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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown
Continuing Coverage of Sniper Case, Tacoma Investigation
Aired October 23, 2002 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, HOST: I have no idea what the next hour or hours are going to bring, but for those of you who are just joining us, quickly here is where we have been tonight, an eventful night. Whether it turns out ultimately to be a significant night, we will have to see.
Three things of note to begin. First, a search in a backyard in Tacoma, Washington. At the very least, we know that the FBI and the ATF were on the scene and that they took away a tree trunk, sawed it off, wrapped it up and took it away.
The speculation on this, and it is that, is that the tree trunk was in some way used for target practice. There may be ballistics evidence there. We'll fill that out in a moment.
The second significant thing to note in the day, a debate going on tonight between task force members, FBI, Maryland, Virginia police, the others, about whether to release the names of two people they would like to talk to. Kelli Arena will have more on that as we go.
But this is the first time that we are aware of this sort of debate going on, that there are two people. They are not calling them suspects. They are absolutely interested in talking to them. One of them has a military connection. We'll get more on that in this hour or so from Barbara Starr over at the Pentagon. They want to talk to them.
The third essential piece of information for you to have, as we get rolling here at a minute past 10:00 in the East, is that they are looking for a car, a 1990 Chevy Caprice, one of those large old Chevys. It has New Jersey license plates and it is blue in color.
Those are the essential developments that we have as we begin.
And we go now to Kelli Arena. Kelli, just for people who are just joining us now at the top of the hour, let's do a little bit of back and fill here on where we are, what the issues are, what the debates are. I know you've been over this, but we ask you to do it again.
KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE DEPARTMENT CORRESPONDENT: OK. Well we'll start with the two individuals that investigators are interested in talking to. Sources tell us that there are two people that are wanted for questioning in relation to the sniper investigation. We have been cautioned not to refer to these individuals as suspects or possible suspects, just individuals that law enforcement officials have a very serious interest in locating and talking to.
Now, earlier, we were told by federal law enforcement sources that they fully expected there to be a press conference, where the names of these individuals would be released to the public. However, we have since learned that there is an intense debate going on within the sniper investigation task force over whether or not this is the right time and whether a press conference is the right forum in which to release this information to the public, if the information should be released to the public.
And, as you and I have watched this unfold, Aaron, we've seen law enforcement officials treading very lightly here, being very cautious. And the information that they divulge and don't divulge and ask us not to divulge. And it's been an interesting dance that has been played all along. But that's where we're at least on that score -- Aaron.
BROWN: All right. Here we go again, Kelli. Feels like we've been here before.
The elements of the debate going on, on whether to name these people, if not a press conference -- I mean you're either going to name them or you're not. You're either going to put these names out publicly or you're not. What other forum, what other way, what other possibility is there to get this out there, except to announce it?
ARENA: Right. Well, they either wait or they just do an internal communication with just law enforcement agencies across the nation. We do know that there are communications, electronic communications that go out that are law enforcement sensitive and not -- we're very accustomed to those on the terrible bulletins that come out every Wednesday, Aaron.
You know that there's information that goes in that is meant specifically for law enforcement. We usually get a hold of those, though, through a variety of sources. But that's one way that they might release that information. It may not be considered the best approach to go to the public with the information.
BROWN: I'm sorry. So, that's really the issue. The issue is whether or not they want to engage the public, involve the public in trying to find two people that they have not -- they clearly -- this we can be certain of -- they clearly have not been able to find. And there are several avenues in which they can do that. They can announce it on TV; that is one way. Or they can put out an APB and hope that somebody finds them; that's another way.
There are probably other ways. But that's the nature of the debate, right?
ARENA: That's right. There's also, as you know, there's been a lot of caution when it comes to releasing information publicly that the sniper and possible accomplices might hear in a public forum. And, as you know, there was much debate over whether or not to publicly release a portion of one of the written communications from the sniper when it came to a threat to children. And while investigators were hammered on that point, they just would not make information public until finally there was so much information that was wrong, that was being reported just completely wrong, that finally police came out and said, OK, we will read you exactly what was written in this communication. So they've been very careful in terms of what they release. Also knowing that the sniper or snipers are listening.
BROWN: All right. I think two more things, and then I want to go to Jeanne Meserve, your colleague. First the car. Again, let's go over the basic details on the car and if you know anything about -- and you can report anything about why this car, what this car, who this car. We're here to take it.
ARENA: Actually, Aaron, I think Jeanne has that information for you.
BROWN: All right. Kelli, then we'll go to her. And I suspect we'll talk to you again. Thank you. Kelli Arena, who covers the Justice Department for us.
Jeanne Meserve has been working this story now for the last three weeks hard and well. Jeanne, what do you have?
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we do know there is this lookout this evening for this 1990 Chevy blue and burgundy, possibly with two men inside, in connection with this investigation. Very interesting. Vehicles have been a subject of constant debate through this investigation.
You'll remember one of the first pieces of information they put out for public consumption was a composite of a white box truck. This had been seen at some of the early shootings in Montgomery County. They had put together this composite from the recollections of witnesses. Then later they put out composite drawings of two types of vans, both of them white with ladder racks, asking people have they seen these.
Again, gleaning these from the memories of witnesses at some of the shooting sites. Since then, the issue of vehicles has been a bit controversial. Every time there has been a shooting the public has responded very quickly, sometimes flooding police agencies with calls, saying we have seen a white van, we have seen a white truck, believing this is exactly what investigators were looking for.
In fact, investigators wanted to cast a much broader net. They wanted people to report any vehicle they saw which might be suspicious. Where this particular lookout call for this 1990 Chevy came from, we just don't know right now -- Aaron.
BROWN: So what we know is they're looking for this bluish Chevy Caprice. I'm pretty sure that's the really large...
MESERVE: Blue and burgundy.
BROWN: Pardon? MESERVE: Blue and burgundy.
BROWN: Blue and burgundy Chevy Caprice, which is -- I believe the Caprice is often used as a police car, or at least it's that size. It's often used as a cab, anyway. It's the large Chevy. It's got New Jersey plates, blue and burgundy, older car, 1990.
We don't know why they're looking for it specifically. Is this the first time this car or any car other than the vans and the truck have come up in this, by the way?
MESERVE: This is the first time I have heard a description of this vehicle come up.
BROWN: OK. All right. We'll continue to try and figure out what that's about. All the while we've been talking, on the other side of the screen you've been looking at mostly tape pictures of the search area in Tacoma, Washington. Tacoma is about an hour south of Seattle. This search began in the morning. We know they took away a tree trunk. We're not sure if they took away anything else.
Lillian Kim is there for us. Lillian, tell us what you can.
LILLIAN KIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, agents from the FBI and ATF have just finished up their search. They've been here since this afternoon and have been very tight-lipped about what's been going on here. They were searching that residential duplex behind me, and right now residents, neighbors are swarming the area in an effort to look inside.
Sources tell us that this search is connected to the D.C. area sniper attacks. They gridded off the backyard, where they removed a tree trunk that they had sawed off at its roots. They then put it in plastic before taking it away. They believe that that tree trunk might have been used for target practice and may contain bullets or bullet fragments.
Sources also say that they were looking for shell casings in the backyard. Now, all of the items they seized were put into a U-Haul truck that ended up being about half full. Now, what's interesting is that the current occupants are not under suspicion. In fact, they agreed to the search.
We have been told that it is the previous tenant that is under -- that may be under suspicion. What is also interesting is that this neighborhood is home to many soldiers from for the Fort Lewis (ph), an Army post that is nearby. And, according to these neighbors, they do not recall ever hearing any gun shot noises in the past weeks, months, even years. So an interesting twist in light of what has happened here today -- Aaron.
BROWN: Do we know -- I know information has been very difficult to come by. So just tell me what you can and we'll move on from what you can't. Do we know how long it has been since this other tenant, not the current tenant, the other tenant moved out? Any idea?
KIM: No idea.
BROWN: OK. That's fine. Do we know whether -- I'm sorry -- do we know whether that person had any connection to the military at all? Do we know that?
KIM: No idea on that either. Neighbors say that they do not really remember the person who lived here before.
BROWN: OK.
KIM: That they do know, however, that they also didn't hear any gun shot noises over the past months or even years. So that's why they think it's interesting that they are here looking for evidence that may be connected to any gunshots being fired, despite the fact that they haven't heard anything like that over the past months or years.
BROWN: That part's a little bit confusing to me, because I did hear one neighbor say earlier tonight that she and her husband, I think she said her husband was in the Army at Fort Lewis, which is just down the road from Tacoma. There are aspects of Tacoma that's a military town. Fort Lewis is there. McCord Air Force Base is nearby. And that they did hear gunfire in the neighborhood. So some did, some didn't.
KIM: We're hearing conflicting reports then, because the neighbors that we have talked to have said they hadn't heard anything like that. So I guess it depends on who you talk to. Also depends on which neighbors have been here the longest, how far back this may have gone.
BROWN: It always does. In any case, we know from listening to the FBI briefing that the FBI is saying virtually nothing other than they conducted a search. That's all the FBI said.
The Tacoma Police Department, which provided site assistance, that is to say it set up road blocks in that neighborhood in Tacoma, while the FBI, while federal officials, conducted the search. That Tacoma police officials are saying nothing at all, other than that they did set up the perimeter and that any information's going to have to come from the FBI. And the Seattle office of the FBI has yet to offer any information at all. And so everything that we really know about this we glean from watching the pictures, watching the aerial pictures.
We saw them saw off that tree trunk. We saw them wrap it up in some kind of tarp. We saw them haul it away. That we know happened. But beyond that, we're putting pieces together as we go.
Again, all of that going on in Tacoma, south of Seattle. And all of that largely over now. The federal agents who are on the scene have pretty much moved on, taking what they found and moved on. And they'll begin the work of analyzing it, whatever it is they're looking for.
Jeanne Meserve, joining us again from Washington -- Jeanne. MESERVE: I just wanted to correct something I said a moment ago. You asked me if we had heard about a burgundy or blue Chevy Caprice in connection with this investigation before. I said, "No." My colleague, Wolf Blitzer, has jogged my memory and he is right.
When Pascal Charlot was shot on October 3 in Washington, D.C., he was that 72-year-old Haitian immigrant. There was a lookout then for a burgundy Caprice. A few days later, a vehicle matching that description had been found burned out in Washington, D.C. It never was clarified whether that indeed was the exact vehicle they were looking for in connection with that shooting.
But just to clarify, yes, a burgundy Caprice has indeed come up in this investigation.
And, Aaron, I wanted to tell you about one other thing that we have discovered about a very near miss with this sniper. You may remember on Monday, there were a couple arrests at a gas station outside of Richmond, Virginia. Well, sources tell me that the man who authorities believe is the sniper had made phone calls from that very gas station over the weekend and again on Monday morning. And that the authorities there were watching and waiting.
They saw a white van pull in. They moved in and they nabbed those two men who it later turned out had absolutely nothing to do with this investigation. And I am told by my sources that the local law enforcement authorities feel that the problem here was one of miscommunication. That the sniper had been there. Perhaps they missed him by ten minutes or less.
But they say that there was a delay in the communications between the task force headquarters in Montgomery County and the local law enforcement officials. And that is why they missed him. So this close, apparently, on Monday morning, to actually nabbing the sniper.
BROWN: And just, Jeanne, on that point, and this is the kind of thing that is not unexpected when you have so many agencies and so many jurisdictions involved. There has been some tension between the various agencies that make up the task force.
MESERVE: There has been considerable tension amongst the agencies that make up the task force. In the public presentations, they make it sound all roses, everybody is talking, everybody is communicating. But I have heard a number of things about tensions, most of it between task force members head quartered in Montgomery County and people who those investigators refer to as being south of the border.
Those would be the investigators in Virginia. There have been a couple instances like this occasion in Richmond, the arrest in Richmond, where this has really become quite noticeable and there have been some derogatory terms used by people on both sides to refer to one another. Also we're told dissension even within the task force. Some investigators feeling that they're not being given enough information. They feel they could be more effective if they knew a little bit more about what was going on. Also, even within organizations there could be disagreements about tactics and strategy. You'll recall when that note was found outside Ashland, Virginia, Kelli Arena's been reporting that there was some tension there about that note and what to do with it.
There were some law enforcement officials who felt they should open it immediately. They were in a race against the clock to keep this sniper from hitting again. And yet there were other officials who talk a more cautious approach, who said, gee, we really ought to test this first. Both as evidence, and also to make sure it wasn't contaminated with something, with let's say anthrax.
The decision was made to send to it the lab. As a result, they missed a deadline. But that gives you an idea of the different sorts of opinions and viewpoints and egos that are involved in this very complicated investigation, which now involves more than a dozen different agencies and departments.
BROWN: Jeanne, thank you. We'll be hearing more from you as we go.
It is the kind of thing that happens in everybody's workplace, if you think about it. It certainly happens in ours. People have strong views, differing opinions. They fight. The difference is when it happens in a task force, in a crime of this magnitude, and it comes out, what is normal and usual behavior begins to look like something else.
And we have nothing but sympathy for the people who are trying to end this horrendous killing spree that is now in its third week. Kathleen Koch has been covering it literally from the beginning out in Montgomery County. Kathleen, anything about whether the chief, Chief Moose, is going to come out again tonight and if he's going to, what he's going to say?
KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, we have just learned from Montgomery County Police that, yes, he is coming out in about half an hour. That would put it around 10:45 for a press conference.
Now, they didn't say he was going to come out and make a statement and not take any questions. That was what they told us earlier. Around 5:00 this evening they said he would come out at 6:00. And then finally 7:00 rolled around.
And Nancy Demme, the captain, came out and said there have been developments in this case that we really need to focus on. And said they might come back out later and share more information with us. So we are hoping then in this next half-hour to perhaps get those names that Kelli had talked about at the beginning of the show.
BROWN: Well, we hope we get the names and we hope we get some meaning to the names. There are so many dangers here for everybody involved now, particularly when you start putting names on this thing. And the chief has been, as you've pointed out and as Kelli pointed out, in the last hour, very careful about such things, putting names out there for reasons that are obvious. You don't want to create for someone an absolute nightmare.
And you throw a name out here tonight and you suggest that that person is somehow involved in this and you better be right, for one thing. You better be right.
So we would expect whatever he says, that he will frame it very cautiously, very carefully. And we may or may not be able to interpret what he means as he says it, but hopefully in a half an hour we'll know.
Kathleen, was there much -- there was a lot of reporting today about the contents of the notes, the tone of the notes, the missed phone calls, the fact the sniper said he was very upset that calls he made to the police weren't handled properly. Was there, in the discussions with the task force today, with the chief and others today, much talk, much reaction to that reporting that had been going on?
KOCH: We probed the chief quite a bit on that, Aaron, and he wouldn't really react. I mean, obviously, I think the greatest deal of concern came out regarding this line that's been reported, where the killer or killers said that five people had to die because apparently the killer claims that there were people who are taking calls on the 888 number, the FBI tip line, that were hanging up on the killer apparently as many as six times. And that that infuriated this killer.
And so, again, the chief, though, wouldn't go there, wouldn't react to that. Obviously very much on the defensive, which was part of why he had to come out yesterday with that very chilling excerpt from the letter saying your children are not safe anywhere at any time. And, interesting, Aaron, back to the point that you were making last night, the chief was quizzed today about why not release that one sentence so perhaps someone can recognize that handwriting, and maybe help crack open the case?
The police chief said they haven't totally eliminated that possibility, that they might go there. So we'll wait and see.
BROWN: OK. Just one other point on these notes that just jumped out at me when I first read it very late last night, which is that the sniper, we presume we're dealing with the sniper in these phone calls, literally knew the names of some of the people on the other end of the tip line that he had talked to. And in his communication, his second communication with police, where he was angry and upset and said five more people had to die because of your incompetence and all this, literally named the people who had hung up on him.
KOCH: I think this runs very much in keeping with what some profilers have been saying about this individual who is very interested in control, in respect. And in punishment, perhaps. Why he's passing along these names. Can you just imagine the guilt that you would feel if you were one of these people and now you know that several people have died since you hung up on this killer or killers? Can you imagine how they must feel?
BROWN: Actually, that's a great point. And the other point that I thought was really interesting tonight was made a short time ago by one of Larry's guests. And what she said is that that's a really convenient way for the killer to blame the victims or blame others for his killing.
You say, you see, I didn't want to do this, but your incompetence made me do this. And there's always an excuse here built in, if that's in fact what it was. Kathleen, we'll be coming back to you. Thank you, Kathleen Koch, out at Montgomery County.
We're joined now, as we have been a number of times since this all began, by our friend John Timoney, the former police chief in Philadelphia. Long-time cop and official in the New York City Police Department as well. And now the CEO -- I think I got that right -- the CEO of Beau Dietl and associates investigative firm. John joins us from Philadelphia. It's good to see you again.
JOHN TIMONEY, CEO, BEAU DIETL & ASSOCIATES: Good to see you, Aaron.
BROWN: I'm going to ask you a couple of questions that will require you to think. But I want to know if your gut's telling you anything right now about where we are in this. Do you have any sense that the end game is on?
TIMONEY: No, this is obviously the most obvious investigative steps since those two illegal immigrants were stopped the other day, which caused a great deal of activity, particularly in the press. This thirst in the media for some kind of activity.
We're seeing the same here. What it looks like, and this is pure speculation, you know we had this discussion last week and the week before. That somebody knows this guy.
For example, something must have gelled in one of the tipsters that they may in fact know this guy. And so, for example, he says, I think it's this guy, John Timoney. He runs with this other guy Angel Perez. He used to live in Tacoma Washington.
You chase down some leads. You heard that he may have practiced with his rifle at some tree stump, which you're seeing on television. But you also know that this guy Timoney is from New Jersey. You run his name against the motor vehicle bureau. It comes up that he's got a 1990 Chevy Caprice, burgundy, blue in color, registered.
And so, you know, the decision then is, you know, is Timoney just -- is he a possible subject or is he a possible witness? And that debate's going on. I think Chief Moose is correct in being careful and the discussion regarding releasing names at this point is the right discussion.
I'll just mention one name to you Aaron: Richard Jewell. And if a name gets out, particularly of an innocent person, that person could quite literally be ruined overnight. BROWN: And when you think about the magnitude of this case and the attention now for three weeks that we have given it and that the newspapers have given it, that the country has given it, you don't want to -- nobody wants to mess it up ever.
TIMONEY: Right.
BROWN: You really don't want to mess it up now. All right. So, at the things that we have seen, needle in a haystack, trying to find a single car, doable?
TIMONEY: Oh, without a doubt. Clearly, they've got a license plate. It's registered to New Jersey. If you remember early on they were looking for an Astro van with Maryland plates. So that apparently is out the window.
So a Chevy Caprice blue and burgundy, those are pretty distinct colors. You see them in often in gypsy cabs around New York and Washington and Philadelphia. And so it will be an easy car to pick out. And with a New Jersey plate, that kind of eliminates obviously Maryland, Virginia, the most likely states, and it gives you something to go on.
BROWN: Weigh in for a second on this question that I started to harp on last night. And I guess, to a certain extent, I'll throw it out on the table again tonight. And that is, they have this note or notes, actually, hand written notes. Tell me the downside. This is the part, John, I don't get.
TIMONEY: Right.
BROWN: I want to know the downside of letting the communities see the handwriting, read the words, because I keep thinking of the Unabomber. I keep thinking that out there, David Kaczynski, some David Kaczynski is going to go, that's Timoney. Timoney wrote that note.
TIMONEY: Exactly. You know, as you're well aware, the Unabomber wrote numerous letters to the FBI. They kept them in the file, the investigative file. It was evidence to use later on.
It was only when he wrote his manifesto to the "New York Times" and it was published that his brother recognized the handwriting, recognized some of the phraseology and called the FBI and said, listen, I think it's my brother. I hope you don't kill them. And of course they made an arrest pretty easily.
Here, you know there's been this issue all along. I am loathe to criticize anybody. I am not down there. I don't have all the information.
But, for example, start with the tarot card. I found no problem with having the notion that he left a tarot card out there, because that could have jingled somebody's memory. I know this guy next door. I saw him with Tarot cards. By the way, he also owns a long gun. You know, maybe it's him. Or some store owner remembers selling tarot cards to some guy that came in the other day. So you can put out the tarot card, while withholding the information that's written on it. We saw that with Jimmy Breslin and the son of Sam letters that came to Jimmy Breslin, where he left certain things out.
On the letter coming up, the most recent letter that made two things. One, the ransom demand, and then also the threat against children. I thought I heard, and again I haven't seen it, the notion that if you showed it to the press, others will die. And I don't know if that threat was in there. But if it wasn't, you know, there is -- you cut this baby in half.
You can withhold a certain amount of information while giving out, for example, an innocuous paragraph that will show the penmanship, the phraseology, that somebody may be able to recognize.
BROWN: Just on that last point you made, John. And then I want to check with Barbara Starr, who's sitting on a piece of information here. Let's just say that the sniper here, in fact, said, I don't want this stuff released to the media.
I want to suggest to you that he can't get angrier than he is. He's out there killing people now. And the object is to stop him. And if releasing that might help by somebody recognizing the handwriting, I'm not -- honestly I'm trying to be sympathetic to the argument. I'm just not sure where the strength of the argument is. I don't know.
TIMONEY: Aaron, nobody can argue with your argument. Sharing at least part of it. Because we know in the past it's proven to be fruitful. It isn't like we don't have precedent where it didn't work out. It actually worked out in the Unabomber case.
BROWN: It sure did. John, I hope you can stay around for awhile tonight.
TIMONEY: Absolutely.
BROWN: Thank you. John Timoney, in Philadelphia. A former Philadelphia police chief and a long-time New York City police officer. In the big box, for those of you just coming in, these are taped pictures from KING TV in Seattle of a search that went on in a Tacoma, Washington backyard. Tacoma, about an hour from Seattle.
They took that tree trunk they're working on. You can see them splitting it off from the reset of the stump there. They took it away, and we believe that they're looking for bullets and ballistics and that it might have been used for target practice.
They laid out this long grid. In a little bit we'll bring Mike Brooks in to talk a little bit about how they went about this search. But you can see the metal detectors, familiar to anyone who's been on a beach in recent years. You know, people looking for spare change and the like. Looking for shell casings and all that sort of thing.
That was going on in Tacoma. That is over now and this is tape that you're looking at.
Barbara Starr is at the Pentagon. And there seems to be a Pentagon or a military connection to the way the news has shaken out tonight -- Barbara.
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Aaron, that's right. Defense officials are telling us that one of these two individuals that they have very high interest in talking to, again we have no knowledge whether they are suspects or witnesses or what. But one of these two individuals does have prior military service, prior army service and was stationed at some point at Fort Lewis.
Now, Pentagon officials tell us that the person was not trained as a military sniper, was not part of Army Special Forces. In fact, was -- in a specialty called Combat Support, which can involve anything from transportation to supply to logistics. We really don't know. But that person would have received the same basic firearms training at Army Basic School that any Army personnel would have.
What may be most interesting here is the fact that the Pentagon knows the military record of this person. It suggests that they had some contact with domestic law enforcement at some point today and the FBI said, Here's the name, run it through the computer, pull the guy's record and tell us what you can about him.
The Pentagon, we have every reason to believe, does know the name of the person, knows their military service record, knows that they were on active duty at one point, no longer -- they no longer are. We know that they will not tell the news media the name. They are going to leave that up to civilian law enforcement.
And what we don't know, because the Pentagon says they don't know, whether this person is a suspect or a witness. But did serve in the military.
BROWN: OK. Couple of things there. It's been 11 years since I lived out in Western Washington, but I assume there is still a large Army Ranger training facility at Fort Lewis. There was then.
STARR: That's right.
BROWN: I gather from your reporting that he was neither in the Special Forces part of Fort Lewis nor the Rangers part of Fort Lewis.
STARR: That's right. We are told -- and this is the level of detail the Pentagon has tonight -- that he was not assigned to the Second Ranger Battalion, which is at Fort Lewis. He was not part of what is known as the First Special Forces Group, which is at Fort Lewis. In fact, he was part of a conventional unit known as ICorp.
But many, many army personnel from Fort Lewis have recently served in Afghanistan with great distinction. It is an army base that regularly and routinely sends its personnel overseas.
BROWN: And has for a long time. Lot of people left for the Pacific in World War II out of Fort Lewis. A lot of people watching this program tonight I suspect remember that army base and those views of Mount Ranier as some of the last views they saw as they headed off into the Pacific.
Barbara, very quickly, has the military given you any indication why they are -- how this person's name came up?
STARR: There is every indication that it would have come to them through the FBI.
BROWN: But we don't know what prompted the FBI or anybody else to say go look for John Timoney?
STARR: That is correct, Aaron. Ever since this began, the FBI has been asking the military to search their records for anyone who did have sniper training, who might be someone of concern or interest. No indication this person had sniper training.
So that's exactly right. We don't know why the FBI came to the Pentagon and said, Please pull the record on this guy. We want to know more about him.
BROWN: OK, Barbara, thank you, Barbara Starr at the Pentagon. I expect we'll be talking with you again.
Bill Daly, former FBI agent is here with us in New York. We'll be talking with him again.
John Timoney, whose name I just threw out as if, in fact, he were some suspect in something, is not. He's a former Philadelphia Police Chief. And he's with us tonight to lend his expertise to the discussion on a day, a night really, last several hours, of a number of developments which, in the scheme of things, may or may not be anything.
It occurred to me as we were watching this search that you see, there's an old expression in our business that it's never pretty watching the sausage get made, but it's not the process of watching the sausage get made that counts. And it strikes me in watching this investigative moment, whatever it was, that that is the police version of sausage making.
Whether, in fact, it turns into anything, we will know at some point, but we don't know it now. We're going to take a short break, continue our coverage here on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: That is the podium, it is a familiar scene in Montgomery County, Maryland. We expect the head of the task force, Police Chief Moose, to come out in about ten minutes, give or take, and provide whatever update he intends to provide tonight. There's certainly plenty in motion and plenty to talk about.
And I assume we will, on the subject of sausage being made, see one of those uglier little journalistic sausage moments where reporters are screaming questions. Sometimes the same question again and again trying to get what information they can.
Again, we expect to hear from the chief in about ten minutes, at about quarter to 11 Eastern time. We'll see how that goes.
Bill Daly is with us, senior vice president of Control Risk Groups in New York. I'd be lying to you if I knew what that meant. I do know he's a former FBI agent and he's still in the business of following leads, I gather.
Nice to see you. Do you have any -- same thing I asked John earlier. Is your gut telling you anything about where we are in this moment? Do you feel like something's happening?
BILL DALY, FRM. FBI INVESTIGATOR: Well, you know, Aaron, when you look at this. It's a series of little video vignettes. It's kind of like looking through the opera house window, trying to figure out what song's being played and what the script is. It's very difficult. Some of these things normally take course during an investigation and they're not covered by helicopter shots and people on the ground.
BROWN: Well in fact, they may have had a dozen other searches over the last three weeks that we just don't know about. This one was a very public search and helicopters were in the air in Seattle and they caught it, I guess.
DALY: I would suggest that we look at this connection now between the Seattle, not too far away from Fort Lewis. We have this home possibly looking at ballistics evidence. And now we have the potential for names being released. We're hearing that these names or maybe one of the names may be associated with the military. Certainly the two -- two connective points are going there.
But we have to, as we mentioned earlier, I'm very mindful of what happened after the Olympic Park bombing. We have Richard Jewell's name coming out.
And that's why I think they're being very circumspect in releasing names of individuals at this point. It's important for them to go through every effort to try to find these people through usual police means and channels and if not then perhaps release that to the public...
BROWN: You don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out if they had been able to find them, they'd have found them already. And the mere fact that they're debating this tells us one thing if nothing else, which is they don't know where they are right now.
DALY: That was my first gut reaction on this. And I think they're just being doubly sure. Once it goes out, once it goes out, you can't take it back. You can't change opinions or what people think, whether they are complicit, whether they're people who are witnesses, whether they have some background information and it's difficult then to change public opinion to be something different.
Just want to follow-up on one other point you talked about which was the release of this document. Many of us who were talking about the Unabomber when it was happening were -- knew there was some other correspondence. We also knew out here in the public side that they had this manifesto. They were thinking about it for a bit of time before they decided to release it. Because of the investigative opportunities, whether that helped.
In this case I would say what they're probably doing is not only looking at it forensicly for the usual things between the fingerprints and handwriting, but also you can do some comparative analysis between writing styles.
So I would think before they release something like this to the public to help the -- throw it out to the public for their help, they're going to go through all those means they can, to be able to compare those documents, to make sure that they've exhausted their arsenal of opportunities to be able to know who perhaps wrote this document.
BROWN: Never happy to, but I'm perfectly comfortable if a guest slaps me around on a point. Just tell me if you think that just the notion that if not today, in some near tomorrow, it might be helpful to see the handwriting, to see the syntax that the person uses. It might be helpful. But it is not some crazy notion of a reporter who's just trying to get one more piece of information to get ratings with.
DALY: No, I don't think so, and I think if we go back to the Unabomber case, where it was decided that the continual script that Ted Kaczynski was writing, and this long manifesto, in fact, was that critical turning point in the investigation, when someone in his family saw it -- I believe it was his brother...
BROWN: David.
DALY: ... saw it and said, this is his writing. So, at that point, if they've exhausted those other opportunities, certainly to turn it out to the public, as long as there is nothing in there that is detrimental to the public as far as getting them overly concerned by somebody who apparently has -- is spouting off, and perhaps causing more terror or mayhem in the public. But having said that, releasing the document at some point may have some value. I'm just suggesting that there are some other steps that need to be gone through before you get to that point.
BROWN: I'll consider that to be gentle slapping around. Thank you.
Mike Brooks is in Atlanta. Mike helps us with understanding law enforcement, security questions, and one of the things that he's been talking to people about tonight is not only what they were looking for, but how they went about looking for it. And again, we're waiting on Chief Moose, and that could come within two, three, four, five minutes.
Mike, so I may interrupt you as you go, but why don't you get started.
MIKE BROOKS, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: No problem at all, Aaron. What we were seeing tonight and what we have been seeing on the screen here is a backyard in Tacoma, Washington, of a duplex home where a team of FBI agents, Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents, Tacoma Police and Pierce County Sheriff's officers served a warrant.
It was a consent to search. The consent was given by the people that lived there in the house. What they were looking for, and we've been seeing pictures of earlier, their main concentration was of a tree trunk. The tree trunk law enforcement sources are telling CNN was used, apparently, for some kind of target practice. So what they did, they went in with the assistance of the fire department, cut this tree trunk off -- looking at the tree trunk, it looks fairly rotted. They cut it off, and they took it away, wrapped it in plastic, and took it away in a truck, presumably to try to pick out any remnants of bullet fragment, any other bullets that could be in there. And what they did, they gridded off -- they did a grid search of that particular yard. The FBI Evidence Response Team from Seattle field office of the FBI was there to assist.
Earlier we saw one of the agents walking up and back, up and forth, back and forth in this grid area using a metal detector, looking for any bullet fragments, any shell casings that also could have been there. We're also told that they didn't believe there was a gun, but there was always a possibility that there could have been some kind of a weapon that was left in that area, too. They were again not going to leave any stone unturned while they were at this property in Tacoma, Washington.
BROWN: Mike...
BROOKS: Yes.
BROWN: Let me ask -- I just want to focus in on a couple of things.
BROOKS: Sure.
BROWN: First of all, a question of fact. Your sources are saying to you that they, in fact, served a search warrant because there has been some conflict on this. Some -- but we have also reported that it was a consensual search, and while the government was prepared to serve a search warrant and obtain a search warrant, they had not.
BROOKS: That's correct.
BROWN: Do you know -- you know -- your sources are clear that a search warrant was served?
BROOKS: No, it was a consent search. The residents...
BROWN: OK. There was no warrant?
BROOKS: No. No warrant. If they needed a warrant, they could have gotten one, because you still need probable cause to do a search. But they got a consent search from the people that live there. Want to be clear that the people that are living in this house are not suspects. They are not suspects at all in the shooter shootings in the Washington, D.C. area. They are not suspects. Want to make that clear.
BROWN: I understand that, and we have.
Question number two has to do with what we didn't see in these pictures. What we saw was this grid laid out. We saw them take away the tree trunk. We saw all that. What we didn't see them do was dig up the yard, for example. Go ahead.
BROOKS: They apparently found what they were looking for, and what they were concentrating on in that yard. But what they would have done -- I'm told the equipment was there to do it, and has been done in other searches is they used ground-penetrating radar, and that's one of the reasons they grid the area off. The ground penetrating radar would look beneath the surface of the yard for any anomalies, and for anything at all that may look like any pieces of evidence. But at first, they go over the yard with a metal detector.
Again, they can set this metal detector on different sensitivities, just like the kind of metal detectors that are used when you go on the beach, when you go to the beach and looking in the sand for hidden treasures on the beach. Same kind of metal detectors. They scan the yard looking for any pieces of metal. What other evidence they got besides taking that tree trunk, it's not known at this time.
BROWN: Thank you, Mike Brooks, in Atlanta tonight.
Lilian Kim is in Tacoma tonight. She has been on the scene trying to put together the pieces of this now cross country puzzle -- Lilian.
KIM: Well Aaron, earlier we were talking about the conflicting reports that we were hearing from neighbors as to whether or not they had heard gunshots over the past weeks, months, the past year.
Well, we did talk to a neighbor who lives right across the street from this residential duplex where the search had taken place, and he is a private first class from Fort Lewis, which is the Army post nearby here in Tacoma. His name is Christopher Waters (ph). He is 23 years old, and he says over a two-week period in January, he did, in fact, hear a number of gunshots about every other day. It would happen at night. He said it sounded like it was from a high-powered rifle.
At the time, he wasn't sure where it was coming from. He thought it was a bunch of kids just playing around. He did call 911 at the time. So this is interesting because it does corroborate the information that was gathered here today, speculation that the tree trunk that was seized from this property may contain bullets or bullet fragments -- Aaron.
BROWN: Lilian, thank you. We're now square on that, I think, that at least some people in the neighborhood, and this was for those of you who came in late -- some people in the neighborhood were saying that they hadn't heard gunfire in this neighborhood in Tacoma, other people were saying that they had, or at least I had heard that from other people. We are just trying to track that down. I think now we have -- that at least some people in the neighborhood heard gunfire, and while normally we would -- I'm trying to think precisely how I want to phrase this -- we would be careful, very careful with anyone we interviewed, any witness saying that they were sure it was a high- powered rifle or not. One of the things we keep in mind about Tacoma, and we know it pretty well from having lived out there for almost 20 years, that Tacoma is a military town. Fort Lewis is there, McChord Air Force Base is there. People in the area are quite familiar with guns. They have them, they've used them, they've been trained on them and they know them, and it would not surprise me at all if somebody in the neighborhood understood exactly what they were hearing, what kind of -- at least, broadly, what kind of gun.
We're waiting on the head of the task force, Chief Moose, to come out, for what would be a very unusual late evening news cast. We're coming up at almost 10 to 11:00 Eastern time. Hopefully he will be able to put some of the events of tonight, the search in Tacoma, the search for this Chevy Caprice, this bluish-burgundy Chevy Caprice with New Jersey plates, and these two names, or two people, who may or may not be named, who the police would like to talk to, and perhaps he'll even explain to us why. In any case, we expect to hear from him shortly.
As we wait on that, Harley Stock was with us last night. He's a forensic psychologist, right? I think I got that right. Almost made you a medical doctor, but I think it's a psychologist.
Just if this sniper is watching this tonight, and he sees this activity going on and it is, in fact, relevant -- let's add that fact -- what's he thinking?
DR. HARLEY STOCK, FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGIST: I bet his blood pressure is going up.
BROWN: Yes.
STOCK: He's probably worried that they may be on to something and perhaps is planning an escape route, but also may be thinking about how he's going to go out in glory, as we've seen in some of these other spree killers. He may think about going out and killing again, or he may think about killing himself.
BROWN: Did he expect this?
STOCK: This evidence to come up the way it is?
BROWN: Yes. In a sense, did he expect that they'd find him?
STOCK: Well, you know, once...
BROWN: If, in fact, that's what's happening. I mean, I don't know if that's what's happening. But either does he, as he sits and watches this. He knows whether there's a Fort Lewis connection. He knows whether he lived in Tacoma or not. He knows whether he fired into that tree trunk. Did he expect them to figure this out?
STOCK: Well once he started this communication, once he gave a demand for $10 million, once he opened up this channel, then he knew that people would really be sniffing into his background.
So it should come as no surprise to him that some point the government is going to put the pieces together. Whether he expected however to come this quickly, probably not.
BROWN: Is he panicking?
STOCK: Well, I would suppose anybody in his position -- at one point as he said in his communication, he's God. Well he's finding out very quickly, he's not.
BROWN: What's that -- I don't mean to put you in an absolutely impossible position of reading the mind of someone you've never talked to and couldn't identify if he walked across the street right now. None of us could.
But you have a lot of experience dealing with these sorts of people, and a lot of understanding of what goes through their minds. The two options, flight, being one and going out in a blaze of glory. Do you have any sense why one would choose one versus the other?
STOCK: It's always better, the spree killer believes, to kill himself than be killed by others because he chooses his end. And so he may be, in fact, planning that. But what will be clear to him at this point is that he's lost control. Up until just now, he has controlled everything. He's controlled the media. He's controlled the police and he's controlled who died. That is quickly shifting.
BROWN: And just to underscore the point, control to someone like this, be it a spree killer or serial killer. I'm not always sure I understand the difference and perhaps at some point tonight you can explain it to me. But control is hugely important.
STOCK: It's really the core of this. That they can decide people's destinies, that they can decide how other people are finally going to respond to them. It gives people who, up to this time, had no power at all in their lives. It gives them the ultimate power.
BROWN: Stay with us.
John Timoney in Philadelphia, just one of those hanging curveball questions, John, as you've been listening to people opining here. What's been running through your mind?
TIMONEY: You know, it's -- I think we're better off waiting for chief moose to come out. But there may in fact may be a very simple explanation for all the activity that's going on here and it may be a fact that they've got a decent lead here. But it may in fact be that they're just reacting to a pretty solid tip.
As Bill Daly pointed out, this just may be one of many searches that they've done in the past, except this one happened to get caught on tele, primetime and the helicopters are up there and all of a sudden this is being magnified.
But however, there are a few things. Obviously there's the tree trunk involved. There's this home there. There's now two guys in a car with Jersey license plates. So there's a little more information out there. Whether this information all pans out is a whole other issue. We'll wait for Chief Moose to give us further directions or instructions.
BROWN: If you're running a task force like this, or you're the lead detective on a task force like this, and you're going through a day like today, what makes you nervous?
TIMONEY: Well, here's one of the thins. If I put the names out tonight and I say emphatically, Listen, they are only witnesses. We just need to talk to them. And then some very crafty reporter happens to latch on to them and takes them to a secluded area and conducts the interview first before turning them over to authorities, that can find of murky up the interview by authorities. So there are all sorts of things that could go wrong either intentionally or unintentionally.
BROWN: Do you think a reporter would do something like that, John?
TIMONEY: How much money do you have to bet, Aaron?
BROWN: I'm utterly shocked that you would think that.
TIMONEY: There's gambling in Casablanca, too.
BROWN: I'll bet it does. Are you nervous that all of this activity, whether it's related or not, is going to set him off again?
TIMONEY: No. I think one of your guests earlier pointed out, this guy just looks for discusses to rationalize why he went off. The notion that the police didn't answer the phones correctly. That's all hog wash. The first two days, let's face it, this guy killed five, six people the first two days before any attempts at communication. And so for the last three or four killings for him to try and rationalize that somehow the police are to blame for him killing additional people is just garbage.
BROWN: Dr. Stock, do you believe -- I think we talked about this last night. Do you believe the ransom is a real thing? That that's really what this is about?
STOCK: Well, I think that it certainly has an issue here. That it may be -- because if we look at these communications they've been fairly complicated. And certainly Chief Moose...
BROWN: OK, Dr. Stock, I need to interrupt you. Just very quickly, Jeanne Meserve in Washington's latched on to something -- Jeanne.
MESERVE: Aaron, we have couple names, names of people we believe from law enforcement sources investigators are interested in talking to in connection with this investigation. Here are the names. John Allen Williams, aka Mohammed Williams and also a John Lee Malvo. Malvo is the younger of these two individuals. We have no other vital information about them, their age, where they're from.
We have been told, however, by one of our producers on the ground out in Tacoma, that the name John Allen Williams, aka Mohammed Williams does have some association with that address out there where they have been searching, searching the backyard with metal detectors where they took away that tree trunk.
So once again the two people, law enforcement forces tell us investigators are interested in talking to. They're not being called suspects. They are being called people they want to talk to. John Allen Williams, aka Mohammed Williams and John Lee Malvo. Those are the two names -- Aaron.
BROWN: OK. My heart beat just went way up. Let's walk through this a little bit. Do we know anything about their ages?
MESERVE: No. We have been told that John Allen Williams is the older of the two. We don't know how much older. We don't know the exact age on either one.
BROWN: Do we know whether they are believed to be friends with one another? Do we know if they are believed to be together?
MESERVE: We do not know anything beyond their names. The only thing I can draw your attention to possibly connected is that lookout we heard about earlier tonight for that Chevy Caprice when police put out the lookout. They said there might be two men inside. It might be these two men. But I'm drawing a connection there that other people have not drawn for me.
BROWN: OK, and I'm going to leave that there. OK. Let me leave that there.
MESERVE: Aaron, can I just chime say, you know, I've watched the ebbs and flows of this investigation of the weeks. And there have been several times when investigators have felt they were looking at people who were extraordinarily interesting in connection with this investigation, either as possible suspects, possible witnesses, whatever, and they have not panned out. I mean sometimes they have had people under surveillance and there has been another shooting.
So they have to cross them off the list even though at one time they looked like the very hottest of prospects. They really looked like the fit the profile. So we really have to hear from Chief Moose exactly if these are the two people they are indeed going to talk about tonight and exactly why they're interested in them. But just to caution you, that things don't always work as we think will.
BROWN: Well do you have any reason to believe that these are not the two people...
MESERVE: If I had any reason to believe they weren't, I wouldn't be giving you their names, Aaron.
BROWN: That's what I assumed. That's what I assumed. OK. Jeanne, thank you. Nice work. Jeanne Meserve. But careful work. And we will deal with this carefully.
We will say again that these two men, John Allen Williams and John Malvo -- and I'm not clear on the spelling on Malvo in case -- are not considered by police at this moment to be suspects. What precisely they are considered as we do not yet know. But police would to talk to them. They have a great interest in talking to them.
We are waiting now, we're probably about 15 minutes late on this. We're waiting for Chief Moose to come out and we'll see if he adds to the body of knowledge here in terms of these two names or not. He may or may not. We know from Kelli Arena's reporting that the task force itself -- that has been debating back and forth tonight the appropriateness, the wisdom of releasing these names. Or releasing any names.
And we are making an assumption here, as Jeanne just indicated, that are the names they've been kicking around and trying to decide whether to release the names or not. And if so, how to characterize them. That debate may very well still be going on because we have not heard from the case.
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Aired October 23, 2002 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, HOST: I have no idea what the next hour or hours are going to bring, but for those of you who are just joining us, quickly here is where we have been tonight, an eventful night. Whether it turns out ultimately to be a significant night, we will have to see.
Three things of note to begin. First, a search in a backyard in Tacoma, Washington. At the very least, we know that the FBI and the ATF were on the scene and that they took away a tree trunk, sawed it off, wrapped it up and took it away.
The speculation on this, and it is that, is that the tree trunk was in some way used for target practice. There may be ballistics evidence there. We'll fill that out in a moment.
The second significant thing to note in the day, a debate going on tonight between task force members, FBI, Maryland, Virginia police, the others, about whether to release the names of two people they would like to talk to. Kelli Arena will have more on that as we go.
But this is the first time that we are aware of this sort of debate going on, that there are two people. They are not calling them suspects. They are absolutely interested in talking to them. One of them has a military connection. We'll get more on that in this hour or so from Barbara Starr over at the Pentagon. They want to talk to them.
The third essential piece of information for you to have, as we get rolling here at a minute past 10:00 in the East, is that they are looking for a car, a 1990 Chevy Caprice, one of those large old Chevys. It has New Jersey license plates and it is blue in color.
Those are the essential developments that we have as we begin.
And we go now to Kelli Arena. Kelli, just for people who are just joining us now at the top of the hour, let's do a little bit of back and fill here on where we are, what the issues are, what the debates are. I know you've been over this, but we ask you to do it again.
KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE DEPARTMENT CORRESPONDENT: OK. Well we'll start with the two individuals that investigators are interested in talking to. Sources tell us that there are two people that are wanted for questioning in relation to the sniper investigation. We have been cautioned not to refer to these individuals as suspects or possible suspects, just individuals that law enforcement officials have a very serious interest in locating and talking to.
Now, earlier, we were told by federal law enforcement sources that they fully expected there to be a press conference, where the names of these individuals would be released to the public. However, we have since learned that there is an intense debate going on within the sniper investigation task force over whether or not this is the right time and whether a press conference is the right forum in which to release this information to the public, if the information should be released to the public.
And, as you and I have watched this unfold, Aaron, we've seen law enforcement officials treading very lightly here, being very cautious. And the information that they divulge and don't divulge and ask us not to divulge. And it's been an interesting dance that has been played all along. But that's where we're at least on that score -- Aaron.
BROWN: All right. Here we go again, Kelli. Feels like we've been here before.
The elements of the debate going on, on whether to name these people, if not a press conference -- I mean you're either going to name them or you're not. You're either going to put these names out publicly or you're not. What other forum, what other way, what other possibility is there to get this out there, except to announce it?
ARENA: Right. Well, they either wait or they just do an internal communication with just law enforcement agencies across the nation. We do know that there are communications, electronic communications that go out that are law enforcement sensitive and not -- we're very accustomed to those on the terrible bulletins that come out every Wednesday, Aaron.
You know that there's information that goes in that is meant specifically for law enforcement. We usually get a hold of those, though, through a variety of sources. But that's one way that they might release that information. It may not be considered the best approach to go to the public with the information.
BROWN: I'm sorry. So, that's really the issue. The issue is whether or not they want to engage the public, involve the public in trying to find two people that they have not -- they clearly -- this we can be certain of -- they clearly have not been able to find. And there are several avenues in which they can do that. They can announce it on TV; that is one way. Or they can put out an APB and hope that somebody finds them; that's another way.
There are probably other ways. But that's the nature of the debate, right?
ARENA: That's right. There's also, as you know, there's been a lot of caution when it comes to releasing information publicly that the sniper and possible accomplices might hear in a public forum. And, as you know, there was much debate over whether or not to publicly release a portion of one of the written communications from the sniper when it came to a threat to children. And while investigators were hammered on that point, they just would not make information public until finally there was so much information that was wrong, that was being reported just completely wrong, that finally police came out and said, OK, we will read you exactly what was written in this communication. So they've been very careful in terms of what they release. Also knowing that the sniper or snipers are listening.
BROWN: All right. I think two more things, and then I want to go to Jeanne Meserve, your colleague. First the car. Again, let's go over the basic details on the car and if you know anything about -- and you can report anything about why this car, what this car, who this car. We're here to take it.
ARENA: Actually, Aaron, I think Jeanne has that information for you.
BROWN: All right. Kelli, then we'll go to her. And I suspect we'll talk to you again. Thank you. Kelli Arena, who covers the Justice Department for us.
Jeanne Meserve has been working this story now for the last three weeks hard and well. Jeanne, what do you have?
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we do know there is this lookout this evening for this 1990 Chevy blue and burgundy, possibly with two men inside, in connection with this investigation. Very interesting. Vehicles have been a subject of constant debate through this investigation.
You'll remember one of the first pieces of information they put out for public consumption was a composite of a white box truck. This had been seen at some of the early shootings in Montgomery County. They had put together this composite from the recollections of witnesses. Then later they put out composite drawings of two types of vans, both of them white with ladder racks, asking people have they seen these.
Again, gleaning these from the memories of witnesses at some of the shooting sites. Since then, the issue of vehicles has been a bit controversial. Every time there has been a shooting the public has responded very quickly, sometimes flooding police agencies with calls, saying we have seen a white van, we have seen a white truck, believing this is exactly what investigators were looking for.
In fact, investigators wanted to cast a much broader net. They wanted people to report any vehicle they saw which might be suspicious. Where this particular lookout call for this 1990 Chevy came from, we just don't know right now -- Aaron.
BROWN: So what we know is they're looking for this bluish Chevy Caprice. I'm pretty sure that's the really large...
MESERVE: Blue and burgundy.
BROWN: Pardon? MESERVE: Blue and burgundy.
BROWN: Blue and burgundy Chevy Caprice, which is -- I believe the Caprice is often used as a police car, or at least it's that size. It's often used as a cab, anyway. It's the large Chevy. It's got New Jersey plates, blue and burgundy, older car, 1990.
We don't know why they're looking for it specifically. Is this the first time this car or any car other than the vans and the truck have come up in this, by the way?
MESERVE: This is the first time I have heard a description of this vehicle come up.
BROWN: OK. All right. We'll continue to try and figure out what that's about. All the while we've been talking, on the other side of the screen you've been looking at mostly tape pictures of the search area in Tacoma, Washington. Tacoma is about an hour south of Seattle. This search began in the morning. We know they took away a tree trunk. We're not sure if they took away anything else.
Lillian Kim is there for us. Lillian, tell us what you can.
LILLIAN KIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, agents from the FBI and ATF have just finished up their search. They've been here since this afternoon and have been very tight-lipped about what's been going on here. They were searching that residential duplex behind me, and right now residents, neighbors are swarming the area in an effort to look inside.
Sources tell us that this search is connected to the D.C. area sniper attacks. They gridded off the backyard, where they removed a tree trunk that they had sawed off at its roots. They then put it in plastic before taking it away. They believe that that tree trunk might have been used for target practice and may contain bullets or bullet fragments.
Sources also say that they were looking for shell casings in the backyard. Now, all of the items they seized were put into a U-Haul truck that ended up being about half full. Now, what's interesting is that the current occupants are not under suspicion. In fact, they agreed to the search.
We have been told that it is the previous tenant that is under -- that may be under suspicion. What is also interesting is that this neighborhood is home to many soldiers from for the Fort Lewis (ph), an Army post that is nearby. And, according to these neighbors, they do not recall ever hearing any gun shot noises in the past weeks, months, even years. So an interesting twist in light of what has happened here today -- Aaron.
BROWN: Do we know -- I know information has been very difficult to come by. So just tell me what you can and we'll move on from what you can't. Do we know how long it has been since this other tenant, not the current tenant, the other tenant moved out? Any idea?
KIM: No idea.
BROWN: OK. That's fine. Do we know whether -- I'm sorry -- do we know whether that person had any connection to the military at all? Do we know that?
KIM: No idea on that either. Neighbors say that they do not really remember the person who lived here before.
BROWN: OK.
KIM: That they do know, however, that they also didn't hear any gun shot noises over the past months or even years. So that's why they think it's interesting that they are here looking for evidence that may be connected to any gunshots being fired, despite the fact that they haven't heard anything like that over the past months or years.
BROWN: That part's a little bit confusing to me, because I did hear one neighbor say earlier tonight that she and her husband, I think she said her husband was in the Army at Fort Lewis, which is just down the road from Tacoma. There are aspects of Tacoma that's a military town. Fort Lewis is there. McCord Air Force Base is nearby. And that they did hear gunfire in the neighborhood. So some did, some didn't.
KIM: We're hearing conflicting reports then, because the neighbors that we have talked to have said they hadn't heard anything like that. So I guess it depends on who you talk to. Also depends on which neighbors have been here the longest, how far back this may have gone.
BROWN: It always does. In any case, we know from listening to the FBI briefing that the FBI is saying virtually nothing other than they conducted a search. That's all the FBI said.
The Tacoma Police Department, which provided site assistance, that is to say it set up road blocks in that neighborhood in Tacoma, while the FBI, while federal officials, conducted the search. That Tacoma police officials are saying nothing at all, other than that they did set up the perimeter and that any information's going to have to come from the FBI. And the Seattle office of the FBI has yet to offer any information at all. And so everything that we really know about this we glean from watching the pictures, watching the aerial pictures.
We saw them saw off that tree trunk. We saw them wrap it up in some kind of tarp. We saw them haul it away. That we know happened. But beyond that, we're putting pieces together as we go.
Again, all of that going on in Tacoma, south of Seattle. And all of that largely over now. The federal agents who are on the scene have pretty much moved on, taking what they found and moved on. And they'll begin the work of analyzing it, whatever it is they're looking for.
Jeanne Meserve, joining us again from Washington -- Jeanne. MESERVE: I just wanted to correct something I said a moment ago. You asked me if we had heard about a burgundy or blue Chevy Caprice in connection with this investigation before. I said, "No." My colleague, Wolf Blitzer, has jogged my memory and he is right.
When Pascal Charlot was shot on October 3 in Washington, D.C., he was that 72-year-old Haitian immigrant. There was a lookout then for a burgundy Caprice. A few days later, a vehicle matching that description had been found burned out in Washington, D.C. It never was clarified whether that indeed was the exact vehicle they were looking for in connection with that shooting.
But just to clarify, yes, a burgundy Caprice has indeed come up in this investigation.
And, Aaron, I wanted to tell you about one other thing that we have discovered about a very near miss with this sniper. You may remember on Monday, there were a couple arrests at a gas station outside of Richmond, Virginia. Well, sources tell me that the man who authorities believe is the sniper had made phone calls from that very gas station over the weekend and again on Monday morning. And that the authorities there were watching and waiting.
They saw a white van pull in. They moved in and they nabbed those two men who it later turned out had absolutely nothing to do with this investigation. And I am told by my sources that the local law enforcement authorities feel that the problem here was one of miscommunication. That the sniper had been there. Perhaps they missed him by ten minutes or less.
But they say that there was a delay in the communications between the task force headquarters in Montgomery County and the local law enforcement officials. And that is why they missed him. So this close, apparently, on Monday morning, to actually nabbing the sniper.
BROWN: And just, Jeanne, on that point, and this is the kind of thing that is not unexpected when you have so many agencies and so many jurisdictions involved. There has been some tension between the various agencies that make up the task force.
MESERVE: There has been considerable tension amongst the agencies that make up the task force. In the public presentations, they make it sound all roses, everybody is talking, everybody is communicating. But I have heard a number of things about tensions, most of it between task force members head quartered in Montgomery County and people who those investigators refer to as being south of the border.
Those would be the investigators in Virginia. There have been a couple instances like this occasion in Richmond, the arrest in Richmond, where this has really become quite noticeable and there have been some derogatory terms used by people on both sides to refer to one another. Also we're told dissension even within the task force. Some investigators feeling that they're not being given enough information. They feel they could be more effective if they knew a little bit more about what was going on. Also, even within organizations there could be disagreements about tactics and strategy. You'll recall when that note was found outside Ashland, Virginia, Kelli Arena's been reporting that there was some tension there about that note and what to do with it.
There were some law enforcement officials who felt they should open it immediately. They were in a race against the clock to keep this sniper from hitting again. And yet there were other officials who talk a more cautious approach, who said, gee, we really ought to test this first. Both as evidence, and also to make sure it wasn't contaminated with something, with let's say anthrax.
The decision was made to send to it the lab. As a result, they missed a deadline. But that gives you an idea of the different sorts of opinions and viewpoints and egos that are involved in this very complicated investigation, which now involves more than a dozen different agencies and departments.
BROWN: Jeanne, thank you. We'll be hearing more from you as we go.
It is the kind of thing that happens in everybody's workplace, if you think about it. It certainly happens in ours. People have strong views, differing opinions. They fight. The difference is when it happens in a task force, in a crime of this magnitude, and it comes out, what is normal and usual behavior begins to look like something else.
And we have nothing but sympathy for the people who are trying to end this horrendous killing spree that is now in its third week. Kathleen Koch has been covering it literally from the beginning out in Montgomery County. Kathleen, anything about whether the chief, Chief Moose, is going to come out again tonight and if he's going to, what he's going to say?
KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, we have just learned from Montgomery County Police that, yes, he is coming out in about half an hour. That would put it around 10:45 for a press conference.
Now, they didn't say he was going to come out and make a statement and not take any questions. That was what they told us earlier. Around 5:00 this evening they said he would come out at 6:00. And then finally 7:00 rolled around.
And Nancy Demme, the captain, came out and said there have been developments in this case that we really need to focus on. And said they might come back out later and share more information with us. So we are hoping then in this next half-hour to perhaps get those names that Kelli had talked about at the beginning of the show.
BROWN: Well, we hope we get the names and we hope we get some meaning to the names. There are so many dangers here for everybody involved now, particularly when you start putting names on this thing. And the chief has been, as you've pointed out and as Kelli pointed out, in the last hour, very careful about such things, putting names out there for reasons that are obvious. You don't want to create for someone an absolute nightmare.
And you throw a name out here tonight and you suggest that that person is somehow involved in this and you better be right, for one thing. You better be right.
So we would expect whatever he says, that he will frame it very cautiously, very carefully. And we may or may not be able to interpret what he means as he says it, but hopefully in a half an hour we'll know.
Kathleen, was there much -- there was a lot of reporting today about the contents of the notes, the tone of the notes, the missed phone calls, the fact the sniper said he was very upset that calls he made to the police weren't handled properly. Was there, in the discussions with the task force today, with the chief and others today, much talk, much reaction to that reporting that had been going on?
KOCH: We probed the chief quite a bit on that, Aaron, and he wouldn't really react. I mean, obviously, I think the greatest deal of concern came out regarding this line that's been reported, where the killer or killers said that five people had to die because apparently the killer claims that there were people who are taking calls on the 888 number, the FBI tip line, that were hanging up on the killer apparently as many as six times. And that that infuriated this killer.
And so, again, the chief, though, wouldn't go there, wouldn't react to that. Obviously very much on the defensive, which was part of why he had to come out yesterday with that very chilling excerpt from the letter saying your children are not safe anywhere at any time. And, interesting, Aaron, back to the point that you were making last night, the chief was quizzed today about why not release that one sentence so perhaps someone can recognize that handwriting, and maybe help crack open the case?
The police chief said they haven't totally eliminated that possibility, that they might go there. So we'll wait and see.
BROWN: OK. Just one other point on these notes that just jumped out at me when I first read it very late last night, which is that the sniper, we presume we're dealing with the sniper in these phone calls, literally knew the names of some of the people on the other end of the tip line that he had talked to. And in his communication, his second communication with police, where he was angry and upset and said five more people had to die because of your incompetence and all this, literally named the people who had hung up on him.
KOCH: I think this runs very much in keeping with what some profilers have been saying about this individual who is very interested in control, in respect. And in punishment, perhaps. Why he's passing along these names. Can you just imagine the guilt that you would feel if you were one of these people and now you know that several people have died since you hung up on this killer or killers? Can you imagine how they must feel?
BROWN: Actually, that's a great point. And the other point that I thought was really interesting tonight was made a short time ago by one of Larry's guests. And what she said is that that's a really convenient way for the killer to blame the victims or blame others for his killing.
You say, you see, I didn't want to do this, but your incompetence made me do this. And there's always an excuse here built in, if that's in fact what it was. Kathleen, we'll be coming back to you. Thank you, Kathleen Koch, out at Montgomery County.
We're joined now, as we have been a number of times since this all began, by our friend John Timoney, the former police chief in Philadelphia. Long-time cop and official in the New York City Police Department as well. And now the CEO -- I think I got that right -- the CEO of Beau Dietl and associates investigative firm. John joins us from Philadelphia. It's good to see you again.
JOHN TIMONEY, CEO, BEAU DIETL & ASSOCIATES: Good to see you, Aaron.
BROWN: I'm going to ask you a couple of questions that will require you to think. But I want to know if your gut's telling you anything right now about where we are in this. Do you have any sense that the end game is on?
TIMONEY: No, this is obviously the most obvious investigative steps since those two illegal immigrants were stopped the other day, which caused a great deal of activity, particularly in the press. This thirst in the media for some kind of activity.
We're seeing the same here. What it looks like, and this is pure speculation, you know we had this discussion last week and the week before. That somebody knows this guy.
For example, something must have gelled in one of the tipsters that they may in fact know this guy. And so, for example, he says, I think it's this guy, John Timoney. He runs with this other guy Angel Perez. He used to live in Tacoma Washington.
You chase down some leads. You heard that he may have practiced with his rifle at some tree stump, which you're seeing on television. But you also know that this guy Timoney is from New Jersey. You run his name against the motor vehicle bureau. It comes up that he's got a 1990 Chevy Caprice, burgundy, blue in color, registered.
And so, you know, the decision then is, you know, is Timoney just -- is he a possible subject or is he a possible witness? And that debate's going on. I think Chief Moose is correct in being careful and the discussion regarding releasing names at this point is the right discussion.
I'll just mention one name to you Aaron: Richard Jewell. And if a name gets out, particularly of an innocent person, that person could quite literally be ruined overnight. BROWN: And when you think about the magnitude of this case and the attention now for three weeks that we have given it and that the newspapers have given it, that the country has given it, you don't want to -- nobody wants to mess it up ever.
TIMONEY: Right.
BROWN: You really don't want to mess it up now. All right. So, at the things that we have seen, needle in a haystack, trying to find a single car, doable?
TIMONEY: Oh, without a doubt. Clearly, they've got a license plate. It's registered to New Jersey. If you remember early on they were looking for an Astro van with Maryland plates. So that apparently is out the window.
So a Chevy Caprice blue and burgundy, those are pretty distinct colors. You see them in often in gypsy cabs around New York and Washington and Philadelphia. And so it will be an easy car to pick out. And with a New Jersey plate, that kind of eliminates obviously Maryland, Virginia, the most likely states, and it gives you something to go on.
BROWN: Weigh in for a second on this question that I started to harp on last night. And I guess, to a certain extent, I'll throw it out on the table again tonight. And that is, they have this note or notes, actually, hand written notes. Tell me the downside. This is the part, John, I don't get.
TIMONEY: Right.
BROWN: I want to know the downside of letting the communities see the handwriting, read the words, because I keep thinking of the Unabomber. I keep thinking that out there, David Kaczynski, some David Kaczynski is going to go, that's Timoney. Timoney wrote that note.
TIMONEY: Exactly. You know, as you're well aware, the Unabomber wrote numerous letters to the FBI. They kept them in the file, the investigative file. It was evidence to use later on.
It was only when he wrote his manifesto to the "New York Times" and it was published that his brother recognized the handwriting, recognized some of the phraseology and called the FBI and said, listen, I think it's my brother. I hope you don't kill them. And of course they made an arrest pretty easily.
Here, you know there's been this issue all along. I am loathe to criticize anybody. I am not down there. I don't have all the information.
But, for example, start with the tarot card. I found no problem with having the notion that he left a tarot card out there, because that could have jingled somebody's memory. I know this guy next door. I saw him with Tarot cards. By the way, he also owns a long gun. You know, maybe it's him. Or some store owner remembers selling tarot cards to some guy that came in the other day. So you can put out the tarot card, while withholding the information that's written on it. We saw that with Jimmy Breslin and the son of Sam letters that came to Jimmy Breslin, where he left certain things out.
On the letter coming up, the most recent letter that made two things. One, the ransom demand, and then also the threat against children. I thought I heard, and again I haven't seen it, the notion that if you showed it to the press, others will die. And I don't know if that threat was in there. But if it wasn't, you know, there is -- you cut this baby in half.
You can withhold a certain amount of information while giving out, for example, an innocuous paragraph that will show the penmanship, the phraseology, that somebody may be able to recognize.
BROWN: Just on that last point you made, John. And then I want to check with Barbara Starr, who's sitting on a piece of information here. Let's just say that the sniper here, in fact, said, I don't want this stuff released to the media.
I want to suggest to you that he can't get angrier than he is. He's out there killing people now. And the object is to stop him. And if releasing that might help by somebody recognizing the handwriting, I'm not -- honestly I'm trying to be sympathetic to the argument. I'm just not sure where the strength of the argument is. I don't know.
TIMONEY: Aaron, nobody can argue with your argument. Sharing at least part of it. Because we know in the past it's proven to be fruitful. It isn't like we don't have precedent where it didn't work out. It actually worked out in the Unabomber case.
BROWN: It sure did. John, I hope you can stay around for awhile tonight.
TIMONEY: Absolutely.
BROWN: Thank you. John Timoney, in Philadelphia. A former Philadelphia police chief and a long-time New York City police officer. In the big box, for those of you just coming in, these are taped pictures from KING TV in Seattle of a search that went on in a Tacoma, Washington backyard. Tacoma, about an hour from Seattle.
They took that tree trunk they're working on. You can see them splitting it off from the reset of the stump there. They took it away, and we believe that they're looking for bullets and ballistics and that it might have been used for target practice.
They laid out this long grid. In a little bit we'll bring Mike Brooks in to talk a little bit about how they went about this search. But you can see the metal detectors, familiar to anyone who's been on a beach in recent years. You know, people looking for spare change and the like. Looking for shell casings and all that sort of thing.
That was going on in Tacoma. That is over now and this is tape that you're looking at.
Barbara Starr is at the Pentagon. And there seems to be a Pentagon or a military connection to the way the news has shaken out tonight -- Barbara.
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Aaron, that's right. Defense officials are telling us that one of these two individuals that they have very high interest in talking to, again we have no knowledge whether they are suspects or witnesses or what. But one of these two individuals does have prior military service, prior army service and was stationed at some point at Fort Lewis.
Now, Pentagon officials tell us that the person was not trained as a military sniper, was not part of Army Special Forces. In fact, was -- in a specialty called Combat Support, which can involve anything from transportation to supply to logistics. We really don't know. But that person would have received the same basic firearms training at Army Basic School that any Army personnel would have.
What may be most interesting here is the fact that the Pentagon knows the military record of this person. It suggests that they had some contact with domestic law enforcement at some point today and the FBI said, Here's the name, run it through the computer, pull the guy's record and tell us what you can about him.
The Pentagon, we have every reason to believe, does know the name of the person, knows their military service record, knows that they were on active duty at one point, no longer -- they no longer are. We know that they will not tell the news media the name. They are going to leave that up to civilian law enforcement.
And what we don't know, because the Pentagon says they don't know, whether this person is a suspect or a witness. But did serve in the military.
BROWN: OK. Couple of things there. It's been 11 years since I lived out in Western Washington, but I assume there is still a large Army Ranger training facility at Fort Lewis. There was then.
STARR: That's right.
BROWN: I gather from your reporting that he was neither in the Special Forces part of Fort Lewis nor the Rangers part of Fort Lewis.
STARR: That's right. We are told -- and this is the level of detail the Pentagon has tonight -- that he was not assigned to the Second Ranger Battalion, which is at Fort Lewis. He was not part of what is known as the First Special Forces Group, which is at Fort Lewis. In fact, he was part of a conventional unit known as ICorp.
But many, many army personnel from Fort Lewis have recently served in Afghanistan with great distinction. It is an army base that regularly and routinely sends its personnel overseas.
BROWN: And has for a long time. Lot of people left for the Pacific in World War II out of Fort Lewis. A lot of people watching this program tonight I suspect remember that army base and those views of Mount Ranier as some of the last views they saw as they headed off into the Pacific.
Barbara, very quickly, has the military given you any indication why they are -- how this person's name came up?
STARR: There is every indication that it would have come to them through the FBI.
BROWN: But we don't know what prompted the FBI or anybody else to say go look for John Timoney?
STARR: That is correct, Aaron. Ever since this began, the FBI has been asking the military to search their records for anyone who did have sniper training, who might be someone of concern or interest. No indication this person had sniper training.
So that's exactly right. We don't know why the FBI came to the Pentagon and said, Please pull the record on this guy. We want to know more about him.
BROWN: OK, Barbara, thank you, Barbara Starr at the Pentagon. I expect we'll be talking with you again.
Bill Daly, former FBI agent is here with us in New York. We'll be talking with him again.
John Timoney, whose name I just threw out as if, in fact, he were some suspect in something, is not. He's a former Philadelphia Police Chief. And he's with us tonight to lend his expertise to the discussion on a day, a night really, last several hours, of a number of developments which, in the scheme of things, may or may not be anything.
It occurred to me as we were watching this search that you see, there's an old expression in our business that it's never pretty watching the sausage get made, but it's not the process of watching the sausage get made that counts. And it strikes me in watching this investigative moment, whatever it was, that that is the police version of sausage making.
Whether, in fact, it turns into anything, we will know at some point, but we don't know it now. We're going to take a short break, continue our coverage here on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: That is the podium, it is a familiar scene in Montgomery County, Maryland. We expect the head of the task force, Police Chief Moose, to come out in about ten minutes, give or take, and provide whatever update he intends to provide tonight. There's certainly plenty in motion and plenty to talk about.
And I assume we will, on the subject of sausage being made, see one of those uglier little journalistic sausage moments where reporters are screaming questions. Sometimes the same question again and again trying to get what information they can.
Again, we expect to hear from the chief in about ten minutes, at about quarter to 11 Eastern time. We'll see how that goes.
Bill Daly is with us, senior vice president of Control Risk Groups in New York. I'd be lying to you if I knew what that meant. I do know he's a former FBI agent and he's still in the business of following leads, I gather.
Nice to see you. Do you have any -- same thing I asked John earlier. Is your gut telling you anything about where we are in this moment? Do you feel like something's happening?
BILL DALY, FRM. FBI INVESTIGATOR: Well, you know, Aaron, when you look at this. It's a series of little video vignettes. It's kind of like looking through the opera house window, trying to figure out what song's being played and what the script is. It's very difficult. Some of these things normally take course during an investigation and they're not covered by helicopter shots and people on the ground.
BROWN: Well in fact, they may have had a dozen other searches over the last three weeks that we just don't know about. This one was a very public search and helicopters were in the air in Seattle and they caught it, I guess.
DALY: I would suggest that we look at this connection now between the Seattle, not too far away from Fort Lewis. We have this home possibly looking at ballistics evidence. And now we have the potential for names being released. We're hearing that these names or maybe one of the names may be associated with the military. Certainly the two -- two connective points are going there.
But we have to, as we mentioned earlier, I'm very mindful of what happened after the Olympic Park bombing. We have Richard Jewell's name coming out.
And that's why I think they're being very circumspect in releasing names of individuals at this point. It's important for them to go through every effort to try to find these people through usual police means and channels and if not then perhaps release that to the public...
BROWN: You don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out if they had been able to find them, they'd have found them already. And the mere fact that they're debating this tells us one thing if nothing else, which is they don't know where they are right now.
DALY: That was my first gut reaction on this. And I think they're just being doubly sure. Once it goes out, once it goes out, you can't take it back. You can't change opinions or what people think, whether they are complicit, whether they're people who are witnesses, whether they have some background information and it's difficult then to change public opinion to be something different.
Just want to follow-up on one other point you talked about which was the release of this document. Many of us who were talking about the Unabomber when it was happening were -- knew there was some other correspondence. We also knew out here in the public side that they had this manifesto. They were thinking about it for a bit of time before they decided to release it. Because of the investigative opportunities, whether that helped.
In this case I would say what they're probably doing is not only looking at it forensicly for the usual things between the fingerprints and handwriting, but also you can do some comparative analysis between writing styles.
So I would think before they release something like this to the public to help the -- throw it out to the public for their help, they're going to go through all those means they can, to be able to compare those documents, to make sure that they've exhausted their arsenal of opportunities to be able to know who perhaps wrote this document.
BROWN: Never happy to, but I'm perfectly comfortable if a guest slaps me around on a point. Just tell me if you think that just the notion that if not today, in some near tomorrow, it might be helpful to see the handwriting, to see the syntax that the person uses. It might be helpful. But it is not some crazy notion of a reporter who's just trying to get one more piece of information to get ratings with.
DALY: No, I don't think so, and I think if we go back to the Unabomber case, where it was decided that the continual script that Ted Kaczynski was writing, and this long manifesto, in fact, was that critical turning point in the investigation, when someone in his family saw it -- I believe it was his brother...
BROWN: David.
DALY: ... saw it and said, this is his writing. So, at that point, if they've exhausted those other opportunities, certainly to turn it out to the public, as long as there is nothing in there that is detrimental to the public as far as getting them overly concerned by somebody who apparently has -- is spouting off, and perhaps causing more terror or mayhem in the public. But having said that, releasing the document at some point may have some value. I'm just suggesting that there are some other steps that need to be gone through before you get to that point.
BROWN: I'll consider that to be gentle slapping around. Thank you.
Mike Brooks is in Atlanta. Mike helps us with understanding law enforcement, security questions, and one of the things that he's been talking to people about tonight is not only what they were looking for, but how they went about looking for it. And again, we're waiting on Chief Moose, and that could come within two, three, four, five minutes.
Mike, so I may interrupt you as you go, but why don't you get started.
MIKE BROOKS, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: No problem at all, Aaron. What we were seeing tonight and what we have been seeing on the screen here is a backyard in Tacoma, Washington, of a duplex home where a team of FBI agents, Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents, Tacoma Police and Pierce County Sheriff's officers served a warrant.
It was a consent to search. The consent was given by the people that lived there in the house. What they were looking for, and we've been seeing pictures of earlier, their main concentration was of a tree trunk. The tree trunk law enforcement sources are telling CNN was used, apparently, for some kind of target practice. So what they did, they went in with the assistance of the fire department, cut this tree trunk off -- looking at the tree trunk, it looks fairly rotted. They cut it off, and they took it away, wrapped it in plastic, and took it away in a truck, presumably to try to pick out any remnants of bullet fragment, any other bullets that could be in there. And what they did, they gridded off -- they did a grid search of that particular yard. The FBI Evidence Response Team from Seattle field office of the FBI was there to assist.
Earlier we saw one of the agents walking up and back, up and forth, back and forth in this grid area using a metal detector, looking for any bullet fragments, any shell casings that also could have been there. We're also told that they didn't believe there was a gun, but there was always a possibility that there could have been some kind of a weapon that was left in that area, too. They were again not going to leave any stone unturned while they were at this property in Tacoma, Washington.
BROWN: Mike...
BROOKS: Yes.
BROWN: Let me ask -- I just want to focus in on a couple of things.
BROOKS: Sure.
BROWN: First of all, a question of fact. Your sources are saying to you that they, in fact, served a search warrant because there has been some conflict on this. Some -- but we have also reported that it was a consensual search, and while the government was prepared to serve a search warrant and obtain a search warrant, they had not.
BROOKS: That's correct.
BROWN: Do you know -- you know -- your sources are clear that a search warrant was served?
BROOKS: No, it was a consent search. The residents...
BROWN: OK. There was no warrant?
BROOKS: No. No warrant. If they needed a warrant, they could have gotten one, because you still need probable cause to do a search. But they got a consent search from the people that live there. Want to be clear that the people that are living in this house are not suspects. They are not suspects at all in the shooter shootings in the Washington, D.C. area. They are not suspects. Want to make that clear.
BROWN: I understand that, and we have.
Question number two has to do with what we didn't see in these pictures. What we saw was this grid laid out. We saw them take away the tree trunk. We saw all that. What we didn't see them do was dig up the yard, for example. Go ahead.
BROOKS: They apparently found what they were looking for, and what they were concentrating on in that yard. But what they would have done -- I'm told the equipment was there to do it, and has been done in other searches is they used ground-penetrating radar, and that's one of the reasons they grid the area off. The ground penetrating radar would look beneath the surface of the yard for any anomalies, and for anything at all that may look like any pieces of evidence. But at first, they go over the yard with a metal detector.
Again, they can set this metal detector on different sensitivities, just like the kind of metal detectors that are used when you go on the beach, when you go to the beach and looking in the sand for hidden treasures on the beach. Same kind of metal detectors. They scan the yard looking for any pieces of metal. What other evidence they got besides taking that tree trunk, it's not known at this time.
BROWN: Thank you, Mike Brooks, in Atlanta tonight.
Lilian Kim is in Tacoma tonight. She has been on the scene trying to put together the pieces of this now cross country puzzle -- Lilian.
KIM: Well Aaron, earlier we were talking about the conflicting reports that we were hearing from neighbors as to whether or not they had heard gunshots over the past weeks, months, the past year.
Well, we did talk to a neighbor who lives right across the street from this residential duplex where the search had taken place, and he is a private first class from Fort Lewis, which is the Army post nearby here in Tacoma. His name is Christopher Waters (ph). He is 23 years old, and he says over a two-week period in January, he did, in fact, hear a number of gunshots about every other day. It would happen at night. He said it sounded like it was from a high-powered rifle.
At the time, he wasn't sure where it was coming from. He thought it was a bunch of kids just playing around. He did call 911 at the time. So this is interesting because it does corroborate the information that was gathered here today, speculation that the tree trunk that was seized from this property may contain bullets or bullet fragments -- Aaron.
BROWN: Lilian, thank you. We're now square on that, I think, that at least some people in the neighborhood, and this was for those of you who came in late -- some people in the neighborhood were saying that they hadn't heard gunfire in this neighborhood in Tacoma, other people were saying that they had, or at least I had heard that from other people. We are just trying to track that down. I think now we have -- that at least some people in the neighborhood heard gunfire, and while normally we would -- I'm trying to think precisely how I want to phrase this -- we would be careful, very careful with anyone we interviewed, any witness saying that they were sure it was a high- powered rifle or not. One of the things we keep in mind about Tacoma, and we know it pretty well from having lived out there for almost 20 years, that Tacoma is a military town. Fort Lewis is there, McChord Air Force Base is there. People in the area are quite familiar with guns. They have them, they've used them, they've been trained on them and they know them, and it would not surprise me at all if somebody in the neighborhood understood exactly what they were hearing, what kind of -- at least, broadly, what kind of gun.
We're waiting on the head of the task force, Chief Moose, to come out, for what would be a very unusual late evening news cast. We're coming up at almost 10 to 11:00 Eastern time. Hopefully he will be able to put some of the events of tonight, the search in Tacoma, the search for this Chevy Caprice, this bluish-burgundy Chevy Caprice with New Jersey plates, and these two names, or two people, who may or may not be named, who the police would like to talk to, and perhaps he'll even explain to us why. In any case, we expect to hear from him shortly.
As we wait on that, Harley Stock was with us last night. He's a forensic psychologist, right? I think I got that right. Almost made you a medical doctor, but I think it's a psychologist.
Just if this sniper is watching this tonight, and he sees this activity going on and it is, in fact, relevant -- let's add that fact -- what's he thinking?
DR. HARLEY STOCK, FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGIST: I bet his blood pressure is going up.
BROWN: Yes.
STOCK: He's probably worried that they may be on to something and perhaps is planning an escape route, but also may be thinking about how he's going to go out in glory, as we've seen in some of these other spree killers. He may think about going out and killing again, or he may think about killing himself.
BROWN: Did he expect this?
STOCK: This evidence to come up the way it is?
BROWN: Yes. In a sense, did he expect that they'd find him?
STOCK: Well, you know, once...
BROWN: If, in fact, that's what's happening. I mean, I don't know if that's what's happening. But either does he, as he sits and watches this. He knows whether there's a Fort Lewis connection. He knows whether he lived in Tacoma or not. He knows whether he fired into that tree trunk. Did he expect them to figure this out?
STOCK: Well once he started this communication, once he gave a demand for $10 million, once he opened up this channel, then he knew that people would really be sniffing into his background.
So it should come as no surprise to him that some point the government is going to put the pieces together. Whether he expected however to come this quickly, probably not.
BROWN: Is he panicking?
STOCK: Well, I would suppose anybody in his position -- at one point as he said in his communication, he's God. Well he's finding out very quickly, he's not.
BROWN: What's that -- I don't mean to put you in an absolutely impossible position of reading the mind of someone you've never talked to and couldn't identify if he walked across the street right now. None of us could.
But you have a lot of experience dealing with these sorts of people, and a lot of understanding of what goes through their minds. The two options, flight, being one and going out in a blaze of glory. Do you have any sense why one would choose one versus the other?
STOCK: It's always better, the spree killer believes, to kill himself than be killed by others because he chooses his end. And so he may be, in fact, planning that. But what will be clear to him at this point is that he's lost control. Up until just now, he has controlled everything. He's controlled the media. He's controlled the police and he's controlled who died. That is quickly shifting.
BROWN: And just to underscore the point, control to someone like this, be it a spree killer or serial killer. I'm not always sure I understand the difference and perhaps at some point tonight you can explain it to me. But control is hugely important.
STOCK: It's really the core of this. That they can decide people's destinies, that they can decide how other people are finally going to respond to them. It gives people who, up to this time, had no power at all in their lives. It gives them the ultimate power.
BROWN: Stay with us.
John Timoney in Philadelphia, just one of those hanging curveball questions, John, as you've been listening to people opining here. What's been running through your mind?
TIMONEY: You know, it's -- I think we're better off waiting for chief moose to come out. But there may in fact may be a very simple explanation for all the activity that's going on here and it may be a fact that they've got a decent lead here. But it may in fact be that they're just reacting to a pretty solid tip.
As Bill Daly pointed out, this just may be one of many searches that they've done in the past, except this one happened to get caught on tele, primetime and the helicopters are up there and all of a sudden this is being magnified.
But however, there are a few things. Obviously there's the tree trunk involved. There's this home there. There's now two guys in a car with Jersey license plates. So there's a little more information out there. Whether this information all pans out is a whole other issue. We'll wait for Chief Moose to give us further directions or instructions.
BROWN: If you're running a task force like this, or you're the lead detective on a task force like this, and you're going through a day like today, what makes you nervous?
TIMONEY: Well, here's one of the thins. If I put the names out tonight and I say emphatically, Listen, they are only witnesses. We just need to talk to them. And then some very crafty reporter happens to latch on to them and takes them to a secluded area and conducts the interview first before turning them over to authorities, that can find of murky up the interview by authorities. So there are all sorts of things that could go wrong either intentionally or unintentionally.
BROWN: Do you think a reporter would do something like that, John?
TIMONEY: How much money do you have to bet, Aaron?
BROWN: I'm utterly shocked that you would think that.
TIMONEY: There's gambling in Casablanca, too.
BROWN: I'll bet it does. Are you nervous that all of this activity, whether it's related or not, is going to set him off again?
TIMONEY: No. I think one of your guests earlier pointed out, this guy just looks for discusses to rationalize why he went off. The notion that the police didn't answer the phones correctly. That's all hog wash. The first two days, let's face it, this guy killed five, six people the first two days before any attempts at communication. And so for the last three or four killings for him to try and rationalize that somehow the police are to blame for him killing additional people is just garbage.
BROWN: Dr. Stock, do you believe -- I think we talked about this last night. Do you believe the ransom is a real thing? That that's really what this is about?
STOCK: Well, I think that it certainly has an issue here. That it may be -- because if we look at these communications they've been fairly complicated. And certainly Chief Moose...
BROWN: OK, Dr. Stock, I need to interrupt you. Just very quickly, Jeanne Meserve in Washington's latched on to something -- Jeanne.
MESERVE: Aaron, we have couple names, names of people we believe from law enforcement sources investigators are interested in talking to in connection with this investigation. Here are the names. John Allen Williams, aka Mohammed Williams and also a John Lee Malvo. Malvo is the younger of these two individuals. We have no other vital information about them, their age, where they're from.
We have been told, however, by one of our producers on the ground out in Tacoma, that the name John Allen Williams, aka Mohammed Williams does have some association with that address out there where they have been searching, searching the backyard with metal detectors where they took away that tree trunk.
So once again the two people, law enforcement forces tell us investigators are interested in talking to. They're not being called suspects. They are being called people they want to talk to. John Allen Williams, aka Mohammed Williams and John Lee Malvo. Those are the two names -- Aaron.
BROWN: OK. My heart beat just went way up. Let's walk through this a little bit. Do we know anything about their ages?
MESERVE: No. We have been told that John Allen Williams is the older of the two. We don't know how much older. We don't know the exact age on either one.
BROWN: Do we know whether they are believed to be friends with one another? Do we know if they are believed to be together?
MESERVE: We do not know anything beyond their names. The only thing I can draw your attention to possibly connected is that lookout we heard about earlier tonight for that Chevy Caprice when police put out the lookout. They said there might be two men inside. It might be these two men. But I'm drawing a connection there that other people have not drawn for me.
BROWN: OK, and I'm going to leave that there. OK. Let me leave that there.
MESERVE: Aaron, can I just chime say, you know, I've watched the ebbs and flows of this investigation of the weeks. And there have been several times when investigators have felt they were looking at people who were extraordinarily interesting in connection with this investigation, either as possible suspects, possible witnesses, whatever, and they have not panned out. I mean sometimes they have had people under surveillance and there has been another shooting.
So they have to cross them off the list even though at one time they looked like the very hottest of prospects. They really looked like the fit the profile. So we really have to hear from Chief Moose exactly if these are the two people they are indeed going to talk about tonight and exactly why they're interested in them. But just to caution you, that things don't always work as we think will.
BROWN: Well do you have any reason to believe that these are not the two people...
MESERVE: If I had any reason to believe they weren't, I wouldn't be giving you their names, Aaron.
BROWN: That's what I assumed. That's what I assumed. OK. Jeanne, thank you. Nice work. Jeanne Meserve. But careful work. And we will deal with this carefully.
We will say again that these two men, John Allen Williams and John Malvo -- and I'm not clear on the spelling on Malvo in case -- are not considered by police at this moment to be suspects. What precisely they are considered as we do not yet know. But police would to talk to them. They have a great interest in talking to them.
We are waiting now, we're probably about 15 minutes late on this. We're waiting for Chief Moose to come out and we'll see if he adds to the body of knowledge here in terms of these two names or not. He may or may not. We know from Kelli Arena's reporting that the task force itself -- that has been debating back and forth tonight the appropriateness, the wisdom of releasing these names. Or releasing any names.
And we are making an assumption here, as Jeanne just indicated, that are the names they've been kicking around and trying to decide whether to release the names or not. And if so, how to characterize them. That debate may very well still be going on because we have not heard from the case.
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