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CNN Saturday Morning News

Malvo and Muhammad Accused of Killing 12

Aired November 02, 2002 - 07:21   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.


MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Malvo and John Allen Muhammad are accused of shooting 16 people, killing 12 of them. Other reports in the media say as many as 18 shootings might be linked to them. They've been linked to shootings in Alabama, Louisiana, Maryland, Virginia, Washington state, Washington, D.C., there's another one this morning we're talking about from Silver Spring, Maryland.
And here to try to put the pieces together for us, as he always does, is our security analyst, Kelly McCann.

Kelly, good to see you, and good to see you this (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

KELLY MCCANN, CNN SECURITY ANALYST: Right here up close and personal, absolutely.

O'BRIEN: First of all, let's talk about this, try to put the numbers together for just a moment. Silver Spring, Maryland, this latest case, it's not in the time frame you might predict. Tell us a little bit about it.

MCCANN: Well, right now the difficulty is in trying to track them across the country. If you think about it, north, south, east, and west. I mean, it basically is, you know, throughout the map.

So jurisdictions across are looking at the chronology of events that they know, and then they're trying to link relationships of when there could have been relationships built previously as in Osbourne, up in New Jersey. When did he meet him, and how suddenly did he end up in New Jersey? Wet -- they didn't meet five minutes before they bought the vehicle.

So they're struggling with the puzzle.

O'BRIEN: All right. So the vehicle's purchased on September 11, or registered September 11, kind of an interesting coincidence there. September 14 is this latest shooting, not a fatal shooting...

MCCANN: Right.

O'BRIEN: ... and then these shootings which occurred in Louisiana happened afterwards. So there's a trip down to Louisiana, back to Washington.

What does this chronology of events and this itinerary tell investigators? MCCANN: Well, it goes to the personalities. Obviously transient personalities, underemployed or unemployed, the kind of disenfranchisement we saw, you know, leaving the Army, leaving the service and all that, so it goes to the personality.

Now, why they went and where they were meeting, were they meeting with other domestic organizations? That's the big question, and I think that's what police are trying to figure out.

O'BRIEN: All right. You've told me many times you're not a conspiracy theorist, you're not one of those grassy-knoll types. But nevertheless, when you start putting these pieces together, there's a fair amount of circumstantial evidence which might lead to believe this is headed in the direction of organized terrorism.

Nevertheless, the official motive remains money.

MCCANN: Yes.

O'BRIEN: Of course, the two aren't mutually exclusive, are they?

MCCANN: No, they're not. And I've said also that this is an amalgamation. I mean, we're seeing criminal elements, we're seeing insanity elements, we're seeing terroristic elements. And even though he may have self-stylized himself as being part of a domestic terrorist organization, he may not have been included.

So all of that will come out, you know, over time.

O'BRIEN: So mean -- I'm sorry, go ahead.

COLLINS: I'm sorry. Is it fair to say, then, that you think or just through looking at all the information that we have at this point that they had help in some regard, in getting the cars and getting some sort of financing, in getting -- who knows, all -- the gun? Who -- I mean, there's a lot of information out there that might suggest that.

MCCANN: The question is witting or unwitting. In other words, the people that helped them, were they wittingly helping a murderer, or were they wittingly helping a transient person who was, you know, with a specific sect or cult or whatever? That's the big question.

O'BRIEN: Well, so meanwhile, all these sort of cold cases, if you will, in all these jurisdictions all over the country, people are going -- the officers are going through those files. And the trick is, in many cases, to link ballistics. Why don't you give us a quick primer on how they do that.

MCCANN: Sure. If -- I brought a training round in with me to show you this, but basically all ammunition is -- consists of four pieces. There's a projectile, which, of course, leaves the case, and then there's the piece of brass right here, and then a primer, and then the propellant.

There are several different malleable metals included in this. Of course, the projectile is copper-covered lead. When this is pressed through the barrel at great pressure, when it's fired through landsen grooves (ph), it leaves striations in the actual bullet itself that, when recovered, usually the jacket will separate from the lead core.

If -- as they look at them microscopically, it leaves a fingerprint. That fingerprint is from the porosity of the metal and the tooling marks. And then on a piece of brass down here at the cannelore (ph), which is this ridge underneath the shell or the casing body, there's the ejector and extractor markings, on the base of this, the firing pin indent, all of which is particular to a weapon.

O'BRIEN: All right. It seems to me this world of powerful computers, linked databases, that it would be as simple as putting that sort of data into some sort of computer database, matching it up with a nationwide database, and you could make your match. It's not as simple as that, though, is it?

MCCANN: It's not. And, I mean, think of the data that exists out there. Even in fingerprints, I mean, if you think about the millions and millions and millions of fingerprints, just the time to run through all those points of recognition. Same thing with ballistic data. I mean, it's the same exact thing.

So a jurisdiction out in the Midwest has to send it to Montgomery County or wherever, they have to run it through the screening process. It's not easy.

O'BRIEN: All right. It -- there's a bit of Monday-morning quarterbacking here...

MCCANN: Always.

O'BRIEN: ... just as there always is, you know. We talked about it post-9/11, about how all the pieces were there, if only they could have put it together. Were all the pieces here, if only they could have put it together? Or is it unfair to say to the investigators, Why didn't you see this killing spree sooner?

MCCANN: There's two relevant points. One is, of course, in the totality of aftermath information, yes, it's easy. The second point is, there were always imminent circumstances. So the issues were clouded by this pending next murder, which again, people could have missed specific things they may not have missed in any other case.

O'BRIEN: Interesting. All right, Kelly McCann, thanks, as always. Good to see you.

MCCANN: Thank you, Miles, (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

COLLINS: Thank you.

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 November 2, 2002 - 07:21   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Malvo and John Allen Muhammad are accused of shooting 16 people, killing 12 of them. Other reports in the media say as many as 18 shootings might be linked to them. They've been linked to shootings in Alabama, Louisiana, Maryland, Virginia, Washington state, Washington, D.C., there's another one this morning we're talking about from Silver Spring, Maryland.
And here to try to put the pieces together for us, as he always does, is our security analyst, Kelly McCann.

Kelly, good to see you, and good to see you this (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

KELLY MCCANN, CNN SECURITY ANALYST: Right here up close and personal, absolutely.

O'BRIEN: First of all, let's talk about this, try to put the numbers together for just a moment. Silver Spring, Maryland, this latest case, it's not in the time frame you might predict. Tell us a little bit about it.

MCCANN: Well, right now the difficulty is in trying to track them across the country. If you think about it, north, south, east, and west. I mean, it basically is, you know, throughout the map.

So jurisdictions across are looking at the chronology of events that they know, and then they're trying to link relationships of when there could have been relationships built previously as in Osbourne, up in New Jersey. When did he meet him, and how suddenly did he end up in New Jersey? Wet -- they didn't meet five minutes before they bought the vehicle.

So they're struggling with the puzzle.

O'BRIEN: All right. So the vehicle's purchased on September 11, or registered September 11, kind of an interesting coincidence there. September 14 is this latest shooting, not a fatal shooting...

MCCANN: Right.

O'BRIEN: ... and then these shootings which occurred in Louisiana happened afterwards. So there's a trip down to Louisiana, back to Washington.

What does this chronology of events and this itinerary tell investigators? MCCANN: Well, it goes to the personalities. Obviously transient personalities, underemployed or unemployed, the kind of disenfranchisement we saw, you know, leaving the Army, leaving the service and all that, so it goes to the personality.

Now, why they went and where they were meeting, were they meeting with other domestic organizations? That's the big question, and I think that's what police are trying to figure out.

O'BRIEN: All right. You've told me many times you're not a conspiracy theorist, you're not one of those grassy-knoll types. But nevertheless, when you start putting these pieces together, there's a fair amount of circumstantial evidence which might lead to believe this is headed in the direction of organized terrorism.

Nevertheless, the official motive remains money.

MCCANN: Yes.

O'BRIEN: Of course, the two aren't mutually exclusive, are they?

MCCANN: No, they're not. And I've said also that this is an amalgamation. I mean, we're seeing criminal elements, we're seeing insanity elements, we're seeing terroristic elements. And even though he may have self-stylized himself as being part of a domestic terrorist organization, he may not have been included.

So all of that will come out, you know, over time.

O'BRIEN: So mean -- I'm sorry, go ahead.

COLLINS: I'm sorry. Is it fair to say, then, that you think or just through looking at all the information that we have at this point that they had help in some regard, in getting the cars and getting some sort of financing, in getting -- who knows, all -- the gun? Who -- I mean, there's a lot of information out there that might suggest that.

MCCANN: The question is witting or unwitting. In other words, the people that helped them, were they wittingly helping a murderer, or were they wittingly helping a transient person who was, you know, with a specific sect or cult or whatever? That's the big question.

O'BRIEN: Well, so meanwhile, all these sort of cold cases, if you will, in all these jurisdictions all over the country, people are going -- the officers are going through those files. And the trick is, in many cases, to link ballistics. Why don't you give us a quick primer on how they do that.

MCCANN: Sure. If -- I brought a training round in with me to show you this, but basically all ammunition is -- consists of four pieces. There's a projectile, which, of course, leaves the case, and then there's the piece of brass right here, and then a primer, and then the propellant.

There are several different malleable metals included in this. Of course, the projectile is copper-covered lead. When this is pressed through the barrel at great pressure, when it's fired through landsen grooves (ph), it leaves striations in the actual bullet itself that, when recovered, usually the jacket will separate from the lead core.

If -- as they look at them microscopically, it leaves a fingerprint. That fingerprint is from the porosity of the metal and the tooling marks. And then on a piece of brass down here at the cannelore (ph), which is this ridge underneath the shell or the casing body, there's the ejector and extractor markings, on the base of this, the firing pin indent, all of which is particular to a weapon.

O'BRIEN: All right. It seems to me this world of powerful computers, linked databases, that it would be as simple as putting that sort of data into some sort of computer database, matching it up with a nationwide database, and you could make your match. It's not as simple as that, though, is it?

MCCANN: It's not. And, I mean, think of the data that exists out there. Even in fingerprints, I mean, if you think about the millions and millions and millions of fingerprints, just the time to run through all those points of recognition. Same thing with ballistic data. I mean, it's the same exact thing.

So a jurisdiction out in the Midwest has to send it to Montgomery County or wherever, they have to run it through the screening process. It's not easy.

O'BRIEN: All right. It -- there's a bit of Monday-morning quarterbacking here...

MCCANN: Always.

O'BRIEN: ... just as there always is, you know. We talked about it post-9/11, about how all the pieces were there, if only they could have put it together. Were all the pieces here, if only they could have put it together? Or is it unfair to say to the investigators, Why didn't you see this killing spree sooner?

MCCANN: There's two relevant points. One is, of course, in the totality of aftermath information, yes, it's easy. The second point is, there were always imminent circumstances. So the issues were clouded by this pending next murder, which again, people could have missed specific things they may not have missed in any other case.

O'BRIEN: Interesting. All right, Kelly McCann, thanks, as always. Good to see you.

MCCANN: Thank you, Miles, (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

COLLINS: Thank you.

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