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American Morning

Ballistics Tests Expected to Confirm Tuesday's Slaying Work of D.C.-Area Sniper

Aired October 23, 2002 - 07:32   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.


PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: That new letter the "Baltimore Sun" is reporting on this morning was found in a park near the scene of yesterday's shooting in Montgomery County. Ballistic tests today are expected to confirm what authorities almost unanimously believe, the slaying just before sunrise Tuesday in Silver Spring, Maryland was the work of the D.C. area sniper.
Bus driver Conrad Johnson was standing on the steps of his bus, about to begin his morning shift, when he was shot in the chest. It happened in an area where the sniper has struck six times.

Bob Franken joins us from the site now with the first live look at the scene in the aftermath of the crime -- good morning, Bob.

BOB FRANKEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula.

And you can see where the shooting occurred. Once again, a makeshift memorial has occurred. We are standing at the edge of a basketball court just down from there and I want to show you where investigators were looking, where they believe that the shooter operated.

We're going to go over here to the woods, the wooded area right across this basketball court. Where we're heading is to a path over there. It goes into a wooded area. As you can imagine, somebody, particularly about six o'clock in the morning when this tragedy occurred, would be easily able to be hidden. Nobody would see him. And now we're walking down this pathway, this pathway, and the pathway takes you through the woods here. You can see how dense it is. It takes you through the woods. If you were standing over here, for instance, you would have a clear view of the target and you would not, of course, be seen by anybody up there.

In any case, if I go down this pathway, I end up down here at a jogging trail, a jogging trail, a bicycling trail. This is part of a park. It's probably about maybe 20 yards from here. It would be a very easy matter for the person to have fired his shot, turned around, either gone down there where he either had a bicycle parked or jogged or something like that, and then gone over maybe 50 yards to Connecticut Avenue, where he could have had his car parked and he could have gotten out of here very easily very quickly.

Again, the type of thing which demonstrates that every time that there has been one of these shootings they have been very methodically planned. And, again, it is a place where nobody would expect anybody to be. This is a park. This is a basketball court. You have a playground over there for children, that type of thing.

This happened at six o'clock in the morning. As I said, it was very accessible. Regrettably and tragically, Paula, it was accessible to somebody who had just the most vicious motives in mind.

ZAHN: Accessible and yet, Bob, to pull off what this shooter did took a great deal of planning and a keen understanding of the shift of the bus driver and what goes on there in the early hours of the morning.

FRANKEN: And, of course, this is something that puzzles, so much puzzles investigators. The one thing, of course, that they're interested in is that he came back to an area where he had started his killing spree three weeks ago and, of course, they're operating on a possible assumption that maybe he does know this area very well. Of course, there's another assumption, that he scouts out areas. That's why he was able to successfully go into areas as far afield as Ashland, Virginia and come up with an escape that possibly relied and an access road to a construction site.

ZAHN: Bob, very quickly in closing, I know we just talked to a woman who actually heard the gunshot fired yesterday who was very upset that Montgomery County parents hadn't been told about that warning that was in the Ashland, Virginia letter that was discovered late Saturday night. Can you give us a sense of how parents are continuing to react to that bombshell that Chief Moose dropped yesterday about kids being specifically targeted?

FRANKEN: Well, they're appalled. They're scared to death. Many of them are outraged that they weren't brought into things. Of course, the police said they didn't consider it an appropriate forum, although they changed their minds later and did hold a news conference to announce it.

We'll see the results this morning when we see how attendance is at schools.

ZAHN: And I guess that'll be a very good measure of that.

Bob Franken, thanks so much.

Appreciate it.

Stop the killing but keep talking, a number of times Police Chief Charles Moose has presumably addressed the sniper through the media. The latest cryptic communication coming Tuesday is reportedly heavily scripted by the FBI, according to this morning's "Washington Post."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHIEF CHARLES MOOSE, MONTGOMERY COUNTY POLICE: Several days you have attempted to communicate with us. We have researched the option you stated and found that it is not possible electronically to comply in the manner that you requested. However, we remain open and ready to talk to you about the options you have mentioned.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAHN: Chief Moose has urged the person to stay in touch. But what are the risks of having a public dialogue with the killer?

Lou Palumbo is a security expert and former police investigator.

He joins us now.

Good morning.

LOUIS PALUMBO, FORMER POLICE INVESTIGATOR: Good morning, Paula.

ZAHN: Good to have you with us this morning.

PALUMBO: Thank you very much.

ZAHN: First of all, what are the risks of conducting the investigation the way Chief Moose is now? We know this is not unprecedented. Police obviously have used the media in the past to communicate with snipers, with shooters, with perpetrators of crimes.

PALUMBO: Well, it's actually a very good tool and it's actually a good application and use of the media. Clearly what we would like to do is establish some line of communication and believe this is or not, and I don't want to use this term in a loose context, a type of rapport with the shooter to try to begin to appeal to him so we can have resolution in this case.

ZAHN: But according to CNN and a number of news organizations, this sniper is fed up with the way he's being treated. In the "Washington Post," apparently he has complained in this letter that was found in Ashland of being hung up on. Listed a half dozen calls that had simply been ignored and even specifically talked about an FBI trainee who answered one of the calls and quote pretty much blew him off.

PALUMBO: Yes, apparently we've agitated him a little bit and a lot of this information has been, you know, held kind of close to the vest, so to speak. And as we're starting to find out more and more about what these letters are in content, it's probably creating a little more hysteria with the public, also. They're probably losing confidence at this point. And, you know, simply stated, I think the most qualified people at this point need to take the bulls by the horns, so to speak, and get this thing on track, and I'm not quite sure that's happening right now.

ZAHN: What do they have to do to get it on track? What aren't they doing that you think they should be?

PALUMBO: Well, quite frankly, I think I would like to hear from a federal authority concerning these letters and these correspondence and allow him to disseminate the information and decide what we should know and what we shouldn't know. I would hope that the decision not to divulge the threat against children was not the sole decision of Chief Moose. It should have been the fruition or byproduct of consulting with many people, including forensic psychologists, behavioral scientists, our FBI, our ATF, because that was a really dramatic step in not divulging that right away.

ZAHN: Yes, we don't know about those players you mentioned in the tail end of that second sentence, but Chief Moose has said that the local municipalities were made aware of this threat in advance of his announcement yesterday.

Let's move on to the issue of something the "New York Times" is writing about today, and that is, "the increasingly chaotic effort, hobbled by turf battles and a fear of leaks that has kept important information from street level investigators."

PALUMBO: Well, it sounds, it has a little bit of tone of 9/11, similar complaints and criticisms about a lack of exchange of information. But I would understand how a federal agency, for example, who was conducting a crime scene search or compiling forensics or, you know, ballistic information might not be so forthcoming to a local agency. One of the fears is leak. You know, the bottom line is the more people in this equation, the more likelihood you are to have a mistake made and subsequently a leak result.

As far as the comment that was made in the "Times" about the one FBI agent saying he doesn't have a clue what's going on, that was extremely irresponsible. Again, we don't need to alarm the public or shake their confidence in this investigation any more than is already intrinsically there just by the nature of this and the lack of resolution.

ZAHN: A real quick answer to this, what do you think the sniper wants? You know, we hear in the first letter there was a demand for $10 million. Now there's complaints that no one's taking his phone calls. What does he want?

PALUMBO: He wants acknowledgement, recognition and people to realize that he's in control and it's hard to profile. I'm not a profiler. I think we have an extremely deranged and depraved individual just based on the nature of these shootings, who he has shot and ranges of age and accompaniment. For example, he shot a man with his spouse. He shot a young lady with her husband. This guy's kind of, he's out there on the limb right now and I don't really know what his exercise is.

One of the things I think we should do is appeal to him to ask him what is it he's trying to tell us. I mean we see your acts, but what is it you want. Tell us what you want. And it's not just money. That's what...

ZAHN: Well, the money request came very late into this process, didn't it?

PALUMBO: Approximately after about 12 shootings, and I don't think this individual sat down and said gee, you know what, while I'm doing this I can probably make a little money on the side. I don't think that that was what transpired in this note in asking for $10 million. When we say $10 million, we have to figure out how we're going to transact that. I can tell you from personal experience, I handled $3 million that was packaged in hundred dollar denominations and I was embarrassed after I boasted I was going to handle it and realized how large it was and struggled to handle it.

ZAHN: Yes, what constituted that $3 million? Suitcases and suitcases and suitcases?

PALUMBO: It was a large bundle that was probably almost four feet high by four feet wide by four feet deep.

ZAHN: Wow.

PALUMBO: And I was completely taken off guard and I'm a fairly healthy individual. I don't know how we're going to transact $10 million to him. I don't know if we're going to electronically transfer these funds and this individual think that they're not going to be tracked or traced. I mean I don't understand what the significance is of requesting $10 million. And I think most people like myself at the time were not particularly literate as to what we're really talking about when we transfer $10 million to somebody.

ZAHN: Sure. And none of us really knows, obviously, how this, any of this is going to be handled down the road.

Lou Palumbo, thank you very much for joining us this morning with your perspective.

PALUMBO: My pleasure.

ZAHN: Appreciate your time.

PALUMBO: Thank you very much.

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





Work of D.C.-Area Sniper>


Aired October 23, 2002 - 07:32   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: That new letter the "Baltimore Sun" is reporting on this morning was found in a park near the scene of yesterday's shooting in Montgomery County. Ballistic tests today are expected to confirm what authorities almost unanimously believe, the slaying just before sunrise Tuesday in Silver Spring, Maryland was the work of the D.C. area sniper.
Bus driver Conrad Johnson was standing on the steps of his bus, about to begin his morning shift, when he was shot in the chest. It happened in an area where the sniper has struck six times.

Bob Franken joins us from the site now with the first live look at the scene in the aftermath of the crime -- good morning, Bob.

BOB FRANKEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula.

And you can see where the shooting occurred. Once again, a makeshift memorial has occurred. We are standing at the edge of a basketball court just down from there and I want to show you where investigators were looking, where they believe that the shooter operated.

We're going to go over here to the woods, the wooded area right across this basketball court. Where we're heading is to a path over there. It goes into a wooded area. As you can imagine, somebody, particularly about six o'clock in the morning when this tragedy occurred, would be easily able to be hidden. Nobody would see him. And now we're walking down this pathway, this pathway, and the pathway takes you through the woods here. You can see how dense it is. It takes you through the woods. If you were standing over here, for instance, you would have a clear view of the target and you would not, of course, be seen by anybody up there.

In any case, if I go down this pathway, I end up down here at a jogging trail, a jogging trail, a bicycling trail. This is part of a park. It's probably about maybe 20 yards from here. It would be a very easy matter for the person to have fired his shot, turned around, either gone down there where he either had a bicycle parked or jogged or something like that, and then gone over maybe 50 yards to Connecticut Avenue, where he could have had his car parked and he could have gotten out of here very easily very quickly.

Again, the type of thing which demonstrates that every time that there has been one of these shootings they have been very methodically planned. And, again, it is a place where nobody would expect anybody to be. This is a park. This is a basketball court. You have a playground over there for children, that type of thing.

This happened at six o'clock in the morning. As I said, it was very accessible. Regrettably and tragically, Paula, it was accessible to somebody who had just the most vicious motives in mind.

ZAHN: Accessible and yet, Bob, to pull off what this shooter did took a great deal of planning and a keen understanding of the shift of the bus driver and what goes on there in the early hours of the morning.

FRANKEN: And, of course, this is something that puzzles, so much puzzles investigators. The one thing, of course, that they're interested in is that he came back to an area where he had started his killing spree three weeks ago and, of course, they're operating on a possible assumption that maybe he does know this area very well. Of course, there's another assumption, that he scouts out areas. That's why he was able to successfully go into areas as far afield as Ashland, Virginia and come up with an escape that possibly relied and an access road to a construction site.

ZAHN: Bob, very quickly in closing, I know we just talked to a woman who actually heard the gunshot fired yesterday who was very upset that Montgomery County parents hadn't been told about that warning that was in the Ashland, Virginia letter that was discovered late Saturday night. Can you give us a sense of how parents are continuing to react to that bombshell that Chief Moose dropped yesterday about kids being specifically targeted?

FRANKEN: Well, they're appalled. They're scared to death. Many of them are outraged that they weren't brought into things. Of course, the police said they didn't consider it an appropriate forum, although they changed their minds later and did hold a news conference to announce it.

We'll see the results this morning when we see how attendance is at schools.

ZAHN: And I guess that'll be a very good measure of that.

Bob Franken, thanks so much.

Appreciate it.

Stop the killing but keep talking, a number of times Police Chief Charles Moose has presumably addressed the sniper through the media. The latest cryptic communication coming Tuesday is reportedly heavily scripted by the FBI, according to this morning's "Washington Post."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHIEF CHARLES MOOSE, MONTGOMERY COUNTY POLICE: Several days you have attempted to communicate with us. We have researched the option you stated and found that it is not possible electronically to comply in the manner that you requested. However, we remain open and ready to talk to you about the options you have mentioned.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAHN: Chief Moose has urged the person to stay in touch. But what are the risks of having a public dialogue with the killer?

Lou Palumbo is a security expert and former police investigator.

He joins us now.

Good morning.

LOUIS PALUMBO, FORMER POLICE INVESTIGATOR: Good morning, Paula.

ZAHN: Good to have you with us this morning.

PALUMBO: Thank you very much.

ZAHN: First of all, what are the risks of conducting the investigation the way Chief Moose is now? We know this is not unprecedented. Police obviously have used the media in the past to communicate with snipers, with shooters, with perpetrators of crimes.

PALUMBO: Well, it's actually a very good tool and it's actually a good application and use of the media. Clearly what we would like to do is establish some line of communication and believe this is or not, and I don't want to use this term in a loose context, a type of rapport with the shooter to try to begin to appeal to him so we can have resolution in this case.

ZAHN: But according to CNN and a number of news organizations, this sniper is fed up with the way he's being treated. In the "Washington Post," apparently he has complained in this letter that was found in Ashland of being hung up on. Listed a half dozen calls that had simply been ignored and even specifically talked about an FBI trainee who answered one of the calls and quote pretty much blew him off.

PALUMBO: Yes, apparently we've agitated him a little bit and a lot of this information has been, you know, held kind of close to the vest, so to speak. And as we're starting to find out more and more about what these letters are in content, it's probably creating a little more hysteria with the public, also. They're probably losing confidence at this point. And, you know, simply stated, I think the most qualified people at this point need to take the bulls by the horns, so to speak, and get this thing on track, and I'm not quite sure that's happening right now.

ZAHN: What do they have to do to get it on track? What aren't they doing that you think they should be?

PALUMBO: Well, quite frankly, I think I would like to hear from a federal authority concerning these letters and these correspondence and allow him to disseminate the information and decide what we should know and what we shouldn't know. I would hope that the decision not to divulge the threat against children was not the sole decision of Chief Moose. It should have been the fruition or byproduct of consulting with many people, including forensic psychologists, behavioral scientists, our FBI, our ATF, because that was a really dramatic step in not divulging that right away.

ZAHN: Yes, we don't know about those players you mentioned in the tail end of that second sentence, but Chief Moose has said that the local municipalities were made aware of this threat in advance of his announcement yesterday.

Let's move on to the issue of something the "New York Times" is writing about today, and that is, "the increasingly chaotic effort, hobbled by turf battles and a fear of leaks that has kept important information from street level investigators."

PALUMBO: Well, it sounds, it has a little bit of tone of 9/11, similar complaints and criticisms about a lack of exchange of information. But I would understand how a federal agency, for example, who was conducting a crime scene search or compiling forensics or, you know, ballistic information might not be so forthcoming to a local agency. One of the fears is leak. You know, the bottom line is the more people in this equation, the more likelihood you are to have a mistake made and subsequently a leak result.

As far as the comment that was made in the "Times" about the one FBI agent saying he doesn't have a clue what's going on, that was extremely irresponsible. Again, we don't need to alarm the public or shake their confidence in this investigation any more than is already intrinsically there just by the nature of this and the lack of resolution.

ZAHN: A real quick answer to this, what do you think the sniper wants? You know, we hear in the first letter there was a demand for $10 million. Now there's complaints that no one's taking his phone calls. What does he want?

PALUMBO: He wants acknowledgement, recognition and people to realize that he's in control and it's hard to profile. I'm not a profiler. I think we have an extremely deranged and depraved individual just based on the nature of these shootings, who he has shot and ranges of age and accompaniment. For example, he shot a man with his spouse. He shot a young lady with her husband. This guy's kind of, he's out there on the limb right now and I don't really know what his exercise is.

One of the things I think we should do is appeal to him to ask him what is it he's trying to tell us. I mean we see your acts, but what is it you want. Tell us what you want. And it's not just money. That's what...

ZAHN: Well, the money request came very late into this process, didn't it?

PALUMBO: Approximately after about 12 shootings, and I don't think this individual sat down and said gee, you know what, while I'm doing this I can probably make a little money on the side. I don't think that that was what transpired in this note in asking for $10 million. When we say $10 million, we have to figure out how we're going to transact that. I can tell you from personal experience, I handled $3 million that was packaged in hundred dollar denominations and I was embarrassed after I boasted I was going to handle it and realized how large it was and struggled to handle it.

ZAHN: Yes, what constituted that $3 million? Suitcases and suitcases and suitcases?

PALUMBO: It was a large bundle that was probably almost four feet high by four feet wide by four feet deep.

ZAHN: Wow.

PALUMBO: And I was completely taken off guard and I'm a fairly healthy individual. I don't know how we're going to transact $10 million to him. I don't know if we're going to electronically transfer these funds and this individual think that they're not going to be tracked or traced. I mean I don't understand what the significance is of requesting $10 million. And I think most people like myself at the time were not particularly literate as to what we're really talking about when we transfer $10 million to somebody.

ZAHN: Sure. And none of us really knows, obviously, how this, any of this is going to be handled down the road.

Lou Palumbo, thank you very much for joining us this morning with your perspective.

PALUMBO: My pleasure.

ZAHN: Appreciate your time.

PALUMBO: Thank you very much.

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





Work of D.C.-Area Sniper>