
KOCH (voice-over): That as miles south in Richmond, Virginia, police moved in on a man at a phone booth in a white van, hoping to catch the killer. Instead, they apprehended two undocumented workers, apparently in the wrong place at the wrong time. Chief Moose, in an earlier message, had implied police were working to keep the dialogue open.
MOOSE: We are going to respond to a message that we have received. We will respond later. We are preparing our response at this time.
KOCH: The words just as carefully parsed as they were Sunday night, when Moose first sent a message through the media, apparently in response to a note found in the woods behind the latest shooting site at the Ponderosa restaurant in Ashland, Virginia.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KOCH: Now, we don't know if and when police will be coming out to either deliver another message to this person or persons. They are clearly very comfortable using the media now as a conduit. Obviously, it's sort of a very unusual situation for us here, Connie, media, who the police chief has at various points -- has spoken to us very angrily about our conduct in this case. And now we're becoming a very useful tool for the police -- back to you.
CHUNG: Kathleen, is it your belief or are your sources telling you that they are communicating, the police and this person, through an established phone line?
KOCH: Well, Connie, it's very unclear at this point. Police don't want to reveal any details on the case. But it is our belief that this first note that police -- that was apparently found, again, in the woods near the Ponderosa, that the phone number was left in that note.
And, as the chief had said last night, "Call us at the number that you left." And that's the number that's being used. We don't know wherever the number is to, and if it is a number here in Montgomery County, a number somewhere in Virginia. That's very unclear at this point.
CHUNG: And what about this business of having bad audio, that one phone conversation, if you can call it that? Can you tell us anything more about it?
KOCH: Well, Connie, sources tell CNN that the initial call that went to police notifying them about this message that had been left at the Ponderosa, that the person who called apparently had a foreign accent. So it's very possible this that this person may have been trying to disguise their voice, disguise perhaps their country of origin so as not to give away perhaps any part in their identity to police.
But it's unclear, again, as to whether it was something about the way the person was speaking or a problem with a line that caused this garbled communication.
CHUNG: All right, CNN's Kathleen Koch in Rockville, Maryland tonight, thank you.
The apparently botched phone call wasn't the day's only letdown. Early on today, a sizable police deployment at a gas station in Richmond, Virginia, suggested a potential breakthrough in the case.
CNN justice correspondent Kelli Arena has what happened next.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): What seemed like a major breakthrough in the early morning turned into a major disappointment by the afternoon.
TOM SHUMATE, SPOKESPERSON, HENRICO COUNTY POLICE: Two men were detained and questioned by local and federal authorities. These men have been turned over to representatives of the Immigration and Naturalization Services for further action. No local charges have been placed.
ARENA: Agents had this area under surveillance when the driver of this white Dodge Caravan pulled up to use a pay phone. He was surrounded by federal and local law enforcement and taken into custody, along with another man apprehended in another location close by.
DON NEILSON, EYEWITNESS: We didn't know what to expect. When you see these guys in a semi-crouch, with shouldered rifles and three of them abreast, you know something very serious is going on. We didn't really know.
ARENA: It turns out the two are undocumented workers who will be deported. While their arrest proved to be a dead end, the Saturday night shooting in Ashland, Virginia, in which a 37-year-old man was wounded was definitively linked to the other shootings.
STUART COOK, HANOVER COUNTY SHERIFF: We can and do confirm at this time that the ballistics evidence recovered during our investigation has been matched with the other shooting cases.
ARENA: It was a phone call to the sniper tip line after this Saturday's shooting that brought investigators to the area where the illegal aliens were apprehended. An individual officials believe to be the sniper called in on Saturday night and told police to look in the woods where the shooting took place for a letter. The caller was described by sources as having an accent of unknown origin.
Police looked and found a handwritten letter. Sources say it hinted at a demand for money and threatened more killing. The call was traced to the area where the two men were apprehended.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ARENA: The letter that was found in the woods is currently undergoing analysis at the FBI lab, Connie.
CHUNG: Kelli, when you first reported that this handwritten letter had hinted at a demand for money, I thought to myself that this doesn't sound like the sniper. Don't ask me why. I'm a novice at this.
But, Kelli, did the investigators indicate to you or your sources indicate to you in any way that it might not be the sniper, in fact?
ARENA: Well, our sources have indicated that they do believe that the letter is authentic. As you said, many experts, after the fact, have said that a demand for money of any kind did not seem to fit the M.O. But, then again, all of these experts have also said that nothing that the sniper does has fit anything that they've ever seen before, any pattern that they've seen before.
So, according to our sources, they are working on the assumption that this letter is legitimate, Connie.
CHUNG: Now, Kelli, have they compared this handwriting in the note with the note at the tarot card, when that was left?
ARENA: Yes, they have. As you know, a tarot card was left at a previous shooting in Bowie, Maryland, saying, "Dear Policeman, I am God." And I was told by sources that, at least initially, the handwriting did not look to be a match. But that is being analyzed, obviously, by not only handwriting analysis, but DNA analysis and so on to find out if there are any clues that can be garnered from this letter, besides what was written in it.
CHUNG: Now, what happened today, Kelli, in Richmond seemed so promising, and yet it didn't lead anywhere. Do the investigators have any other leads?
ARENA: Well, not that they are revealing at this point, Connie. Obviously, this letter is -- has a lot more information than we have been able to report.
We know that there were more killings that were threatened in the letter. We do know that there was a hint at asking for money or demanding money. The exact wording has not been revealed to us by sources. But I'm also told that it was quite a lengthy note, handwritten note. And perhaps more information has been garnered that they are just not letting through.
The investigators are very, very, very tight-lipped. We thought that they were keeping information close to the vest at the beginning. But as this investigating goes on, things becomes much more sensitive, the killing continues, it is becoming more and more difficult to get information from sources, even those that we have worked with for quite a long time, Connie.
CHUNG: All right, CNN justice correspondent Kelli Arena, at the evidence desk in Washington, thank you.
The man who was today confirmed by police as the sniper's most recent victim has not been identified. He is the third victim known to have survived the sniper's bullet. Nine others have died.
Joining me now from Richmond are the victim's surgeon, Dr. Rao Ivatury, the director of trauma and critical care surgery at the Virginia Commonwealth University Health System; and the trauma program director, Nancy Martin.
Thank you both for being with us.
Doctor, how is the patient?
All right, unfortunately, we can't hear the doctor, obviously.
Let's take a break and see if we can fix that problem. So we'll come back in just a moment.
And also, we'll have a report on whether the sniper is listening to what people are saying and then purposely doing the opposite.
We'll be right back.
ANNOUNCER: Next: The tarot card, the phone calls, hidden clues? And the challenge: communicating with a killer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MOOSE: Call us back so that we can clearly understand.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: And later: He held Ohio in his crosshairs for nearly four years, killing five before he was captured. How did police finally catch this serial sniper?
CONNIE CHUNG TONIGHT will be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANNOUNCER: This is a special edition of CONNIE CHUNG TONIGHT: "Sniper on the Loose."
CHUNG: We are back.
And we think we have fixed our audio problems, so we'll get to this latest interview -- the victim, the latest victim and the third known victim of a sniper to survive being shot.
Joining me now from Richmond are the victim's surgeon, Dr. Rao Ivatury, director of trauma and critical care surgery at the Virginia Commonwealth University Health System; and the trauma program director, Nancy Martin.
Doctor, I'm so sorry we had an audio problem.
Tell me, how is your patient?
DR. RAO IVATURY, VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY HEALTH SYSTEM: Compared to yesterday, he's relatively stable in terms of his vital signs and organ functions. He's more conscious. He opens his eyes to his wife's questions and commands. So he's a little bit better than yesterday.
CHUNG: So you are a bit encouraged, you would say?
IVATURY: Yes.
CHUNG: Good.
Where exactly did the bullet enter?
IVATURY: The bullet entered in the upper abdomen, just to the left of midline. And then it proceeded to the left.
CHUNG: And what did you need to do in surgery in order to save this man's life here? I know there were two surgeries.
IVATURY: Yes. The first surgery was mostly for controlling the bleeding. He also had a large rupture of his stomach. And the bullet went through the pancreas. It went through the spleen. So we had to remove part of the stomach. We had to remove half of the pancreas and the entire spleen.
CHUNG: In your experience, is it quite extraordinary? Is he lucky to be alive?
IVATURY: Yes. They are massive injuries. And we are lucky that he is still alive.
CHUNG: What are you most concerned about at this point, Doctor? IVATURY: At this point, he is at risk for several things. One is organ failures, like the lung failure. He also can get into some infectious complications because of all the contamination he had from the stomach at the time of the first injury. And that can lead to a lot of intraabdominal infections that can be serious.
CHUNG: And will he need more surgery?
IVATURY: Yes. I anticipate that he will need at least two to three more surgeries for control of all these complications.
CHUNG: Nancy Martin, how is his wife?
NANCY MARTIN, VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY HEALTH SYSTEM: She's doing fine. She's holding up very well. She's a very strong person and a very spiritual person. And she has been at her husband's bedside and so far has been very strong about the whole ordeal.
CHUNG: One of the most extraordinary things was when I heard you reveal to us her message. And that was not only to pray for her husband, but to pray for the attacker as well.
MARTIN: Yes. And also, she just prayed that no one else would get hurt from this sniper.
CHUNG: How magnanimous she is, no doubt. Is that what you've been discovering from her?
MARTIN: She really is. And we have told her that this may be a long course. And she knows. And she's ready to do it. She loves her husband. And he is her best friend. And he is her soul mate.
CHUNG: Doctor, how long do you think this man will be in sort of that danger period and that you will eventually believe that he is clear? Is it a week's time, two weeks, or months?
IVATURY: I would say the next two to three weeks are crucial. And by that time, he will develop all these complications, if he is going to develop those complications. Beyond three weeks, if he does well, I think we have a very good chance to say that he's going to sail through.
CHUNG: Do you have a sense of his personality? I understand he's a big man, six feet, 200 pounds.
IVATURY: He's a big man. And I had a chance to talk to him a few words before we rushed him into the operating room. And I was impressed by his calmness and his honesty and friendliness. He just complained to us that he was fine, but he had some pain in the belly. That's what he said to me.
CHUNG: That is extraordinary, isn't it?
IVATURY: Yes.
CHUNG: Here he was so seriously injured. And now he's not yet able to talk to you, though, is that correct, because of the...
IVATURY: That's right.
CHUNG: Does he have too many bits of equipment coming in and out of his body, no doubt?
IVATURY: Exactly. And he also has an intratracheal tube, which goes through the throat. And so he cannot speak. He's on a ventilator at the moment.
CHUNG: All right, Doctor, I thank you so much for being with us. And Nancy Martin as well, thank you.
IVATURY: Thank you.
MARTIN: Thank you, Connie.
CHUNG: As police today apparently continued their dialogue with someone, possibly the sniper, authorities revealed the audio on one message was unclear. But the bigger problem is, what should police say to the man? Is communicating through the media the best way? In a moment, we'll meet an FBI veteran who oversaw such negotiations.
But first, CNN national correspondent Frank Buckley on making contact with a killer.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Investigators appeared to begin speaking directly to the killer through the media on Sunday evening.
MOOSE: We do want to talk to you.
BUCKLEY: It continued on Monday morning.
MOOSE: We are going to respond to a message that we have received. We will respond later. We are preparing our response at this time.
BUCKLEY: Which came on Monday afternoon.
MOOSE: The person you called could not hear everything that you said. The audio was unclear. And we want to get it right. Call us back so that we can clearly understand.
DAVID JENKS, PROFESSOR, CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, LOS ANGELES: The statement that was released this morning was probably work product, three, four hours of a team of individuals making sure it was worded just perfectly.
BUCKLEY: Because, says criminal justice professor David Jenks, police want to make sure they don't provoke the killer, whose actions suggest he is watching news media pundits and profilers and responding to what they are saying. JENKS: Almost defiant to the point where they say, "He will not shoot on the weekend," he does shoot on the weekend, as if to stand up and say to law enforcement: "You will not pigeonhole me. I cannot be pigeonholed." And that also plays into, "I cannot be caught."
BUCKLEY: But in serial killer cases in which the killer has communicated and has been caught, like the so-called Son of Sam, police gained physical evidence from the communication, like a palm print from notes from David Berkowitz, and psychological insight into what kind of person they were dealing with.
JOE COFFEY, SON OF SAM INVESTIGATOR: Communication always helps, because it gives you an opportunity to figure out what's going on in his mind.
BUCKLEY: Forensic psychologists say some serial killers want to communicate with police to reinforce their sense of self-importance. Others, like the so-called Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, have an agenda. Whatever their motivations, the communication can help police as they try to narrow their investigation, as they try to keep the killer from striking again.
Frank Buckley, CNN, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHUNG: Don Clark, FBI special agent in charge in Houston and in New York's criminal division, joins us now. He has a background in criminal negotiations.
Thank you, Mr. Clark, for being with us. We appreciate it.
DON CLARK, FORMER FBI SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE: My pleasure, Connie.
CHUNG: Mr. Clark, obviously the sniper, if he is the one who wrote this note, is trying to communicate. Why is he trying to communicate? What's he trying to achieve?
CLARK: If you are saying, why is he trying to communicate with them, Connie, the profilers are looking at this every way they can. And they are looking at it from a historical perspective, because they know these types of things have happened before. We've had all kind.
And maybe he's reached a point, during the course of conducting these very terrible shootings, that he feels the need to have some type of dialogue with the police to maybe reinforce what it is that he's doing. But it's necessary that, if he is, that the police should try to start that dialogue and maybe keep one going.
CHUNG: Who is in control? Is it the sniper or is it the police?
CLARK: Well, that's a very good question as to who is in control. And sometimes, you really don't know.
But I think what the police have to really worry about and keep their mind focused on what the real objective may be. And sometimes that what you may do as a law enforcement officer may appear that you are absolutely not in control. But if you are using your correct strategy, if you are using all of the available information from profiles, types of activities, then you may eventually get this individual to cooperate or come around to your way of thinking.
CHUNG: In other words, make him believe that he's in control, but communicate with him and, actually, you are the one who is in control. Is that what you are saying?
CLARK: I think, right now, that the killer -- if I'm understanding you correctly -- that the killer really thinks that he is in control and certainly has his designs on being in control.
I think the profilers will say for sure that this person wants to be in control and wants to control the police and let the police know that they are in control. That's why I think it's so important that, if there is an opportunity to establish a dialogue, then hopefully the right person can make that contact and really start some dialogue so that we can get to the objective of putting an end to these killings.
CHUNG: How do police dance this delicate dance, in other words, to make sure that they don't make the sniper angry?
CLARK: Well, again, it goes back to looking historically with the profilers, thinking about what it is that they could possibly figure out that may be a trigger.
It's not a complete science. It's not a 100 percent accurate science. And sometimes you make missteps. And this becomes very frustrating to the police department or the law enforcement community when you make a misstep, because sometimes the killer will let you know that you've made a misstep. And, hopefully, that misstep will not lead to another killing.
But I think you have to keep searching and working through the negotiation process, if there is an opportunity to talk with this person, to see if you can keep from making that misstep.
CHUNG: Now, you handled a well-known case in 1999. And that was the "Railroad Killer." And your team negotiated with the family members to have the killer surrender. What was key in that negotiation?
CLARK: Well, in that particular case, we did make a concerted effort. In fact, I believe that it was one of the first cases that the FBI and the law enforcement community actually worked to use the media to its advantage to get the information out to this person.
And the danger is, is not giving out too much information that it may cause a backwash on you in terms of what you are trying to do. But you need to try and get enough information to the media. And they can be your partner in this crime. And that's what happened to us in the rail car killing.
CHUNG: All right, Don Clark, thank you for being with us. Still ahead: Many of us thought the sniper was following a particular pattern. So much for that -- next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANNOUNCER: This is a special edition of CONNIE CHUNG TONIGHT: "Sniper on the Loose."
As police put together their case against the Washington area sniper, we wanted to look at how police have closed other cases with some important similarities and some important differences.
Tonight, we begin our week-long series, "Cracking the Case," with Thomas Lee Dillon, who hunted strangers in Ohio from 1989 to 1993. Before his conviction, he spent hours on the phone every day with a reporter, telling her what was going through his head. You'll meet her in a moment.
But first, CNN's Maria Hinojosa gets into the mind of a sniper.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MARIA HINOJOSA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Thomas Lee Dillon played the role of a quiet loner and dedicated family man. He took vacations with his wife and son. But Dillon also lived in a fantasy world where he was the star.
DR. JEFFREY SMALLDON, FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGIST: I don't know that I've ever encountered anyone with as richly an elaborated fantasy world as Thomas Lee Dillon had. And, almost invariably, they were fantasies of unlimited influence, power, control.
HINOJOSA: Dillon owned hundreds of guns. At first, he used them to slaughter stray animals. Soon he killed neighbors' pets. He bullied his only son, hit his wife, saw dozens of prostitutes. But when all of that couldn't be the thrill Dillon needed, he took on his ultimate control fantasy: becoming a hunter of humans, deciding if you should live or die.
JOLENE LIMBACHER, FORMER REPORTER, "AKRON BEACON JOURNAL": He enjoyed reading the autopsy reports of the victims. He enjoyed knowing how much blood filled in their chest cavity. He seemed to get a great deal of pleasure out of knowing that he shot the head off of one of them, that there was nothing left.
HINOJOSA: A world away lived 21-year-old Jamie Paxton. He worked at a steel mill. He lived a simple life. The only thing that mattered: his family. They took care of each other.
JEAN PAXTON, VICTIM'S MOTHER: He got up very early that morning to go hunting. His dad fixed him a thermos of coffee and off he went. And I started making homemade vegetable soup, because that was one of his favorite things to eat after a day of hunting.
HINOJOSA: It was on this spot in the hills that Jamie suddenly became Thomas Lee Dillon's prey. He was shot three times. That afternoon, police arrived at Jean Paxton's door.
PAXTON: And I just started screaming. And I remember just -- I looked at him and I said: "Don't you even tell me Jamie's dead. Don't you even tell me he's dead."
HINOJOSA: Who could have wanted to kill Jamie? An anguished Jean Paxton could think of only one thing to do.
PAXTON: I started writing my letters, because I always had the feeling, if the person that had killed Jamie would read them, I was trying to play on his conscious.
HINOJOSA: She sent the letters to her local paper, not with hate, but with the words of a loving mother.
PAXTON: In one of the letters, I told the person that they had Jamie's blood on their hands. And no matter how many times they washed their hands, Jamie's blood was still there. I asked them, "How can you touch members of your family with hands that have killed?"
HINOJOSA: The sniper was peaked. After a year of reading her letters, he wrote the paper back anonymously, claiming he was the killer and giving this explanation.
"Paxton was killed because of an irresistible compulsion that has taken over my life to turn into a merciless killer with no conscience. I thought no more of shooting Paxton than shooting a bottle at the dump." Two years and three murders later, Thomas Lee Dillon, who was known as the "Outdoorsman Sniper," was caught. His letter to Jean Paxton prompted an FBI profile that helped lead to his capture. Even from behind bars, Dillon still wanted to exert control, this time over a reporter.
LIMBACHER: He knew where I was and what I was doing at all times. And he pretty much controlled my life from his jail cell.
HINOJOSA: Dillon called Jolene Limbacher every day for five months.
LIMBACHER: It did become addictive. I wanted the story.
HINOJOSA: He sent her dozens of letters, drew intricate cartoons, and created a fantasy life with Jolene.
(on camera): Suddenly you are now tied to this man.
LIMBACHER: Enmeshed with a serial killer. I don't know why. He lived in a fantasy world.
HINOJOSA (voice-over): It was a world this reporter wanted to understand: the mind of a sniper.
LIMBACHER: They love to control. They love the thrill of the hunt. They love the ecstasy they get from killing, and I'm sure that Tom is probably thrilled that he is being compared to the sniper. Tom never wanted to be a footnote. (END VIDEOTAPE)
CHUNG: So how did they catch Thomas Lee Dillon and what was it like to have a serial killer calling you every day at home?
We'll talk to the reporter who took those calls in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANNOUNCER: This is a special edition of CONNIE CHUNG TONIGHT. Sniper on the loose.
CHUNG: For more than five months, while Ohio sniper Thomas Lee Dillon was in prison, he called "Akron Beacon Journal" reporter Jolene Limbacher almost every day. What did he have to say for himself? And how did he end up in prison in the first place?
Jolene Limbacher joins us now live, courtesy of WEWS-TV in Canton, Ohio.
Thank you, Jolene, for being with us.
LIMBACHER: You're welcome.
CHUNG: Appreciate it.
Now, what is incredible, what is just so astounding is that police actually had this man in custody after he committed three murders and released him. What happened? How did he fool them?
LIMBACHER: Those were basically on unrelated weapons charges. And they had really no reason to connect the dots to Tom at the time. And they were just basically routine weapons violations. And they released him after that.
CHUNG: So how did the police finally nab him?
LIMBACHER: I think that they finally nabbed him because one of Tom's oldest and best friends that he had known through high school -- his name is Richard Fry -- Tom and Richard Fry had shared a common interest in firearms and in hunting.
And Mr. Fry knew that Tom liked to hunt and that he liked to kill. And once a task force was formed to investigate the sniper killings, Mr. Fry notified the task force and said, "I think you might be interested in a friend of mine."
CHUNG: But was it something that Dillon said to him or some action he took, confided in him in any way?
LIMBACHER: I think they were really good friends ever since high school. And they knew each other very well. At one point, Tom had asked Dick Fry, he says, "Do you think I could have killed somebody?" And Mr. Fry just let it go, and Tom asked him again. And he said, "Do you think I could have killed anybody?" And I think, with things going on with the task force and Dick knowing the kind of person that Tom was, he began to become very suspicious and contacted the task force and asked them to investigate him.
CHUNG: So do you think that Tom Dillon was trying to get caught and he said that to his friend so that his friend would tip him off?
LIMBACHER: No, I don't. I think that Tom was just being boastful. Tom was a practical joker. You never knew when to take Tom seriously. I don't think he had any intention of being caught. I just think that that was his banter and that's just what he did with his best friend.
CHUNG: Well, Tom Dillon actually did send a letter to the local newspaper. Do you think that helped investigators in developing a profile on him?
LIMBACHER: I'm sure it did help investigators in developing a profile on him. Basically, they developed a profile that said he was a white man over 30 years old, that he liked to hunt, that he was probably an introvert, that he was probably married and had children, and also that he probably worked at a job, that he was your next-door neighbor, and that he didn't particularly stand out, unless it was to those who knew him very well.
CHUNG: All true, huh?
LIMBACHER: And that could...
CHUNG: Yes. Go ahead.
One last question before I let you go. All I can say, when I hear that he was calling you at 7:00 in the morning and 11:00 at night is, that has to be so terribly creepy for you and for your family.
LIMBACHER: It was very difficult for my family. It caused my family a great deal of anguish and sorrow, basically because I was talking to a serial killer usually until midnight every night. And I would start talking to him at 7:00 the next morning. But I really viewed it as my job. I was glad that I was talking to him. And I simply wanted to keep him on the line.
CHUNG: All right, Jolene Limbacher, thank you for being with us and helping us get inside the mind of that serial killer.
Now, it's hard for me to find any bright side to this story. But one of the victims' mothers did find a way to respond to Thomas Lee Dillon's awful attack on her.
And CNN's Maria Hinojosa, whose report on Dillon we just saw moments ago, joins us now to explain.
Now, it was very rare and unusual that this mother gave you an interview. She told you about a phone conversation that she had with Dillon. And what did she tell you? HINOJOSA: What's extraordinary, Connie, is the fact that this woman, a humble woman who lost her son at the hands of this murderer, felt that she could stand up to him.
And what happened was that, on the day of his sentencing, she wanted to look him eye to eye and he wouldn't look at the victims' families. She went out in front of the court and spoke to the local cameras and said, "Thomas Lee Dillon is nothing but a pathetic coward." He saw this and got so upset that he called her at home. But this woman stood up to this serial killer who wanted to control everything. And she took control of the call.
Here's what she said.
CHUNG: OK.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PAXTON: I told him that I was not interested in what he had to say. There were things that I wanted him to know. We talked for quite a while. And, finally, I told him I didn't want to be his friend. I just wanted him to know what was in my heart.
And, at that time, we hung up, and I walked out on my porch and I took a big deep of fresh air. And I felt like that was the first time I was free of Thomas Dillon. And it was a good feeling.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHUNG: Wow. How can you not admire that mother?
HINOJOSA: And then what she did is that -- Thomas Lee Dillon had said that the one prison he didn't want to go to in Ohio was the Lucasville prison.
CHUNG: Yes?
HINOJOSA: This woman had petitions signed all over the state and had him sent to precisely the one place he feared the most. She flipped the tables. She said: "You think you're in control? I'm in control for the rest of your life."
CHUNG: Oh, my gosh.
HINOJOSA: Extraordinary.
CHUNG: It is extraordinary. Well, she had the drive and the passion. And she did it.
HINOJOSA: Absolutely.
And you know what's interesting? She doesn't even care. She doesn't give a lot of interviews. She doesn't speak. Offered lots of money to tell her story. She says, "I did it for my son Jamie."
CHUNG: Good for her. HINOJOSA: Yes.
CHUNG: Thank you, Maria Hinojosa.
When we come back: Is the sniper listening to police and politicians and us? And does what he hears change his hunting pattern?
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANNOUNCER: This is a special edition of CONNIE CHUNG TONIGHT: "Sniper on the Loose."
CHUNG: Do you know what's one of the strangest things about this sniper case? It's the way the sniper has reached and reacted when people talked about him. Officials say one thing. The sniper does the opposite, as if to spite them. What exactly is going on?
CNN's Art Harris looks at the killer and the pattern.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ART HARRIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Police were talking to the killer before they figured out he was talking to them, even pressing the sniper to turn himself in.
MOOSE: The message remains the same. Think about what you are doing and turn yourself in to law enforcement.
HARRIS: Even the White House got in the act.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're lending all the resources of the federal government, all that have been required, to do everything we can to assist the local law authorities to find this, whoever it is.
GOV. PARRIS GLENDENING (D), MARYLAND: We are talking about a person here who is basically a coward. This is not an individual who is out there doing something strong or manly.
KEITH WARBURTON, FORMER FBI AGENT: Any name-calling not run by the behavioral science people that are obviously working, the people from the FBI and experts, is a mistake.
HARRIS: Just when officials said schools were safe...
MOOSE: I think the school kids are safe. They're being educated.
HARRIS: ... he shoots a 13-year-old boy walking to school.
The task force comes to fear the killer is talking back in bullets and blood. And sources tell CNN experts start coaching Chief Moose to cut down on the emotion, as it cuts back on press conferences.
MOOSE: Our next briefing will be at noon on Monday.
HARRIS: The task force doesn't want to take any chances in dealing with a contrary killer, one of the most baffling and unpredictable serial killers in law enforcement history.
MARK SIEGERT, FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGIST: He's willing to do anything to prove no one can control him or get him right.
HARRIS: Or get him at all. After speculation he took weekends off:
SIEGERT: He went out and immediately did a shooting on a weekend.
HARRIS: A serial sniper, sources believe, to be as driven by how he's portrayed as by inner demons, far different than the sexual predator who officials say is highly motivated by what's inside who has killed three women in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. There, police released a partial FBI behavioral profile...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are here looking, under the assumption that someone may live in the community that may be your killer.
HARRIS: ... to deputize the public to be alert.
MIKE BARNETT, EAST BATON ROUGE SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT: While we are trying to give the public all of the information that they need to help us find this person and to protect themselves, there is a fine line past where we cannot go.
HARRIS: The sniper task force is also walking a fine line.
(on camera): And CNN has learned the task force has no intention of releasing its FBI profile. It's not taking any chances it might trigger the killer to kill again.
Art Harris, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHUNG: And joining us now from Minneapolis to help us figure out the sniper's thinking is criminal profiler Pat Brown, CEO of the Sexual Homicide Exchange.
Pat, thank you for being with us.
PAT BROWN, CRIMINAL PROFILER: Good evening, Connie.
CHUNG: The sniper, if it is indeed the sniper, is trying to communicate with authorities. He's written a handwritten letter, phone call. There must be some kind of phone exchange. What do you make of this?
BROWN: Well, I wouldn't call it he's trying to communicate with authorities. He's playing with authorities. This is the game he started in the beginning. He started with this spree to get the media attention. He knew the authorities would come in heavy on this one. And as he goes from county to county, he's bringing in more and more law enforcement. He's leaving the tarot card with a note on it to Mr. Policeman. He's playing with the policemen. This is his M.O. from the beginning.
CHUNG: So you are saying he's not trying to create a dialogue?
BROWN: No, he's trying to play his game the way he planned to play it. And the police are playing right into his hands, because he knows that, traditionally, police have believed that, if a serial killer communicates and they can start communicating back, that something might come of this and they can catch him.
But take a look at the Tom Dillon case you just had in the last segment. Yes, he did communicate with someone, but who turned him in? A friend of his, because the friend of his was the one who was aware of what his behaviors were and what he was doing and was suspicious of him. So this killer already knows this.
CHUNG: Why don't you think he just needs to talk to someone about it, because he has to keep it secret, and in fact he does want to communicate with police because he needs an outlet?
BROWN: I don't think so. I think his outlet is this entire fantasy game. And his outlet is pushing the police around and making them play his game and getting the power and control over them. That's his entire game from the start. He's not deficient in the fact that he needs to communicate with somebody.
CHUNG: Apparently he has hinted at a demand for money. And you have never said anything of the kind. You've always said in interviews with us that his motive is control and all that. So are you wrong, that this hint of money is unexpected?
BROWN: I think this is another game he's playing.
Think about this. Let's say he's actually asking for a ransom. Does he honestly think he's going to be able to pick the ransom up someplace, with this amount of law enforcement every place and airplanes circling overhead? Is he actually going to go to a site where the money is sitting, say, in a trash can; he's going to go to that trash can and pick it up? He knows darn well he couldn't pick up any money. He's playing a game again.
CHUNG: And what about the location of this latest shooting? It seems so much farther away than the others.
BROWN: Well, not really, because his movements have been between Montgomery County, Maryland, and down to Spotsylvania, Virginia. This is just about 15 miles south of Spotsylvania, Virginia. And this is probably just within his normal range of movement from where he's working and where he's living. I don't think it's that far away.
CHUNG: All right, Pat Brown, thank you for being with us. Always good to talk to you.
BROWN: My pleasure.
CHUNG: And we'll be right back with an update on the hunt for the sniper.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHUNG: We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANNOUNCER: This is a special edition of CONNIE CHUNG TONIGHT: "Sniper on the Loose."
CHUNG: And before we go, a final check on the sniper story from CNN's Kathleen Koch, joining us again tonight from Rockville, Maryland.
Kathleen, what will happen tomorrow?
KOCH: Well, Connie, really, it's hard to say what will happen tomorrow, but we do have a few breaking bits of news to talk about tonight.
Law enforcement sources are telling CNN, passing on some very disturbing information about this handwritten note that was apparently left at the scene of the shooting on Saturday night, that it says -- it hints at a demand for money, say law enforcement authorities. And the letter also apparently threatens more killing. That letter now is being analyzed by the FBI for DNA, handwriting and other things.
Obviously, this comes at the end of a very frustrating day, when authorities had thought they may have had the sniper or snipers in custody. They pulled in two men in the Richmond, Virginia, area, one man near a phone booth driving a white van. It turns out that that man and the other man were simply undocumented workers. They are being turned over to the INS. They will not be prosecuted.
Authorities here in Montgomery County now sending two messages to the person or persons who began responding through this letter: first police this morning they were sending a letter, trying to reach out and communicate and finally tonight saying that they would want that person to call back because communication was garbled -- Connie.
CHUNG: All right, thank you, CNN's Kathleen Koch.
Tomorrow: also the latest on the search for the sniper.
Plus, you'll want to see this. A judge recently overturned the conviction of two young Florida brothers for killing their father. Well, we, for the first time, will have on national television an exclusive interview with the boys' mother.
Good night.
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