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American Morning

Sniper Investigation

Aired October 06, 2003 - 08:33   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.


BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: It has been nearly a year since a series of sniper attacks terrorized the D.C. area, taking 10 lives with it. The trial of one suspect in that case, John Muhammad, is scheduled to start next week. The second suspect, Lee Boyd Malvo, is to go on trial early next month.
Two journalists, Sari Horwitz and Michael Ruane, have followed the case from the start, and now have written a book about it, titled "Sniper."

Sari Horowitz and Michael Ruane, our guests from Washington to talk about this. Good morning to both of you. And thanks for spending your time here with us on AMERICAN MORNING.

SARI HORWITZ, CO-AUTHOR, "SNIPER": Good morning, Bill.

MICHAEL RUANE, CO-AUTHOR, "SNIPER": Good morning.

HEMMER: You were given exclusive access to this transcript, six hours in length that Lee Boyd Malvo shared with authorities. What did you learn in that transcript about the shootings of last year?

HORWITZ: It's really interesting and one of the largest manhunts, criminal investigations on U.S. soil. At the end of it, after the arrests, Lee Boyd Malvo spoke to a police officer and an FBI agent for six and a half hours. And in chilling detail, he talked about how the two of them drove through the Washington area and played a cat-and-mouse game with police. They watched television. They watched CNN. They came back to crime scenes afterwards, mingled with the police, talked to the police.

They saw this, according to Malvo, as a battle, a mission, and they were soldiers.

HEMMER: So, they actually claimed that they went back to the scene of the crime and talked to police?

HORWITZ: Yes, exactly, in several cases. They got caught up in the road blocks, but, of course, everyone was looking for the white van. And they went back to several scenes. He specifically talks about the Ashland scene at the Ponderosa, where they mingled with the police. The police actually asked them questions if they knew anything.

HEMMER: Wow? Michael, their tags were run numerous times. I think it was nine times, perhaps.

RUANE: Right.

HEMMER: You report that they were pulled over twice by police.

RUANE: Right.

HEMMER: Why did you find that there was such a focus on the white van as opposed to what turned out to be this blue Caprice?

RUANE: Well, Bill, you have to remember, at the end of the second day of shooting, they had six homicides, and barely a shred of evidence. The only thing that they had was the account of an immigrant landscaper who had seen a white box truck speed away from one of the killings.

In the absence of everything else, all other evidence, this became sort of an iceberg, if you will, on an empty sea. It was the only thing they had to work with. It became magnified and sort of out of control.

HEMMER: You also had access to a computer, some sort of electronics, a map. What did you discover on that end?

HORWITZ: Well, it's interesting. We found maps with skull and bones marks on them throughout the Washington area on some sites that there weren't shootings, at the Howard University campus, an affluent neighborhood in Chevy Chase, a mall in West Virginia.

We also had access to their electronic organizer in the car, in which they actually made interesting notations. And one of them was -- I can't say this on the air, and it's an expletive -- but basically that the people at CNN must die. They also had notes in their car with the names of schools on them throughout the area.

HEMMER: What was the -- let me stop you. What was the explanation for the "CNN must die" note?

HORWITZ: We don't know. I mean, they obviously made calls to people, CNN. They said they called. They noted that. They called the FBI hotline four times. They were very frustrated with a particular person that they named there. They called the Rockville Police. They called the Montgomery County police. They clearly were frustrated they weren't able to get through. The hotline was getting 20,000-30,000 calls a day. They couldn't get through.

HEMMER: Wow! Back to the tarot card. Michael, why don't you take this one, if you could, for us? There was a note on there about circulation. What did you discover that may have hampered this investigation, whether or not that note and those instructions were followed?

RUANE: Well, the card had a code on it, and the code -- they were attempting to sort of set up some negotiations by which they would use a code, and they would make contact with the police. The card contained the code. The code remained viable throughout the investigation. They continued to use the code. But the investigation was so centralized and the information about the card so closely-held that there were numerous occasions in which they contact the police, and the dispatchers who answer the phone don't know what to do. They don't know what the card says. There is one famous recording of a dispatcher trying to transfer a person we believed to be Malvo to someone else.

HEMMER: That's Michael Ruane and Sari Horwitz. The book is out right now. It's called "Sniper." Fascinating new details, exclusive access given to the two of them.

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 6, 2003 - 08:33   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: It has been nearly a year since a series of sniper attacks terrorized the D.C. area, taking 10 lives with it. The trial of one suspect in that case, John Muhammad, is scheduled to start next week. The second suspect, Lee Boyd Malvo, is to go on trial early next month.
Two journalists, Sari Horwitz and Michael Ruane, have followed the case from the start, and now have written a book about it, titled "Sniper."

Sari Horowitz and Michael Ruane, our guests from Washington to talk about this. Good morning to both of you. And thanks for spending your time here with us on AMERICAN MORNING.

SARI HORWITZ, CO-AUTHOR, "SNIPER": Good morning, Bill.

MICHAEL RUANE, CO-AUTHOR, "SNIPER": Good morning.

HEMMER: You were given exclusive access to this transcript, six hours in length that Lee Boyd Malvo shared with authorities. What did you learn in that transcript about the shootings of last year?

HORWITZ: It's really interesting and one of the largest manhunts, criminal investigations on U.S. soil. At the end of it, after the arrests, Lee Boyd Malvo spoke to a police officer and an FBI agent for six and a half hours. And in chilling detail, he talked about how the two of them drove through the Washington area and played a cat-and-mouse game with police. They watched television. They watched CNN. They came back to crime scenes afterwards, mingled with the police, talked to the police.

They saw this, according to Malvo, as a battle, a mission, and they were soldiers.

HEMMER: So, they actually claimed that they went back to the scene of the crime and talked to police?

HORWITZ: Yes, exactly, in several cases. They got caught up in the road blocks, but, of course, everyone was looking for the white van. And they went back to several scenes. He specifically talks about the Ashland scene at the Ponderosa, where they mingled with the police. The police actually asked them questions if they knew anything.

HEMMER: Wow? Michael, their tags were run numerous times. I think it was nine times, perhaps.

RUANE: Right.

HEMMER: You report that they were pulled over twice by police.

RUANE: Right.

HEMMER: Why did you find that there was such a focus on the white van as opposed to what turned out to be this blue Caprice?

RUANE: Well, Bill, you have to remember, at the end of the second day of shooting, they had six homicides, and barely a shred of evidence. The only thing that they had was the account of an immigrant landscaper who had seen a white box truck speed away from one of the killings.

In the absence of everything else, all other evidence, this became sort of an iceberg, if you will, on an empty sea. It was the only thing they had to work with. It became magnified and sort of out of control.

HEMMER: You also had access to a computer, some sort of electronics, a map. What did you discover on that end?

HORWITZ: Well, it's interesting. We found maps with skull and bones marks on them throughout the Washington area on some sites that there weren't shootings, at the Howard University campus, an affluent neighborhood in Chevy Chase, a mall in West Virginia.

We also had access to their electronic organizer in the car, in which they actually made interesting notations. And one of them was -- I can't say this on the air, and it's an expletive -- but basically that the people at CNN must die. They also had notes in their car with the names of schools on them throughout the area.

HEMMER: What was the -- let me stop you. What was the explanation for the "CNN must die" note?

HORWITZ: We don't know. I mean, they obviously made calls to people, CNN. They said they called. They noted that. They called the FBI hotline four times. They were very frustrated with a particular person that they named there. They called the Rockville Police. They called the Montgomery County police. They clearly were frustrated they weren't able to get through. The hotline was getting 20,000-30,000 calls a day. They couldn't get through.

HEMMER: Wow! Back to the tarot card. Michael, why don't you take this one, if you could, for us? There was a note on there about circulation. What did you discover that may have hampered this investigation, whether or not that note and those instructions were followed?

RUANE: Well, the card had a code on it, and the code -- they were attempting to sort of set up some negotiations by which they would use a code, and they would make contact with the police. The card contained the code. The code remained viable throughout the investigation. They continued to use the code. But the investigation was so centralized and the information about the card so closely-held that there were numerous occasions in which they contact the police, and the dispatchers who answer the phone don't know what to do. They don't know what the card says. There is one famous recording of a dispatcher trying to transfer a person we believed to be Malvo to someone else.

HEMMER: That's Michael Ruane and Sari Horwitz. The book is out right now. It's called "Sniper." Fascinating new details, exclusive access given to the two of them.

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