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Letter says police errors meant five 'had to die'

Letter claims that the gunman's repeated attempts to contact the authorities have been frustrated by 'incompetence'

Andrew Buncombe
Thursday 24 October 2002 00:00 BST
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An astonishing series of blunders and bad luck have hampered police in their efforts to communicate with the serial sniper and may even have led to five people being killed, it was revealed yesterday. On one occasion a trainee FBI agent "blew off" the gunman when he telephoned the special sniper hotline.

In a letter to police apparently from the sniper, the gunman complained he had tried and failed on six occasions to speak to an officer – naming the telephone operators who had "ignored" his calls. "Five people had to die because of it," he wrote.

The three-page letter was found in a plastic bag tacked to a tree close to the scene of last Saturday night's shooting near Richmond, Virginia. Law enforcement sources who claim to have seen the letter said the English used was imperfect, suggesting perhaps that it was not his first language.

It was also revealed yesterday that the gunman had left another, similar letter at the scene of the most recent shooting in Aspen Hill, Maryland, where a 35-year-old bus driver, Conrad Johnson, was shot dead early on Tuesday.

Reports said the handwriting on the two letters, along with that on a tarot card found at the scene of another earlier shooting, did not match.

Montgomery Police Chief Charles Moose revealed late on Tuesday evening that the first letter contained the warning: "Your children are not safe anywhere at anytime." It also emerged the gunman had asked for $10m (£6.5m), adding "pay me or more will die".

Saturday's letter had mentioned last Monday as the deadline for payment – apparently explaining Chief Moose's message to the gunman, which appeared to refer to setting up an electronic money transfer.

But the handwritten letter also revealed the gunman's frustration at failing to get through to officers. It listed six times he had called and operators had hung up on him. He called this "incompetent". One telephone call that was not hung up was put through to a trainee FBI agent who was apparently not aware of its significance and cut the conversation short. A law enforcement source told The Washington Post: "She pretty much blew him off."

One official said the caller was using phrases such as "just shut up and listen", "jear me out" and "I am God" – the latter words that appeared on a tarot card found at the scene of one of the shootings.

The letter discovered on Saturday – to which police were led by a call to their tipline – was not opened immediately because experts were carrying out tests on it. When they did open it, they found it contained a telephone number on which the gunman would call them on Sunday.

But police discovered there was a problem with that phone number. By the time it had been sorted out, the time for the call had passed.

This led to Mr Moose's first publicly-delivered message to the gunman, which said: "We do want to talk to you. Call us at the number you provided."

The following morning the gunman called again, this time from a public phone at a fuel station. A SWAT team was dispatched and watched as two men in a white van approached the phone and made a call. Police swooped but later it emerged that the two were undocumented workers who now face deportation.

Worse still, the message delivered by the gunman that morning could not be entirely understood. Officers believe it was recorded on a tape player and played down the phone.

On Monday evening, Mr Moose delivered another public message: "The audio was unclear and we want to get it right. Call us back so we can clearly understand."

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