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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Sniper Suspects in Custody

Aired October 24, 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: Good evening, again, everyone.
You will hear tonight dozens of times the name John Muhammad and John Malvo. You know by now that they are the suspects in the sniper case. You've probably heard a fair amount about them already. We'll serve up a good bit more tonight.

Courts and juries will determine if they are the killers, but there's a body of evidence that's growing out there tonight that strongly suggests they may well be. So just forget about them for a second and remember these names, you may not hear them again, because that's the way our minds, all of ours, yours and mind, and our business tends to work.

Jim Martin, the first person to die in this tragedy. And then there was Sonny Buchanan, a guy who worked with troubled kids and, when he had the time, wrote poems. Prem Walekar, a cab driver, worked 12 to 14 hours a day to send his child to college so she would not be a cab driver.

Dean Meyers, a Vietnam vet, a much missed brother and uncle. There are six children tonight who miss Ken Bridges and a lot of other people miss him too. He worked in economic development for African- Americans in the Washington area.

Sarah Ramos was the mother of a 7-year-old, and Lori Rivera, who loved to spoil here three-year-old, they are victims, too. Now husband and daughter will move back to their native Idaho to be closer to her family. Pascal Charlot, was a retired carpenter who still had an important job, perhaps his most important job, taking care of his sick wife. He was killed en route to the drugstore.

You'll remember Linda Franklin, we suspect, the FBI analyst, the breast cancer survivor, almost a grandmother. And then Conrad Johnson, the bus driver, the last man to die in all of this.

We mentioned them again tonight for the same reason we mentioned them two weeks ago. They should not be numbers and they should be more than just victims. And because with all the talk tonight about their suspected killers, necessary talk, these people, these moms and dads and uncles and workers and dreamers should not be swept aside by a new headline.

We begin The Whip tonight in suburban Washington, as we have virtually every night for three weeks. Kathleen Koch again in Rockville, Maryland. Kathleen, a headline from you tonight. KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, despite everyone's fears and apprehensions, the sniper spree ended not with a bang, but with a whimper. The suspects were caught napping.

BROWN: Kathleen, thank you.

On to Kelli Arena. A look at the trail that led police to the suspects. Kelli, your headline tonight.

KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE DEPARTMENT CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, a fascinating story about how the two men were caught and how one may have helped lead investigators right to them.

BROWN: Kelly, thanks.

Hard to keep up with all the details that emerged throughout the day today. Jeanne Meserve gets us up to date on some of those. Jeanne, a quick headline from you.

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, John Lee Malvo's Jamaican heritage may have helped investigators piece together some of the clues that cracked this case.

BROWN: Jeanne, thank you. Thank you all of you for your work this week, and we'll be back to you shortly.

Also coming up tonight, two people we've come to rely on for guidance over the last couple of weeks, John Timoney, the former chief of police in Philadelphia, and forensic psychologist, Dr. Harley Stock joins us again. The question of who they are, the Army veteran and the teenager, the path that took them to a roadside rest stop last night and to the very center of this extraordinary manhunt.

And the role one deadly crime played in tracking the two men down. One that happened before the word "sniper" became embedded in our minds. We'll talk with the chief of police in Montgomery, Alabama, tonight, John Wilson.

We begin 22 days since first shot was fired. Two days since the latest victim fell. And tonight we're miles beyond that, still far from the end of the story. But if police are right, the latest victim will be the last. It is a court story from here on out.

Police now have a rifle, a sniper's nest, two men and apparently a chain of events and evidence that came to a head early this morning at a rest stop in Frederick County, Maryland. The bulk of our program tonight will center on how police made the case, a complex and difficult case in many respects. A case that started in the D.C. area but touched Alabama and the Pacific Northwest. But it began and apparently ended in Maryland, and that's where we begin tonight.

Here is CNN's Kathleen Koch.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KOCH (voice-over): Police lined up in a cold rain to say that after three weeks they believe they caught the snipers and found the gun.

CHIEF CHARLES MOOSE, MONTGOMERY COUNTY POLICE DEPARTMENT: We feel very positive about being here. We have the weapon. It is off the street.

KOCH: Ballistics proving the Bushmaster XM-15 .223 caliber rifle found with the suspects was a match in 11 of the 13 sniper shootings. There was also emotion and regret that despite the task force's best efforts, 13 people were shot, 10 of them killed, leaving families broken and grieving.

MOOSE: We will never forget -- we'll never know their pain and we only wish we could have stopped this to reduce the number of victims.

KOCH: The end came around 1:00 AM at a rest stop outside Frederick, Maryland, about 50 miles northwest of Washington. A sharp- eyed motorist who had heard the police lookout just over an hour earlier spotted the blue 1990 Chevrolet Caprice with two men sleeping inside. He called 911.

RON LANTZ, CALLED 911: They told us to pull the truck up to the -- where you go out the end and block the road so they couldn't get out. So they had him cornered and he couldn't get out no way.

KOCH: State troopers arrived, and after more than two hours of blocking escape routes and planning their move, S.W.A.T. teams converged. Apprehended, 41-year-old John Allen Muhammad, a Gulf War Army veteran, and a 17-year-old, John Lee Malvo. The two were taken in for questioning and later taken to federal court in Baltimore. Muhammad is being held for a federal firearms violation. Malvo as a material witness.

In a 13-minute hearing, when the judge asking Muhammad if he understood the charges against him, he replied softly, "Yes, ma'am." The rifle seized was found behind the seat in the Caprice. Officers also removed a scope and tripod. Federal law enforcement sources say a sniper platform was built into the car's trunk. The rear seat could be folded down and holes were drilled through the back so that shots could be fired without leaving the vehicle.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KOCH: Prosecutors from local, state and federal jurisdictions are meeting at federal court in Baltimore, Maryland tomorrow to discuss charges and jurisdictional issues. They plan to come out around noon tomorrow to announce their decision because, clearly, every jurisdiction wants a chance to bring these two to justice -- Aaron.

BROWN: Well, and everyone wants to do it first. We'll leave that one for tomorrow.

I don't know where to begin. I have so many. Anything on the white van? Was the white van just one of those things that comes up in a case like this and ends up being nothing? KOCH: It was, Aaron. And, you know, the police chief did cling to it. They clung to that white box truck. They gave us more and more details as time went on about the two vehicles. But we as reporters also tried to remind people, as Moose did from time to time from the podium that, you know, if -- that people should look for anything suspicious, anything in this. But clearly the way this vehicle was configured it was almost impossible to have spotted it, even if you were the best witness.

BROWN: And just go back to last night. At what point did you out there begin to sense that a big night was in play?

KOCH: I think it was late in the evening but before Chief Moose came out, when the fabulous reporting by Jeanne Meserve and Kelli Arena found out that these two names were going to be released. And, again, having sat here for three weeks and knowing the extreme caution exercised by this police chief, I knew that there had to be something to those names or they would not be going out. Chief Moose is simply too careful.

And that was when our hearts began to soar and our hopes were raised. And it looks like at this point everything is going the way that we were hoping it would, Aaron.

BROWN: Well, we'll find out. We certainly learned a lot today and last night. Thank you, Kathleen. Kathleen Koch out in Rockville, Maryland. It's been a long haul for her, for lots of people, including the people behind her, the task force officers, the people who managed the investigation and the detectives who executed it. Been a long three weeks.

A closer look now at the body of evidence, the moving parts coming literally from one end of the country to the other. Little doubt there is more to come. No doubt either. We don't know yet how all of these pieces fit together.

But already the evidence adds up to at least the skeleton of a story, a story too in how police came to know what they know tonight. CNN's Kelli Arena now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARENA (voice-over): Federal agents got to this point after a long and complicated journey spanning from the East to the West Coast of the country.

MOOSE: We feel very positive about where we are right now.

ARENA: It starts here in Montgomery, Alabama at this liquor store. On September 21st, two women were shot, one fatally. There is a sketch of a man suspected of the shootings, an eyewitness and a fingerprint.

Fast-forward to October 17. A call to Montgomery County police from a man saying he is the sniper and boasts about killing before and tells investigators to look into an unsolved Montgomery shooting. It is unclear to investigators that the caller is talking about Montgomery, Alabama.

The next night, a clergyman calls investigators with information he says he received on a telephone call also from a man claiming to be the sniper and involving the Montgomery, Alabama shooting. Federal agents then contact police in Montgomery, Alabama.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They were trying to verify things that they knew and said that you may want to check on a case that happened in Montgomery, Alabama, near Ann (ph) street, where a murder occurred at a liquor store. Our investigators confirmed for them that that was in fact the case. We did have such a case on September 21.

After that was confirmed, they were even more interested. They wanted us to send them some of our evidence.

ARENA: Part of that evidence, a fingerprint lifted from a gun magazine. That fingerprint is run through databases and matches prints which the immigration service had on file for John Lee Malvo from a December 2001 incident in Washington state. Investigators then link Malvo to John Allen Muhammad, where the two lived together in Tacoma, Washington and may have conducted target practice in this yard.

After the shooting in Ashland, Virginia, investigators canvassed the area with photos of the two men. There is a positive ID placing Malvo in the area, but by this time, he's already gone. The final break comes as U.S. marshals connect Muhammad to a 1990 Chevy Caprice through information filed by officers from an October 8 stop in Baltimore, placing Muhammad in the area of the shootings.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ARENA: Well, you know the rest. An all points bulletin is put out for the vehicle. With some luck, the men were asleep when the car is spotted and they're taken in without incident. Aaron, back to you.

BROWN: When did they -- if you know, when did they match the print, the Montgomery, Alabama, print? When did that come up to the task force and when did they make the match? How long ago?

ARENA: Well, it was about a week ago. It was on -- about the 19th or 20th of October. Where they -- when they finally got that information, all of the evidence sent up from Montgomery County police, and then were able to run it through all of -- every agency's databases and, bingo, they hit on INS.

BROWN: So on the 19th or so, give or take, somewhere around there, they -- as far as we know, this is the first time they had a name to work with and a face -- I assume they had a face to work with. Is that right?

ARENA: Yes, they did.

BROWN: And then it was sometime later that they got the second name, Muhammad or Williams, I guess. ARENA: Well, the incident -- right, Williams. The INS incident that dates back to December of 2001, information that was gathered -- there was a domestic incident that was reported with Malvo. His mother and Muhammad was also present. So there was information that INS had compiled in their folder from that incident. So you had that record there.

Plus, when investigators went to Washington state and just did some good investigative work, they found out that these two individuals had some sort of relationship and obviously that they lived together in the Tacoma, Washington area.

BROWN: Now, take -- I want you to use 20/20 hindsight. Do you -- as you play back in your mind your conversation with sources over the weeks, did you know -- do you notice now when you think about it, any difference in the way they started talking to you, any more -- were they any more optimistic, were they anything different on about the 20th of October?

ARENA: There was a press conference right around that time where Chief Moose actually made a comment saying, you know, we're hope -- we're confident we're going to solve this case. It was the first time -- and it was actually an FBI agent that I was talking to who was not involved in this investigation, and he said to me, "Did you hear that? Did you hear that? It is the first time that he was out there and he said we're confident. That could mean something is up."

But try as we might, we couldn't get any hard and fast details on exactly what that was, what was making him confident. But he did -- he did -- one agent did remark to me at that time, you know that it struck him. And his investigative sense obviously was a little better than mine.

BROWN: Well, that's his job. Yours is just to pry information out of him. Kelly, thank you and thank you. Get some rest. Kelli Arena in Washington tonight.

There are stories like this, tragedies like this, big facts and small details. Each is part of the overall fabric of the story. Jeanne Meserve has been covering it from the start. Most of the night last night as well. Back again with more of the detail that shapes the case.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MESERVE (voice-over): According to sources, some significant movement in the case came after the sniper's truck in Ashland, Virginia, Saturday night. At that point, John Lee Malvo and John Allen Muhammad were in investigators' sights. Law enforcement canvassed the neighborhood with photos and sketches.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They asked for all the rooms of every individual's names and then they went and checked every single car in the parking lot, matched up the name to the names to the cars.

MESERVE: They even reviewed hotel surveillance tapes and credit card receipts from nearby businesses, eventually establishing that Malvo had stayed in Ashland from Friday night until Sunday morning. They surmised that he walked back to his hotel after shooting a 37- year-old man in the Ponderosa parking lot about 100 yards away.

A note found later in the woods near the Ponderosa helped persuade law enforcement they were on the right trail. The grammar, colloquialisms and allusions in the communication seemed to fit with Malvo's Jamaican heritage. On the cover page, "For you, Mr. Police, call me god. Do not release to the press." The writing was followed by five stars, a reference, investigators theorize to a Jamaican band: Five Star.

In the body of the three-page letter, these words: "If we give you our word that is what takes place. Word is bond." "Word is bond" is a phrase in a Five Star song. And, intriguingly, it was paraphrased by Chief Moose in his last communication with the sniper Wednesday night.

MOOSE: Our word is our bond.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MESERVE: These are pieces of the puzzle, but investigators say there are others they have yet to put in place. The biggest, why this rampage took place at all -- Aaron.

BROWN: Well that is it, isn't it? I mean, that's no small piece of change. That's the whole enchilada that I think everyone wants to know now. If these are the guys, what was it they were up to, why were they doing this? Was it about money, was it politics? What was it and are we any closer to knowing that tonight?

MESERVE: Well, investigators spent hours interrogating these men today. But when they were asked questions about motivation at the press conference this evening, they declined to answer them, as they did many. They said they didn't want to jeopardize the prosecution of these individuals. And so for the time being, they were going to be tight lipped.

BROWN: But they did talk to them? Do we know if there are lawyers in this yet?

MESERVE: They definitely were questioned. They definitely were questioned after they -- after they were taken into custody. They were taken to a detention facility here in Montgomery County, where they were questioned. I have to believe that this being America, they did indeed have lawyers present.

BROWN: Jeanne, thank you. And thank you for your efforts this week. Jeanne Meserve out in Rockville, tonight. Much good work from Jeanne as well.

Much more on sniper story ahead tonight. We'll look at the twists and turns and the missteps in the investigation. We'll talk with former police chief John Timoney, forensic psychologist, Harley Stock. We'll also have more on what we know about the two suspects, their connections to Washington state and Alabama. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: This story comes with the customary footnote at the top. Investigating crime is an art, not a science. Investigations proceed in fits (ph) and starts. Leads sometimes turn out to be false leads and opportunities are sometimes missed. All those things are part of the fabric of any crime story, certainly part of this one.

Here is CNN's David Mattingly.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was a massive manhunt born out of necessity, almost overnight. Six people dead in under 28 hours. Police grappling with a sudden sniper killing spree and little evidence to go on. And in those early days, a possible misstep. Police emphasizing to the public to be alert to a series of white vans and trucks. The mention of a burgundy Caprice lost in the message.

J. KELLY MCCANN, CNN SECURITY ANALYST: They said there was a burgundy Caprice that they were on the lookout for. They passed that dutifully, they weighted it towards law enforcement, but it wasn't in the public knowledge.

MATTINGLY: But, October 8, John Muhammad, sleeping in a Caprice, is questioned by Baltimore police then let go. Next, a setback October 14. A ninth killing at a Home Depot parking lot in Arlington, Virginia. The police themselves are victimized by a bogus eyewitness.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Certainly we would not have wanted that to be the case, to have information that we were looking for, something that was not accurate.

MATTINGLY: The hunt for a white van, however, almost seems to be on the money. October 21st, police arrest two Hispanic men after one of them driving a white van attempts to make a call at a phone that had been under surveillance.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We didn't know what to expect. I mean when you see these guys in a semi-crouch with shouldered rifles and three of them abreast, you know something very serious is going on. We really didn't know.

MATTINGLY: But the moment only produces more disappointment, as the two turn out to be undocumented workers simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. The real killers missed by authorities at that phone by a matter of minutes. Miscommunication between agencies was blamed.

Another dead end and the next day another killing. Quietly, police had missed a deadline to meet killers' demands.

MOOSE: The person shot was the driver of the ride-on bus. He was transported to Suburban Hospital where he was deceased as a result of his wounds in this shooting.

MATTINGLY: Ten dead, three wounded in 20 days. Thousands of calls, multiple jurisdictions. And now a message apparently left by the angry killers, calling the investigation incompetent, complaining that a police hot line had hung up on them twice, ranting that five victims had died as a result. Police publicly claim some messages were difficult to understand and appealed for continued dialogue.

MCCANN: The person at the end, their patience are only as long as they can determine what are you talking about, what are you trying to tell me.

MATTINGLY: But with criticism of the handling of the investigation growing and public confidence waning, a possible mistake by the snipers may have led to their capture.

(on camera): In an anonymous phone call, one that investigators believe came from the snipers themselves, there was a passing reference to Montgomery. Montgomery, Alabama, it turns out, where evidence at the scene of a shooting gave them the break they were looking for. It was a badly needed stroke of luck in a struggling investigation. One that now seems to be rapping up as quickly and furiously as it began.

David Mattingly, CNN, Montgomery County, Maryland.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: When we come back, former Philadelphia police chief, John Timoney, forensic psychologist, Dr. Harley Stock. We'll take a look at what they're thinking today on the events as they played out. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Our next guests put in some fairly long hours with us last night and actually throughout the week. We're pleased to have them back tonight as well. John Timoney is the former police chief in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. A long time New York police officer and official as well. He's now the CEO of a security consulting company, Bo Dietl & Associates, and John again joins us tonight from Philadelphia.

And joining us again from Detroit, Harley Stock, a forensic psychologist and hostage negotiator. And it is good to have you both with us.

I want to look ahead here, gentlemen, in a minute, but I want to at least deal with some of the things that have happened since we last talked. John, first, anything -- do you find this surprising in any sense who the suspects are, and how this ultimately played out?

JOHN TIMONEY, CEO BO DIETL & ASSOCIATES: I mean, some huge surprises. I maintained all along that it would be one shooter. That if it was two shooters, it would be impossible to keep a secret. So we'll have to see. My sense is, if the two are in fact involved, that then there are others that probably know about it. And I would be curious to see this fellow Osborn (ph) that they're looking for, the co-owner of the car. Was he aware of it? Were there other people that had an inkling?

And you know one person can keep a secret, I maintain, two can't, particularly a 17-year-old has a tendency to want -- want to talk with about it, either out of nervousness or braggadocio, but would want to talk about it. And so all this stuff will come out in the next couple of days. And my sense is other folks knew about it.

BROWN: Just on that point, it is almost an act of arrogance if it was young Mr. Malvo who placed that call saying you ought to lock at Montgomery, Alabama. That's a kind of 17-year-old thing to do.

TIMONEY: Yes, exactly. Just to kind of try to prove -- I don't know if he did it, but trying to prove you're macho. If you doubt me, look this up. You know, check my bona fides, my credentials.

BROWN: And Harley, same question. As you look at it -- and we're all -- these guys are suspects, so we don't need to go through this every time, but are you surprised at all or a lot?

HARLEY STOCK, FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGIST: Well, I think there are a number of surprises here. Certainly this doesn't fit the pattern of either a serial killer or a spree killer. We don't really still understand the motivation, although I believe that it still has, to some degree, to do with extortion probably, plus some political motives.

BROWN: And the surprise is that it just doesn't fit the model of that people in your line of work work with for the kinds of people that do spree killings or serial killings.

STOCK: You know what is going to happen now? Now we're going to have a third model. We're going to have a serial killer, a spree killer and then this new kind of killer, whatever we're going to call that. But believe me, there will be a new forensic psychology book about this out pretty soon.

BROWN: All right. Tell me now what the forensic psychologist's job is, if in fact they have a job at this point in the investigation? Are they part of the interrogation process, at least on the sidelines?

STOCK: There will be several different fronts that are going to be attacked. The first will be to put together some interrogation strategies, not only for the suspects if they're allowed to talk to them through their lawyers, but also for the other people who are going to be interviewed in the case. So psychologists will have some input into that.

The second area that forensic psychologists will become involved in will have to do with an area that really we haven't talked about and that is perhaps offer something treatment to law enforcement. These police officers have been involved in a lot for a number of days. They've been under a lot of stress. They're going to have, some of them, some mental health issues that have to be addressed.

And the third area that a forensic psychologist will become involved in will be looking at: Are they going to go for an insanity defense? Are they go to say, Hey, anybody who will go on this kind of killing spree has to be mentally ill and so, how are they going to try, from the law enforcement perspective, defeat that?

BROWN: John, from the interrogators' perspective, if in fact you get a whack at suspects in a case like this, the lawyers don't shut you down, is your first instinct to try and turn one against the other?

STOCK: Yes, and you're quite naturally going to be drawn to the 17-year-old, who, no matter how tough he thinks he is, I'm telling you now, he's scared and may want to get a lot off his chest.

And so, if you got a good investigator and they've got good investigators with good interviewing techniques, you can elicit information because -- not about what happened. We kind of know what happened. But the motives and the rationale is mind boggling at this particular point. Everything has been offered up from al Qaeda sympathy to, you know, $10 million extortion note.

BROWN: Just based on what you know, why -- why even think about cutting a deal? I mean, you find the two people in the car, where the gun is, let's just assume everything matches up for a second, you've got a fingerprint here and you've got a voice print there, why do you cut a deal at all?

STOCK: It may not even be the fact of cutting a deal as clearing a conscience. And, you know, you can work on that. Even the most evil people at the end of the day hopefully have a conscience and so you work on that.

BROWN: OK. One backward looking question. What do you think -- you've been in these situations. What do you think it was like when the radio crackled at 1:00 something in the morning this morning and the task force people heard that they had these guys?

STOCK: They -- their hearts had to be pounding. I tell you one thing, those truck drivers, God bless them, blocking off the entrance and the exit to that little rest stop, they're absolutely brilliant. By the way, proves the point: you get the information out there, you saw within -- you know, we were discussing last night if you remember, Aaron, I was saying, because they said they were not suspects, that they just wanted to talk to them.

I said, you know, if I was those two guys, I would pull off the to the side of the road and make a phone call. Well, they pulled off the side of the road and went to sleep. It's extraordinary.

But once the information was out there, with the plate number, what you've done is taken the investigative force of a couple hundred are or a thousand and made it a few million out there, eyes and ears of the law enforcement. BROWN: Right. I mean, we -- it is odd, I guess, that we talked about this last night and it played out about an hour after we talked about it.

Harley, let me give you the last word on this, there has been a lot of talk today about people in your line of work who spend a fair amount of time talking to people in my line of work.

As you think about the whole process, are you more or less comfortable with talking about this stuff in public and the whole accusation that maybe inadvertently you were giving and we were giving the snipers some help here that they certainly didn't deserve?

STOCK: Well, I'm not uncomfortable about psychologists talking about these issues in public as long as they do it in a restrained way and do it within the realms of scientific reasonability.

But, on the other hand, we don't want to help people learn how to do crimes. I don't think that happened in this case. These people not only were killing machines but they built a killing machine. They didn't learn anything from us.

BROWN: Gentlemen, Harley, John, it has been a very interesting week with both of you. And we appreciate enormously your time yet again tonight. Thank you.

STOCK: Thank you.

BROWN: Thanks a lot.

Still to come on NEWSNIGHT, more on the Alabama and the Washington state connections in this investigation.

Next, the background of the two suspects. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: There was a moment last night, two moments actually, when it began to feel, for us at least, like this thing was coming to an end.

The first was when Jeanne Meserve reported the names of the two men police were looking for. And then just a few moments later, a source told Mike Brooks, and he told us, that the men should be considers very dangerous.

In the language of police in these times, we knew they would never say these were suspects when they were talking about these guys. But not unlike you, I suspect, our inner voice was screaming that that's exactly what they believed.

What we didn't know last night was much of anything about John Muhammad. We know a lot more tonight.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) BROWN: At least one thing seems certain about John Muhammad and the 17-year-old he traveled with, John Lee Malvo: they were nomads.

Most recently they were here, living for a time, it appears, in this condominium complex in Clinton, Maryland, just south of Washington, where neighbors say there has been intense police interest.

VINCENT LAWRENCE, NEIGHBOR: It was, like, black, unmarked police car. That's what I thought it was, cause I was like -- he was parked on the opposite side of where everybody park at.

BROWN: One of John Muhammad's ex-wives, Mildred, is listed as the owner of the two-story townhouse.

A couple of months ago, neighbors say, a Chevy Caprice showed up, in this parking space, and so did John Muhammad to walk his dogs.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We just spoke about the dogs and the weather. And that's about it. There kids at the playground, I don't know if he were watching kids or not, but that's about it.

BROWN: There are more addresses, many more. A nation's worth.

The caprice, for instance is registered to an address here in Camden, New Jersey, registered in John Muhammad's name, a name he adopted in the spring of 2001 after converting to Islam.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've seen the car in the area over the course of the summer, early part of the summer.

BROWN: But both John Muhammad and John Lee Malvo spent more time, a good deal of time, out west in Tacoma, Washington, south of Seattle.

They lived in this neighborhood and at the beginning of the year according to one neighbor, in a now familiar story, engaged in target practice in the backyard, a fact that may have led police to dig up that tree trunk for any possible bullet fragments it might hold.

But discord followed Muhammad here as well. In the spring of 2000, his then wife Mildred applied for a protection order against her husband.

"John came to inform me that he will not let me raise our children," she wrote. "His demeanor is such that it's a threat to me. I do not want him around. I am still fearful of him."

And this in a call to 911: "He pushed his way into the house and pushed me out of the way."

CHIEF RANDY CAROL, BELLINGHAM, WASHINGTON POLICE: He had arrived at Bellingham High School without transcripts or without documents.

BROWN: as for John Lee Malvo, police in Bellingham, Washington, just south of the Canadian border, and 90 minutes from Seattle, say he wound up there. He briefly attended this high school.

And he and John Lee Muhammad spent nights at this homeless shelter in Bellingham.

CAROL: We were unable to determine where he had come from and we were unable to verify any transcripts or any prior education.

BROWN: Some authorities are now saying that the teenager was posing as John Muhammad's son.

Either way, the boy was taking karate lessons in Tacoma, where the older men had established a karate school. His business partner was Felix Strozer (ph).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I knew that they were taught to be decent people. Good hygiene, keep their head combed, be proud, that type of thing.

BROWN: We know very little about their relationship.

But we do know that prior to their arrival in Washington state, there had been some more trouble in the past.

SHERON NORMAN, MUHAMMAD'S EX-SISTER-IN-LAW: John, he's done some things to my family. He's done some things to my family and I'm just hoping that this is something that he didn't do.

BROWN: John Lee Muhammad had another marriage, one in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where he was born, and it, too, was not a happy one.

His ex-wife, Carol Muhammad, wouldn't speak for cameras but another relative, Shelia Tazando said, "He forced the teenager to live on a strange diet, honey and crackers."

SHELIA TAZANDO, MUHAMMAD'S EX-SISTER-IN-LAW: We even went out, you know,later that night to get honey and crackers, you know, to make sure they had something to eat.

BROWN: John Lee Muhammad has led a varied life. He served in the army in the Gulf War, but the Pentagon says he was trained as a combat engineer and a machinists, not a sniper.

And long before he changed his name, friends say he became involved in causes. He helped provide security for the Million Man March in Washington in '95, according to one friend. Not long after converted to Islam.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I thought the world of him, you know. I was, like, you know,this guy want to take a chance with me and start something, you know. I'm going to make the best out of it.

BROWN: But now, as he and the young Jamaican John Malvo are in custody, those who knew them are left with two very different memories, astonishment and hope against hope.

GAIL HORNE, ATTORNEY FOR CAROL MUHAMMAD: If this, you know, came up in the middle of the night last night, you know, you go about your daily routine and, you know, you hear about things that are occurring, horrible things in other places and all of a sudden, it all converges on your doorstep, so I think that anybody would kind of be in shock.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Something has happened in John's life that has created this because this is totally out of character for him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Always find sound bites from families and friends like that astounding. What must they be thinking? Someone that they knew in this sort of trouble?

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, the sniper connection in Alabama. Our look at the investigation and how they put it together continues from New York.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Most of us date this ordeal back to October 2, the day the first victim, Jim Martin, was shot and killed. But as we said earlier in the program, it may very well have begun on the 21 of September at a liquor store in Alabama, Montgomery.

If that's the case, there is actually another victim's name to remember, please. Claudine Parker. She was shot dead. Another woman survived, witnessed the attack, the robbery.

It was at this crime scene that a fingerprint was found and eventually leading to the capture of the two suspects last night, excuse me, or at least helping in that regard.

We're joined tonight by the chief of police in Montgomery, Alabama, John Wilson.

Mr. Wilson, Chief Wilson, thanks for joining us tonight.

Just -- I know you've been asked this 100 times tonight. But just again, you got the first inkling that there may be a connection between Montgomery, Alabama, and Montgomery County when?

JOHN WILSON, MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA POLICE CHIEF: Sunday night, our task force received a call from the task force in Washington D.C. stating that they had gotten a tip from a caller. I guess trying to verify their veracity, they asked us to look into a case here in Montgomery.

They were calling and wanting to know specifically about a homicide that occurred at this store behind me. And the caller specifically stated Montgomery, Alabama, near Ann Street. And we were able to help them out with that. We knew immediately which case they were talking about. At that point, they became very interested.

BROWN: And this call, I assume, went to a detective or a investigator, and did they call you right away and say, chief, you want to hear something really strange, we may be connected to this thing in Washington?

BROWN: Exactly, pretty much said it verbatim. They -- pretty much like, You're not going to believe this, it's pretty far fetched at this time, but this is what we've been told.

And the minute we verified the facts for them and they became interested, they requested some information from us in the way of evidence. We sent that and the enthusiasm elevated. They became more interested. And then the next day or two we sent additional evidence as well as an investigator to Washington.

BROWN: Excuse me, sir. You had this fingerprint that had been taken, I think, it was off a gun -- off a magazine, is that what it was? A shell casing or something?

WILSON: Well, I want to apologize to you because we're not in a position where we can verify the existence of the fingerprints. We don't want to talk about the specifics of our evidence.

BROWN: So you won't even tell me about -- whether in fact there was a fingerprint?

WILSON: No, I don't want to verify that because it could jeopardize the case in Washington and it's at a very sensitive stage and the success of our case there and here is more important than me revealing that at the moment.

BROWN: I understand. It certainly makes my followup question worthless. I won't even go there.

WILSON: OK.

BROWN: Anything in your case --- let's see if this works -- anything in your case change? Is there -- are there any new developments in your case down in Alabama because of the events that have gone on the East Coast?

WILSON: Not because of the events on the East Coast, but we have had some new developments in evening in our case. And we're not prepared to talk about those now. We have called an additional press conference for 9 our time in the morning, and I think those developments will be worthwhile media coming back, and us revealing those to them.

We had not planned on having an additional press conference, but these developments came within the last few hours and I think they're significant.

BROWN: And you -- I don't suppose you'll give me just a little hint as to where this is going, huh?

WILSON: Just that it's important.

BROWN: OK. I'll take that.

When you heard last night or early this morning that these arrests had been made and when your detectives heard that, give me a sense of what the reaction down in Montgomery, Alabama, was then?

WILSON: We were elated. I mean, we've been very -- just thrilled about our involvement and our ability to help the people in Virginia and Washington. We want to play as big a role as we can in helping those families and citizens there, and not to mention this is a very high profile case for our area. This is not something that happens here every day, and it was a top priority case for us, and we were struggling with this case. We had not a lot to work with, and the breakthrough came for us with that phone call on Sunday, so we've got something we can offer Washington and they've got something they can offer us.

BROWN: Chief, I hope the news that you have tomorrow is good news from your perspective. We appreciate your time. In a very short time, you've become masterful, I say this with affection, at handling reporters. Thank you, sir.

WILSON: Thank you.

BROWN: Thank you very much. Chief of Police in Montgomery, Alabama, capital of Alabama.

Quick look now at some of the other stories around the world making news today, any of which, honestly, would get more play on any other night and probably should.

First, the hostage taking at a theater in Moscow, now in its second day. Chechen rebels holding about 700 people, we believe, three Americans among them. They're holding them hostage. They've already killed one hostage, say they'll kill them all unless Russian troops pull out of Chechnya.

In a videotaped statement broadcast on Al-Jazeera, the Arab television network, one of the hostage takers is heard to say, "I swear by God, we are more keen on dying than you are on living."

Something to think about in Israel today. An Arab Israeli lieutenant colonel in the IDF was indicted on charges of spying for Hezbollah. Prosecutors say he did it for drugs and for money. Ten others, all of them Israelis of Arab descent, are accused of helping him. Four of them indicted as well today.

And Iraq has expelled a number of news organizations, CNN included. The Iraqis apparently upset over the coverage of anti- government demonstration -- excuse me -- in Baghdad earlier this week. This sort of thing happens quite a bit, five times to CNN since 1990. One of our bosses had this to say.

"We're not here to please or displease the Iraqi government. We're just trying to do our jobs as best we can."

Sometimes that does displease governments, doesn't it? Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT, some final thoughts on this sniper story for the night.

We're right back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: And so in the end they were literally caught napping, but a routine way for such a bizarre and tragic drama to end.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Take a look. For three weeks, if these are, in fact, the snipers, as police believe they are, they were ghosts. Invisible on the periphery of the ten lives they ended as if by remote control from a terrible distance.

Invisibly, too, they put three more lives in jeopardy if these are, in fact, the men. And still invisibly, they unsettled the lives of millions of others, turning the Washington area into what must have seemed a lawless land in which bullets come out of the blue at any hour of the day or night.

But the ghosts are no longer invisible and no longer mythic. They turn out to be just a couple of ordinary guys, a one-time Desert Storm soldier, a fighter for his country, and a good-looking kid of 17 from a lush and beautiful island in the Caribbean.

For three weeks, the most fearsome thing of all was that no matter how hard we looked, no matter where we looked, we simply could not see them. But now we can. We can do something ten innocent people were sent to their deaths without ever being able to do, we can see their faces, if these are the faces they would have seen.

What is fearsome now is to take in how unremarkable they look, and to wonder -- why.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

And the why is the question we all wait for an answer to. Soon, we hope. That's our report for tonight. Anderson is here tomorrow. We'll see you again on Monday. Good night for from all of us at NEWSNIGHT.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired October 24, 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: Good evening, again, everyone.
You will hear tonight dozens of times the name John Muhammad and John Malvo. You know by now that they are the suspects in the sniper case. You've probably heard a fair amount about them already. We'll serve up a good bit more tonight.

Courts and juries will determine if they are the killers, but there's a body of evidence that's growing out there tonight that strongly suggests they may well be. So just forget about them for a second and remember these names, you may not hear them again, because that's the way our minds, all of ours, yours and mind, and our business tends to work.

Jim Martin, the first person to die in this tragedy. And then there was Sonny Buchanan, a guy who worked with troubled kids and, when he had the time, wrote poems. Prem Walekar, a cab driver, worked 12 to 14 hours a day to send his child to college so she would not be a cab driver.

Dean Meyers, a Vietnam vet, a much missed brother and uncle. There are six children tonight who miss Ken Bridges and a lot of other people miss him too. He worked in economic development for African- Americans in the Washington area.

Sarah Ramos was the mother of a 7-year-old, and Lori Rivera, who loved to spoil here three-year-old, they are victims, too. Now husband and daughter will move back to their native Idaho to be closer to her family. Pascal Charlot, was a retired carpenter who still had an important job, perhaps his most important job, taking care of his sick wife. He was killed en route to the drugstore.

You'll remember Linda Franklin, we suspect, the FBI analyst, the breast cancer survivor, almost a grandmother. And then Conrad Johnson, the bus driver, the last man to die in all of this.

We mentioned them again tonight for the same reason we mentioned them two weeks ago. They should not be numbers and they should be more than just victims. And because with all the talk tonight about their suspected killers, necessary talk, these people, these moms and dads and uncles and workers and dreamers should not be swept aside by a new headline.

We begin The Whip tonight in suburban Washington, as we have virtually every night for three weeks. Kathleen Koch again in Rockville, Maryland. Kathleen, a headline from you tonight. KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, despite everyone's fears and apprehensions, the sniper spree ended not with a bang, but with a whimper. The suspects were caught napping.

BROWN: Kathleen, thank you.

On to Kelli Arena. A look at the trail that led police to the suspects. Kelli, your headline tonight.

KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE DEPARTMENT CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, a fascinating story about how the two men were caught and how one may have helped lead investigators right to them.

BROWN: Kelly, thanks.

Hard to keep up with all the details that emerged throughout the day today. Jeanne Meserve gets us up to date on some of those. Jeanne, a quick headline from you.

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, John Lee Malvo's Jamaican heritage may have helped investigators piece together some of the clues that cracked this case.

BROWN: Jeanne, thank you. Thank you all of you for your work this week, and we'll be back to you shortly.

Also coming up tonight, two people we've come to rely on for guidance over the last couple of weeks, John Timoney, the former chief of police in Philadelphia, and forensic psychologist, Dr. Harley Stock joins us again. The question of who they are, the Army veteran and the teenager, the path that took them to a roadside rest stop last night and to the very center of this extraordinary manhunt.

And the role one deadly crime played in tracking the two men down. One that happened before the word "sniper" became embedded in our minds. We'll talk with the chief of police in Montgomery, Alabama, tonight, John Wilson.

We begin 22 days since first shot was fired. Two days since the latest victim fell. And tonight we're miles beyond that, still far from the end of the story. But if police are right, the latest victim will be the last. It is a court story from here on out.

Police now have a rifle, a sniper's nest, two men and apparently a chain of events and evidence that came to a head early this morning at a rest stop in Frederick County, Maryland. The bulk of our program tonight will center on how police made the case, a complex and difficult case in many respects. A case that started in the D.C. area but touched Alabama and the Pacific Northwest. But it began and apparently ended in Maryland, and that's where we begin tonight.

Here is CNN's Kathleen Koch.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KOCH (voice-over): Police lined up in a cold rain to say that after three weeks they believe they caught the snipers and found the gun.

CHIEF CHARLES MOOSE, MONTGOMERY COUNTY POLICE DEPARTMENT: We feel very positive about being here. We have the weapon. It is off the street.

KOCH: Ballistics proving the Bushmaster XM-15 .223 caliber rifle found with the suspects was a match in 11 of the 13 sniper shootings. There was also emotion and regret that despite the task force's best efforts, 13 people were shot, 10 of them killed, leaving families broken and grieving.

MOOSE: We will never forget -- we'll never know their pain and we only wish we could have stopped this to reduce the number of victims.

KOCH: The end came around 1:00 AM at a rest stop outside Frederick, Maryland, about 50 miles northwest of Washington. A sharp- eyed motorist who had heard the police lookout just over an hour earlier spotted the blue 1990 Chevrolet Caprice with two men sleeping inside. He called 911.

RON LANTZ, CALLED 911: They told us to pull the truck up to the -- where you go out the end and block the road so they couldn't get out. So they had him cornered and he couldn't get out no way.

KOCH: State troopers arrived, and after more than two hours of blocking escape routes and planning their move, S.W.A.T. teams converged. Apprehended, 41-year-old John Allen Muhammad, a Gulf War Army veteran, and a 17-year-old, John Lee Malvo. The two were taken in for questioning and later taken to federal court in Baltimore. Muhammad is being held for a federal firearms violation. Malvo as a material witness.

In a 13-minute hearing, when the judge asking Muhammad if he understood the charges against him, he replied softly, "Yes, ma'am." The rifle seized was found behind the seat in the Caprice. Officers also removed a scope and tripod. Federal law enforcement sources say a sniper platform was built into the car's trunk. The rear seat could be folded down and holes were drilled through the back so that shots could be fired without leaving the vehicle.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KOCH: Prosecutors from local, state and federal jurisdictions are meeting at federal court in Baltimore, Maryland tomorrow to discuss charges and jurisdictional issues. They plan to come out around noon tomorrow to announce their decision because, clearly, every jurisdiction wants a chance to bring these two to justice -- Aaron.

BROWN: Well, and everyone wants to do it first. We'll leave that one for tomorrow.

I don't know where to begin. I have so many. Anything on the white van? Was the white van just one of those things that comes up in a case like this and ends up being nothing? KOCH: It was, Aaron. And, you know, the police chief did cling to it. They clung to that white box truck. They gave us more and more details as time went on about the two vehicles. But we as reporters also tried to remind people, as Moose did from time to time from the podium that, you know, if -- that people should look for anything suspicious, anything in this. But clearly the way this vehicle was configured it was almost impossible to have spotted it, even if you were the best witness.

BROWN: And just go back to last night. At what point did you out there begin to sense that a big night was in play?

KOCH: I think it was late in the evening but before Chief Moose came out, when the fabulous reporting by Jeanne Meserve and Kelli Arena found out that these two names were going to be released. And, again, having sat here for three weeks and knowing the extreme caution exercised by this police chief, I knew that there had to be something to those names or they would not be going out. Chief Moose is simply too careful.

And that was when our hearts began to soar and our hopes were raised. And it looks like at this point everything is going the way that we were hoping it would, Aaron.

BROWN: Well, we'll find out. We certainly learned a lot today and last night. Thank you, Kathleen. Kathleen Koch out in Rockville, Maryland. It's been a long haul for her, for lots of people, including the people behind her, the task force officers, the people who managed the investigation and the detectives who executed it. Been a long three weeks.

A closer look now at the body of evidence, the moving parts coming literally from one end of the country to the other. Little doubt there is more to come. No doubt either. We don't know yet how all of these pieces fit together.

But already the evidence adds up to at least the skeleton of a story, a story too in how police came to know what they know tonight. CNN's Kelli Arena now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARENA (voice-over): Federal agents got to this point after a long and complicated journey spanning from the East to the West Coast of the country.

MOOSE: We feel very positive about where we are right now.

ARENA: It starts here in Montgomery, Alabama at this liquor store. On September 21st, two women were shot, one fatally. There is a sketch of a man suspected of the shootings, an eyewitness and a fingerprint.

Fast-forward to October 17. A call to Montgomery County police from a man saying he is the sniper and boasts about killing before and tells investigators to look into an unsolved Montgomery shooting. It is unclear to investigators that the caller is talking about Montgomery, Alabama.

The next night, a clergyman calls investigators with information he says he received on a telephone call also from a man claiming to be the sniper and involving the Montgomery, Alabama shooting. Federal agents then contact police in Montgomery, Alabama.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They were trying to verify things that they knew and said that you may want to check on a case that happened in Montgomery, Alabama, near Ann (ph) street, where a murder occurred at a liquor store. Our investigators confirmed for them that that was in fact the case. We did have such a case on September 21.

After that was confirmed, they were even more interested. They wanted us to send them some of our evidence.

ARENA: Part of that evidence, a fingerprint lifted from a gun magazine. That fingerprint is run through databases and matches prints which the immigration service had on file for John Lee Malvo from a December 2001 incident in Washington state. Investigators then link Malvo to John Allen Muhammad, where the two lived together in Tacoma, Washington and may have conducted target practice in this yard.

After the shooting in Ashland, Virginia, investigators canvassed the area with photos of the two men. There is a positive ID placing Malvo in the area, but by this time, he's already gone. The final break comes as U.S. marshals connect Muhammad to a 1990 Chevy Caprice through information filed by officers from an October 8 stop in Baltimore, placing Muhammad in the area of the shootings.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ARENA: Well, you know the rest. An all points bulletin is put out for the vehicle. With some luck, the men were asleep when the car is spotted and they're taken in without incident. Aaron, back to you.

BROWN: When did they -- if you know, when did they match the print, the Montgomery, Alabama, print? When did that come up to the task force and when did they make the match? How long ago?

ARENA: Well, it was about a week ago. It was on -- about the 19th or 20th of October. Where they -- when they finally got that information, all of the evidence sent up from Montgomery County police, and then were able to run it through all of -- every agency's databases and, bingo, they hit on INS.

BROWN: So on the 19th or so, give or take, somewhere around there, they -- as far as we know, this is the first time they had a name to work with and a face -- I assume they had a face to work with. Is that right?

ARENA: Yes, they did.

BROWN: And then it was sometime later that they got the second name, Muhammad or Williams, I guess. ARENA: Well, the incident -- right, Williams. The INS incident that dates back to December of 2001, information that was gathered -- there was a domestic incident that was reported with Malvo. His mother and Muhammad was also present. So there was information that INS had compiled in their folder from that incident. So you had that record there.

Plus, when investigators went to Washington state and just did some good investigative work, they found out that these two individuals had some sort of relationship and obviously that they lived together in the Tacoma, Washington area.

BROWN: Now, take -- I want you to use 20/20 hindsight. Do you -- as you play back in your mind your conversation with sources over the weeks, did you know -- do you notice now when you think about it, any difference in the way they started talking to you, any more -- were they any more optimistic, were they anything different on about the 20th of October?

ARENA: There was a press conference right around that time where Chief Moose actually made a comment saying, you know, we're hope -- we're confident we're going to solve this case. It was the first time -- and it was actually an FBI agent that I was talking to who was not involved in this investigation, and he said to me, "Did you hear that? Did you hear that? It is the first time that he was out there and he said we're confident. That could mean something is up."

But try as we might, we couldn't get any hard and fast details on exactly what that was, what was making him confident. But he did -- he did -- one agent did remark to me at that time, you know that it struck him. And his investigative sense obviously was a little better than mine.

BROWN: Well, that's his job. Yours is just to pry information out of him. Kelly, thank you and thank you. Get some rest. Kelli Arena in Washington tonight.

There are stories like this, tragedies like this, big facts and small details. Each is part of the overall fabric of the story. Jeanne Meserve has been covering it from the start. Most of the night last night as well. Back again with more of the detail that shapes the case.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MESERVE (voice-over): According to sources, some significant movement in the case came after the sniper's truck in Ashland, Virginia, Saturday night. At that point, John Lee Malvo and John Allen Muhammad were in investigators' sights. Law enforcement canvassed the neighborhood with photos and sketches.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They asked for all the rooms of every individual's names and then they went and checked every single car in the parking lot, matched up the name to the names to the cars.

MESERVE: They even reviewed hotel surveillance tapes and credit card receipts from nearby businesses, eventually establishing that Malvo had stayed in Ashland from Friday night until Sunday morning. They surmised that he walked back to his hotel after shooting a 37- year-old man in the Ponderosa parking lot about 100 yards away.

A note found later in the woods near the Ponderosa helped persuade law enforcement they were on the right trail. The grammar, colloquialisms and allusions in the communication seemed to fit with Malvo's Jamaican heritage. On the cover page, "For you, Mr. Police, call me god. Do not release to the press." The writing was followed by five stars, a reference, investigators theorize to a Jamaican band: Five Star.

In the body of the three-page letter, these words: "If we give you our word that is what takes place. Word is bond." "Word is bond" is a phrase in a Five Star song. And, intriguingly, it was paraphrased by Chief Moose in his last communication with the sniper Wednesday night.

MOOSE: Our word is our bond.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MESERVE: These are pieces of the puzzle, but investigators say there are others they have yet to put in place. The biggest, why this rampage took place at all -- Aaron.

BROWN: Well that is it, isn't it? I mean, that's no small piece of change. That's the whole enchilada that I think everyone wants to know now. If these are the guys, what was it they were up to, why were they doing this? Was it about money, was it politics? What was it and are we any closer to knowing that tonight?

MESERVE: Well, investigators spent hours interrogating these men today. But when they were asked questions about motivation at the press conference this evening, they declined to answer them, as they did many. They said they didn't want to jeopardize the prosecution of these individuals. And so for the time being, they were going to be tight lipped.

BROWN: But they did talk to them? Do we know if there are lawyers in this yet?

MESERVE: They definitely were questioned. They definitely were questioned after they -- after they were taken into custody. They were taken to a detention facility here in Montgomery County, where they were questioned. I have to believe that this being America, they did indeed have lawyers present.

BROWN: Jeanne, thank you. And thank you for your efforts this week. Jeanne Meserve out in Rockville, tonight. Much good work from Jeanne as well.

Much more on sniper story ahead tonight. We'll look at the twists and turns and the missteps in the investigation. We'll talk with former police chief John Timoney, forensic psychologist, Harley Stock. We'll also have more on what we know about the two suspects, their connections to Washington state and Alabama. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: This story comes with the customary footnote at the top. Investigating crime is an art, not a science. Investigations proceed in fits (ph) and starts. Leads sometimes turn out to be false leads and opportunities are sometimes missed. All those things are part of the fabric of any crime story, certainly part of this one.

Here is CNN's David Mattingly.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was a massive manhunt born out of necessity, almost overnight. Six people dead in under 28 hours. Police grappling with a sudden sniper killing spree and little evidence to go on. And in those early days, a possible misstep. Police emphasizing to the public to be alert to a series of white vans and trucks. The mention of a burgundy Caprice lost in the message.

J. KELLY MCCANN, CNN SECURITY ANALYST: They said there was a burgundy Caprice that they were on the lookout for. They passed that dutifully, they weighted it towards law enforcement, but it wasn't in the public knowledge.

MATTINGLY: But, October 8, John Muhammad, sleeping in a Caprice, is questioned by Baltimore police then let go. Next, a setback October 14. A ninth killing at a Home Depot parking lot in Arlington, Virginia. The police themselves are victimized by a bogus eyewitness.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Certainly we would not have wanted that to be the case, to have information that we were looking for, something that was not accurate.

MATTINGLY: The hunt for a white van, however, almost seems to be on the money. October 21st, police arrest two Hispanic men after one of them driving a white van attempts to make a call at a phone that had been under surveillance.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We didn't know what to expect. I mean when you see these guys in a semi-crouch with shouldered rifles and three of them abreast, you know something very serious is going on. We really didn't know.

MATTINGLY: But the moment only produces more disappointment, as the two turn out to be undocumented workers simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. The real killers missed by authorities at that phone by a matter of minutes. Miscommunication between agencies was blamed.

Another dead end and the next day another killing. Quietly, police had missed a deadline to meet killers' demands.

MOOSE: The person shot was the driver of the ride-on bus. He was transported to Suburban Hospital where he was deceased as a result of his wounds in this shooting.

MATTINGLY: Ten dead, three wounded in 20 days. Thousands of calls, multiple jurisdictions. And now a message apparently left by the angry killers, calling the investigation incompetent, complaining that a police hot line had hung up on them twice, ranting that five victims had died as a result. Police publicly claim some messages were difficult to understand and appealed for continued dialogue.

MCCANN: The person at the end, their patience are only as long as they can determine what are you talking about, what are you trying to tell me.

MATTINGLY: But with criticism of the handling of the investigation growing and public confidence waning, a possible mistake by the snipers may have led to their capture.

(on camera): In an anonymous phone call, one that investigators believe came from the snipers themselves, there was a passing reference to Montgomery. Montgomery, Alabama, it turns out, where evidence at the scene of a shooting gave them the break they were looking for. It was a badly needed stroke of luck in a struggling investigation. One that now seems to be rapping up as quickly and furiously as it began.

David Mattingly, CNN, Montgomery County, Maryland.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: When we come back, former Philadelphia police chief, John Timoney, forensic psychologist, Dr. Harley Stock. We'll take a look at what they're thinking today on the events as they played out. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Our next guests put in some fairly long hours with us last night and actually throughout the week. We're pleased to have them back tonight as well. John Timoney is the former police chief in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. A long time New York police officer and official as well. He's now the CEO of a security consulting company, Bo Dietl & Associates, and John again joins us tonight from Philadelphia.

And joining us again from Detroit, Harley Stock, a forensic psychologist and hostage negotiator. And it is good to have you both with us.

I want to look ahead here, gentlemen, in a minute, but I want to at least deal with some of the things that have happened since we last talked. John, first, anything -- do you find this surprising in any sense who the suspects are, and how this ultimately played out?

JOHN TIMONEY, CEO BO DIETL & ASSOCIATES: I mean, some huge surprises. I maintained all along that it would be one shooter. That if it was two shooters, it would be impossible to keep a secret. So we'll have to see. My sense is, if the two are in fact involved, that then there are others that probably know about it. And I would be curious to see this fellow Osborn (ph) that they're looking for, the co-owner of the car. Was he aware of it? Were there other people that had an inkling?

And you know one person can keep a secret, I maintain, two can't, particularly a 17-year-old has a tendency to want -- want to talk with about it, either out of nervousness or braggadocio, but would want to talk about it. And so all this stuff will come out in the next couple of days. And my sense is other folks knew about it.

BROWN: Just on that point, it is almost an act of arrogance if it was young Mr. Malvo who placed that call saying you ought to lock at Montgomery, Alabama. That's a kind of 17-year-old thing to do.

TIMONEY: Yes, exactly. Just to kind of try to prove -- I don't know if he did it, but trying to prove you're macho. If you doubt me, look this up. You know, check my bona fides, my credentials.

BROWN: And Harley, same question. As you look at it -- and we're all -- these guys are suspects, so we don't need to go through this every time, but are you surprised at all or a lot?

HARLEY STOCK, FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGIST: Well, I think there are a number of surprises here. Certainly this doesn't fit the pattern of either a serial killer or a spree killer. We don't really still understand the motivation, although I believe that it still has, to some degree, to do with extortion probably, plus some political motives.

BROWN: And the surprise is that it just doesn't fit the model of that people in your line of work work with for the kinds of people that do spree killings or serial killings.

STOCK: You know what is going to happen now? Now we're going to have a third model. We're going to have a serial killer, a spree killer and then this new kind of killer, whatever we're going to call that. But believe me, there will be a new forensic psychology book about this out pretty soon.

BROWN: All right. Tell me now what the forensic psychologist's job is, if in fact they have a job at this point in the investigation? Are they part of the interrogation process, at least on the sidelines?

STOCK: There will be several different fronts that are going to be attacked. The first will be to put together some interrogation strategies, not only for the suspects if they're allowed to talk to them through their lawyers, but also for the other people who are going to be interviewed in the case. So psychologists will have some input into that.

The second area that forensic psychologists will become involved in will have to do with an area that really we haven't talked about and that is perhaps offer something treatment to law enforcement. These police officers have been involved in a lot for a number of days. They've been under a lot of stress. They're going to have, some of them, some mental health issues that have to be addressed.

And the third area that a forensic psychologist will become involved in will be looking at: Are they going to go for an insanity defense? Are they go to say, Hey, anybody who will go on this kind of killing spree has to be mentally ill and so, how are they going to try, from the law enforcement perspective, defeat that?

BROWN: John, from the interrogators' perspective, if in fact you get a whack at suspects in a case like this, the lawyers don't shut you down, is your first instinct to try and turn one against the other?

STOCK: Yes, and you're quite naturally going to be drawn to the 17-year-old, who, no matter how tough he thinks he is, I'm telling you now, he's scared and may want to get a lot off his chest.

And so, if you got a good investigator and they've got good investigators with good interviewing techniques, you can elicit information because -- not about what happened. We kind of know what happened. But the motives and the rationale is mind boggling at this particular point. Everything has been offered up from al Qaeda sympathy to, you know, $10 million extortion note.

BROWN: Just based on what you know, why -- why even think about cutting a deal? I mean, you find the two people in the car, where the gun is, let's just assume everything matches up for a second, you've got a fingerprint here and you've got a voice print there, why do you cut a deal at all?

STOCK: It may not even be the fact of cutting a deal as clearing a conscience. And, you know, you can work on that. Even the most evil people at the end of the day hopefully have a conscience and so you work on that.

BROWN: OK. One backward looking question. What do you think -- you've been in these situations. What do you think it was like when the radio crackled at 1:00 something in the morning this morning and the task force people heard that they had these guys?

STOCK: They -- their hearts had to be pounding. I tell you one thing, those truck drivers, God bless them, blocking off the entrance and the exit to that little rest stop, they're absolutely brilliant. By the way, proves the point: you get the information out there, you saw within -- you know, we were discussing last night if you remember, Aaron, I was saying, because they said they were not suspects, that they just wanted to talk to them.

I said, you know, if I was those two guys, I would pull off the to the side of the road and make a phone call. Well, they pulled off the side of the road and went to sleep. It's extraordinary.

But once the information was out there, with the plate number, what you've done is taken the investigative force of a couple hundred are or a thousand and made it a few million out there, eyes and ears of the law enforcement. BROWN: Right. I mean, we -- it is odd, I guess, that we talked about this last night and it played out about an hour after we talked about it.

Harley, let me give you the last word on this, there has been a lot of talk today about people in your line of work who spend a fair amount of time talking to people in my line of work.

As you think about the whole process, are you more or less comfortable with talking about this stuff in public and the whole accusation that maybe inadvertently you were giving and we were giving the snipers some help here that they certainly didn't deserve?

STOCK: Well, I'm not uncomfortable about psychologists talking about these issues in public as long as they do it in a restrained way and do it within the realms of scientific reasonability.

But, on the other hand, we don't want to help people learn how to do crimes. I don't think that happened in this case. These people not only were killing machines but they built a killing machine. They didn't learn anything from us.

BROWN: Gentlemen, Harley, John, it has been a very interesting week with both of you. And we appreciate enormously your time yet again tonight. Thank you.

STOCK: Thank you.

BROWN: Thanks a lot.

Still to come on NEWSNIGHT, more on the Alabama and the Washington state connections in this investigation.

Next, the background of the two suspects. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: There was a moment last night, two moments actually, when it began to feel, for us at least, like this thing was coming to an end.

The first was when Jeanne Meserve reported the names of the two men police were looking for. And then just a few moments later, a source told Mike Brooks, and he told us, that the men should be considers very dangerous.

In the language of police in these times, we knew they would never say these were suspects when they were talking about these guys. But not unlike you, I suspect, our inner voice was screaming that that's exactly what they believed.

What we didn't know last night was much of anything about John Muhammad. We know a lot more tonight.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) BROWN: At least one thing seems certain about John Muhammad and the 17-year-old he traveled with, John Lee Malvo: they were nomads.

Most recently they were here, living for a time, it appears, in this condominium complex in Clinton, Maryland, just south of Washington, where neighbors say there has been intense police interest.

VINCENT LAWRENCE, NEIGHBOR: It was, like, black, unmarked police car. That's what I thought it was, cause I was like -- he was parked on the opposite side of where everybody park at.

BROWN: One of John Muhammad's ex-wives, Mildred, is listed as the owner of the two-story townhouse.

A couple of months ago, neighbors say, a Chevy Caprice showed up, in this parking space, and so did John Muhammad to walk his dogs.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We just spoke about the dogs and the weather. And that's about it. There kids at the playground, I don't know if he were watching kids or not, but that's about it.

BROWN: There are more addresses, many more. A nation's worth.

The caprice, for instance is registered to an address here in Camden, New Jersey, registered in John Muhammad's name, a name he adopted in the spring of 2001 after converting to Islam.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've seen the car in the area over the course of the summer, early part of the summer.

BROWN: But both John Muhammad and John Lee Malvo spent more time, a good deal of time, out west in Tacoma, Washington, south of Seattle.

They lived in this neighborhood and at the beginning of the year according to one neighbor, in a now familiar story, engaged in target practice in the backyard, a fact that may have led police to dig up that tree trunk for any possible bullet fragments it might hold.

But discord followed Muhammad here as well. In the spring of 2000, his then wife Mildred applied for a protection order against her husband.

"John came to inform me that he will not let me raise our children," she wrote. "His demeanor is such that it's a threat to me. I do not want him around. I am still fearful of him."

And this in a call to 911: "He pushed his way into the house and pushed me out of the way."

CHIEF RANDY CAROL, BELLINGHAM, WASHINGTON POLICE: He had arrived at Bellingham High School without transcripts or without documents.

BROWN: as for John Lee Malvo, police in Bellingham, Washington, just south of the Canadian border, and 90 minutes from Seattle, say he wound up there. He briefly attended this high school.

And he and John Lee Muhammad spent nights at this homeless shelter in Bellingham.

CAROL: We were unable to determine where he had come from and we were unable to verify any transcripts or any prior education.

BROWN: Some authorities are now saying that the teenager was posing as John Muhammad's son.

Either way, the boy was taking karate lessons in Tacoma, where the older men had established a karate school. His business partner was Felix Strozer (ph).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I knew that they were taught to be decent people. Good hygiene, keep their head combed, be proud, that type of thing.

BROWN: We know very little about their relationship.

But we do know that prior to their arrival in Washington state, there had been some more trouble in the past.

SHERON NORMAN, MUHAMMAD'S EX-SISTER-IN-LAW: John, he's done some things to my family. He's done some things to my family and I'm just hoping that this is something that he didn't do.

BROWN: John Lee Muhammad had another marriage, one in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where he was born, and it, too, was not a happy one.

His ex-wife, Carol Muhammad, wouldn't speak for cameras but another relative, Shelia Tazando said, "He forced the teenager to live on a strange diet, honey and crackers."

SHELIA TAZANDO, MUHAMMAD'S EX-SISTER-IN-LAW: We even went out, you know,later that night to get honey and crackers, you know, to make sure they had something to eat.

BROWN: John Lee Muhammad has led a varied life. He served in the army in the Gulf War, but the Pentagon says he was trained as a combat engineer and a machinists, not a sniper.

And long before he changed his name, friends say he became involved in causes. He helped provide security for the Million Man March in Washington in '95, according to one friend. Not long after converted to Islam.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I thought the world of him, you know. I was, like, you know,this guy want to take a chance with me and start something, you know. I'm going to make the best out of it.

BROWN: But now, as he and the young Jamaican John Malvo are in custody, those who knew them are left with two very different memories, astonishment and hope against hope.

GAIL HORNE, ATTORNEY FOR CAROL MUHAMMAD: If this, you know, came up in the middle of the night last night, you know, you go about your daily routine and, you know, you hear about things that are occurring, horrible things in other places and all of a sudden, it all converges on your doorstep, so I think that anybody would kind of be in shock.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Something has happened in John's life that has created this because this is totally out of character for him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Always find sound bites from families and friends like that astounding. What must they be thinking? Someone that they knew in this sort of trouble?

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, the sniper connection in Alabama. Our look at the investigation and how they put it together continues from New York.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Most of us date this ordeal back to October 2, the day the first victim, Jim Martin, was shot and killed. But as we said earlier in the program, it may very well have begun on the 21 of September at a liquor store in Alabama, Montgomery.

If that's the case, there is actually another victim's name to remember, please. Claudine Parker. She was shot dead. Another woman survived, witnessed the attack, the robbery.

It was at this crime scene that a fingerprint was found and eventually leading to the capture of the two suspects last night, excuse me, or at least helping in that regard.

We're joined tonight by the chief of police in Montgomery, Alabama, John Wilson.

Mr. Wilson, Chief Wilson, thanks for joining us tonight.

Just -- I know you've been asked this 100 times tonight. But just again, you got the first inkling that there may be a connection between Montgomery, Alabama, and Montgomery County when?

JOHN WILSON, MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA POLICE CHIEF: Sunday night, our task force received a call from the task force in Washington D.C. stating that they had gotten a tip from a caller. I guess trying to verify their veracity, they asked us to look into a case here in Montgomery.

They were calling and wanting to know specifically about a homicide that occurred at this store behind me. And the caller specifically stated Montgomery, Alabama, near Ann Street. And we were able to help them out with that. We knew immediately which case they were talking about. At that point, they became very interested.

BROWN: And this call, I assume, went to a detective or a investigator, and did they call you right away and say, chief, you want to hear something really strange, we may be connected to this thing in Washington?

BROWN: Exactly, pretty much said it verbatim. They -- pretty much like, You're not going to believe this, it's pretty far fetched at this time, but this is what we've been told.

And the minute we verified the facts for them and they became interested, they requested some information from us in the way of evidence. We sent that and the enthusiasm elevated. They became more interested. And then the next day or two we sent additional evidence as well as an investigator to Washington.

BROWN: Excuse me, sir. You had this fingerprint that had been taken, I think, it was off a gun -- off a magazine, is that what it was? A shell casing or something?

WILSON: Well, I want to apologize to you because we're not in a position where we can verify the existence of the fingerprints. We don't want to talk about the specifics of our evidence.

BROWN: So you won't even tell me about -- whether in fact there was a fingerprint?

WILSON: No, I don't want to verify that because it could jeopardize the case in Washington and it's at a very sensitive stage and the success of our case there and here is more important than me revealing that at the moment.

BROWN: I understand. It certainly makes my followup question worthless. I won't even go there.

WILSON: OK.

BROWN: Anything in your case --- let's see if this works -- anything in your case change? Is there -- are there any new developments in your case down in Alabama because of the events that have gone on the East Coast?

WILSON: Not because of the events on the East Coast, but we have had some new developments in evening in our case. And we're not prepared to talk about those now. We have called an additional press conference for 9 our time in the morning, and I think those developments will be worthwhile media coming back, and us revealing those to them.

We had not planned on having an additional press conference, but these developments came within the last few hours and I think they're significant.

BROWN: And you -- I don't suppose you'll give me just a little hint as to where this is going, huh?

WILSON: Just that it's important.

BROWN: OK. I'll take that.

When you heard last night or early this morning that these arrests had been made and when your detectives heard that, give me a sense of what the reaction down in Montgomery, Alabama, was then?

WILSON: We were elated. I mean, we've been very -- just thrilled about our involvement and our ability to help the people in Virginia and Washington. We want to play as big a role as we can in helping those families and citizens there, and not to mention this is a very high profile case for our area. This is not something that happens here every day, and it was a top priority case for us, and we were struggling with this case. We had not a lot to work with, and the breakthrough came for us with that phone call on Sunday, so we've got something we can offer Washington and they've got something they can offer us.

BROWN: Chief, I hope the news that you have tomorrow is good news from your perspective. We appreciate your time. In a very short time, you've become masterful, I say this with affection, at handling reporters. Thank you, sir.

WILSON: Thank you.

BROWN: Thank you very much. Chief of Police in Montgomery, Alabama, capital of Alabama.

Quick look now at some of the other stories around the world making news today, any of which, honestly, would get more play on any other night and probably should.

First, the hostage taking at a theater in Moscow, now in its second day. Chechen rebels holding about 700 people, we believe, three Americans among them. They're holding them hostage. They've already killed one hostage, say they'll kill them all unless Russian troops pull out of Chechnya.

In a videotaped statement broadcast on Al-Jazeera, the Arab television network, one of the hostage takers is heard to say, "I swear by God, we are more keen on dying than you are on living."

Something to think about in Israel today. An Arab Israeli lieutenant colonel in the IDF was indicted on charges of spying for Hezbollah. Prosecutors say he did it for drugs and for money. Ten others, all of them Israelis of Arab descent, are accused of helping him. Four of them indicted as well today.

And Iraq has expelled a number of news organizations, CNN included. The Iraqis apparently upset over the coverage of anti- government demonstration -- excuse me -- in Baghdad earlier this week. This sort of thing happens quite a bit, five times to CNN since 1990. One of our bosses had this to say.

"We're not here to please or displease the Iraqi government. We're just trying to do our jobs as best we can."

Sometimes that does displease governments, doesn't it? Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT, some final thoughts on this sniper story for the night.

We're right back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: And so in the end they were literally caught napping, but a routine way for such a bizarre and tragic drama to end.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Take a look. For three weeks, if these are, in fact, the snipers, as police believe they are, they were ghosts. Invisible on the periphery of the ten lives they ended as if by remote control from a terrible distance.

Invisibly, too, they put three more lives in jeopardy if these are, in fact, the men. And still invisibly, they unsettled the lives of millions of others, turning the Washington area into what must have seemed a lawless land in which bullets come out of the blue at any hour of the day or night.

But the ghosts are no longer invisible and no longer mythic. They turn out to be just a couple of ordinary guys, a one-time Desert Storm soldier, a fighter for his country, and a good-looking kid of 17 from a lush and beautiful island in the Caribbean.

For three weeks, the most fearsome thing of all was that no matter how hard we looked, no matter where we looked, we simply could not see them. But now we can. We can do something ten innocent people were sent to their deaths without ever being able to do, we can see their faces, if these are the faces they would have seen.

What is fearsome now is to take in how unremarkable they look, and to wonder -- why.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

And the why is the question we all wait for an answer to. Soon, we hope. That's our report for tonight. Anderson is here tomorrow. We'll see you again on Monday. Good night for from all of us at NEWSNIGHT.

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