January 9, 2020 • 37 mins
On October 7th, our worst fear is realized. And the sniper leaves a message.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Monster DC Sniper, a production of I Heart
Radio and Tenderfoot TV. The views and opinions expressed in
this podcast are solely those of the podcast author or
individuals participating in the podcast, and do not represent those
of I Heart Media, Tenderfoot TV, or their employees. Listener
discretion is advised. Monday, October seven, two two. It's now
(00:27):
day six of the Sniper investigation. After two whole days
with no shootings, the area seemed calm, but that feeling
didn't last long. It happened very early in the morning,
well before the buses or any classes began. This is
Karen Pumphrey, a former teacher at Tasker Middle School. I
was on the landing and I heard someone kick the
(00:49):
front door with such ferocity. I thought somebody was out
there playing early unsupervised. And I heard all this yelling,
so I was not real happy about it. And I
expected to see some kids out front, and I didn't.
It was only one boy, iron and he was about
twenty ft down near the drive. He was alone, nobody
(01:12):
else and he was yelling and he was holding his stomach.
So I walked over and I asked him what's the matter,
and he said I've been shot. I knew it was
in pain. It was clear, but um, I really didn't
think it was shot. So I was like, we're gonna
get you some help. I went in. I said, Iron
is hurt. He says he's been shot. So they call
(01:33):
nine one one, Hello, Hello, this is banking. The Captain
Middle School. We had a town that but that said,
he and the principal got up and when we came out,
he wasn't out front anymore. Only his backpack was there,
and this silver car was pulling away from the curb.
We didn't know what was wrong with him, and we
didn't know who was in the car. So one of
(01:56):
the counselors came running up, jumped in his car and followed.
There is a ruthless person on the loose. What un
nerves this community the most is the randomness of the murders,
ordinary people doing ordinary things. They killed the five people
in one day and then went on the rampage for
(02:17):
the next month. It is quite a mystery. The police
say they have never had a crime quite like this.
Be careful, these guys are using weapons that are gonna
go right straight through our bulletproof vest. From my Heart
Radio and Tenderfoot TV. This is Monster DC Sniper. Thirteen
(02:43):
year old Iron Brown arrived at Tasker Middle School at
about seven thirty am on October seven. It seemed to
be a completely normal Monday morning, except, of course, a
sniper was on the loose in the DC area, and
on this morning, Iron Brown became the sniper his eighth victim.
But before school officials could get help to him, Iron
(03:04):
Brown disappeared. John Lloyd was the principal at Tasker Middle School.
He explained what was happening to dispatcher, Alright, how are
you the principles to school? Did somebody to drive off
with him here? I don't know where, I had no idea.
It turns out, you know, his aunt had dropped him
(03:25):
off and then went to pull away. It must have
occurred immediately because she hadn't gotten out of the parking
lot yet. And then it turns out she did hear
the shot, so she came back. But we didn't know that.
We didn't know who was taking him Christopers County. I
think I'm gonna be able to drive my nancy who
(03:46):
to the hospital. What's the matter with him? He just
got shut If he's gonna die, Iron Brown's aunt, Tanya Brown,
actually called one as she rushed him to the hospital
are Tanya was trapped in the morning rushia hour traffic
(04:08):
and iron was bleeding out in her cart. I gotta go,
let me go, Brown Brown, I need to but I'm
almoup there. I'm getting to turn in right now. He
didn't see he shot, and he doesn't know. I didn't
see anybody, and he didn't see anybody, know. Okay, go
(04:31):
ahead and go into the arm. We're gonna sit all throughout, Okay, okay,
all right. You know, we knew within ten minutes, fifteen
minutes that he was shot, that his injuries were extensive,
and that he was going to be meta back to Children's.
And then at that point, you know, the buses were
starting to show up, the onslaught of media and police
(04:55):
presence was just crazy or helicopters in the air from
every Newton's agency. The FBI was on site. And then
of course immediately, like within minutes, parents start calling, I'm
coming to get my kids. We had at the time
maybe ud kids, and by the end of the day
(05:16):
we had twenty three left. I really understand that parents
are concerned, but I think under the circumstances. The safest
place for the children right now is inside of that
building with adults. So we're not gonna dismiss school. We're
gonna keep school in session, and we are going to
(05:37):
secure students within buildings. I'm almost positives. They said, do
not come to the school. But I didn't make it
to the school. So the hundreds of other parents, it's
very difficult to the parents. I had to come to
the school, and your job could have been in danger.
My name is Gerald Kamer. I lived in brandy Wantro.
(05:59):
I woke up that more on it. I spoke to
my wife and my kids, and from my understanding, she
was going to take him to school. My son was
attending Taska Middle School. Of course she did, you know,
normal kids. Goodbye, I have a good day be a.
As I was leaving home and saw a bunch of
(06:20):
police cars and anilants and fire trucks over by the school,
and I thought about stopping over there, but then I said,
I'm let me get out of here, as too much traffic.
It's like getting about fifty And I hear on the
radio that breaking news boy had been shot at Benjamin
Tasker Middle School. So from that point. I'm rooting fast
down Route fifty to the school and calling my wife
(06:43):
to find out what's going on, and she's taking the school.
Is he okay? She's not answering the phone. I went
to the school. It was chaotic. There were children everywhere
that the parents everywhere, police, five personnel, animulants, e M teams.
Unbelievable thing. And I'm walking through the parking lot. There
was a lot of kind of greeting their children in
(07:05):
tears of joy that it wasn't their child that was shot.
And I'm scanning the scanning. I finally located my son,
who broke down in tears and it was a big
relief to know that he was okay. At the same time,
it was said my son actually took the class of
two was the young man who was shot? Thirly emotional day.
(07:27):
I mean, just to know that my son could have
been a target. It's a scary few imagine learning that
someone had been shot at your child school. As a parent,
there's no bigger fear than finding out it was your
child who was injured. But while adults were coming to
pick up their children, Iron Brown was rushed into surgery.
(07:55):
The youngshire came into the hospital and he had already
bled a significant amount, was already getting transfusions, so he
was not in good shape. My name is Martin Eichelberger.
I am a pediatric surgeon at Children's National Medical Center.
During the day, early morning, I happened to be called
(08:16):
by our communications center said, look, you better look at
the TV here because of the fact that there was
some youngster that has just been shot. That was enough
to know that we were going to have to operate
on this ulcture within what's called the golden hour. Your
chances of survival from any kind of injury is much
greater if you can get surtical care within the first hour,
(08:38):
so we started to get our team ready. What we
did learn was that he had been taken to one
of the urgent care centers that was close to this
middle school. They did a terrific job over there of
resuscitating this yuksure by making sure he had an i V.
They put a tube in his chest because he had
been shot in his left chest. Took probably a half
(08:59):
hour from the time he was shot to the time
he got to us. During the operation, there are a
lot of different steps that were involved. He had a
gunshot wound just underneath his zyphoid, and it went through
the rib and ended up if you can think of
a trajectory up towards his scapula, the tip of his scapulate,
(09:20):
which is a little bit on the lower side. And
he had an injury that basically hit several organs in
the abdomen and also his diaphragm and his lung. And
it took a while to make sure that all of
these organs were properly dealt with as we were going along,
and it was it was an hour and a half
(09:42):
to our operation. He got stabilized, he stopped leading. We
were able to treat his lung without having to take
any of the lung out. A couple of the of
the organs so similarly were partially had to be removed,
but in general he tolerated very very well. He's lucky
because the bullet, you know, if the angle had been
(10:04):
just a little bit more towards the middle, it would
have hit his heart. You know, there's nothing really we
probably would have been able to do. So even though
we have a great team, not all patients survived, and
so we were happy just to have him stable. And
during that time there was an effort by the enforcement
(10:25):
community to try to retrieve the bullet. Dr Eichelberger's colleague,
Kurt Newman was in charge of communicating with the police,
and so Dr Newman came to me and said, this
is what they want to try to get the bullet.
Would it be easy to do? And I looked the
X ray and putting my finger down where I thought
(10:46):
the bullet was, and yes, I could palpate it with
my finger. I was able to pull out this bullet.
I gave it specifically to Dr Newman, who gave it
to a specific person to make sure that that chain
of evidence was kept intact. When we were contacted about
(11:12):
what had happened, and of course we all sat shocked.
We just couldn't believe, and we kept asking are you sure?
Are you sure? My name is Dr Wayne R. Curtis,
cousin to the Brown family. We're obviously very scared and
anxious about what was going to happen with him having
(11:34):
gotten shot like that at such a young age, and
that he would come out of it okay. But it's
time told he's doing okay. But that time we were
just all just concerned for his life. We went to
the hospital with my sons to visit with him. At
that point in time, there was a request to meet
(11:56):
with the press. National media wanted Iron Brown's parents to
provide a statement, but Curtis as the parents were still
processing their shock. So as we came out the back
of the hospital to approach the press corps, you can
imagine if you're not in front of something like that
before and you've got I mean, god, it must have
been fifty people with cameras and asking questions and it
(12:20):
can be unnerving. As we were walking out the hallway,
I don't think we got more than five steps onto
the sidewalk after the building, and it just said, look,
we can't do this. You should do this, and I said, okay,
I'll do it. He continues to remain in critical but
stable condition. He's a fighter. We remain optimistic, as our
(12:40):
doctors have told us, this is a marathon, not a spread,
but we are confident that we will make it to
the finish line. Do you think about the magnitude of
a child, any person getting shut but you know, the
children get shot and sort of magnifies it even more.
We had a psychological issues from from a current the
(13:04):
family as much as possible. They try to normalize his
life and their lives of a very, very unfortunate tragedy.
Iron Brown was alive and safe, but back at Tasker
Middle School, authorities were still trying to make sense of
(13:25):
the attack. What kind of person would shoot a thirteen
year old? Soon police will get a major clue a
communication from the snipers. The shooting at task Or Middle
(13:49):
School sent the region into a frenzy. It was now
clear that the sniper attacks were not over, and now
the discussions about who was behind the attacks cant and
you once again, the question came up, is this foreign terrorism?
Many in the d C area certainly thought so. On
(14:09):
the day Iron Brown was shot, w A m U
s Cojoe Namdi show fielded live calls about the shooting.
I'm concerned about my kids safety because I think this
shooter or shooters is trying to make a statement that
I can shoot Americans any time, any place, anywhere I
want to, and they're doing it around the nation's capital
(14:30):
to make a statement. Was calling an agreement with your
past caller mentioning some ties between the shootings and terrorism,
And I just see this as being completely related to
the timing of what's going on today in our country,
and the media had helped fuel that fear. All over
(14:50):
cable news TV stations were speculating that this was quite
possibly an act of terror. He is orchestrating this whole
event really to spread fear, to spread terror, because he
wants to be in charge, and he is executing people
just to show his power. It became pretty clear to
(15:13):
people that these random shootings across d C and around
d C were linked. This is journalist and historian Garrett graft.
He says it made sense that people thought foreign terrorists
were responsible for the sniper attacks. There was a very
quick realization that this could be the next stage of
(15:36):
a terror campaign. You had people begin to call in
suspicious activity reports all over the city. This was, in
some ways, maybe exactly the second wave that we had
been led to fear was coming ever since the nine
eleven attacks. In some ways, the idea that these sniper
(15:57):
killings would be somehow linked to Al Qaeda seemed a
very logical theory at the time. The idea that here
you had a terrorist really aiming to undermine Americans just
going about their daily lives, you know, making it impossible
(16:18):
to do the things that hundreds of millions of Americans
literally had to do every day. Go buy groceries, fill
up your car with gas, drive to work. The attacks
on these commuters, these workers, these families around d C,
in some ways seemed a very logical next stage of
(16:41):
Al Qaeda targeting the homeland and really threatened to make
ordinary daily life in America insecure. While the country was
debating who was behind these attacks, investigators were working to
find a sniper. Follow the shooting of Iron Brown, police
(17:02):
shut down the area surrounding Tasker Middle School. They began
searching looking for any clues. Benjamin Tasker Middle School, where
Iron Brown was shot, is around twenty miles east of Washington,
d C. And about seventy five miles northeast of where
the last shooting occurred in Spotsylvania, Virginia. Was there something
(17:26):
special about this school that drew the snipers this far out?
I went to see for myself, and as we pulled up,
I noticed the school was right next to a highway
Route fifty and it was surrounded by thick wooded areas.
Maybe this was the ideal spot to hide with a
quick getaway nearby, it was in these woods that authorities
(17:48):
searched for evidence after the shooting. I asked one of
the investigators to meet me here and walked me through
what happened on the morning of October seven. My name
is Mike Pile with the United States Martial Service. I
over see our canine operations program, and back in the
two thousand two, my partner was exposed to detection canine
Beacon and he was trained for explosives and weapons detection.
(18:10):
I'm curious as to the jurisdictional lines here. Right, a
number of agencies are here. Tell me why the US
Marshal Services called in so it's about resources. We're not
coming in here to obviously lead the investigation. This is
PG County, so obviously PG County Police Department, this is
their scene. But there's not a lot of dogs. Back then,
(18:33):
they were trained specifically to find guns and shellcasings. They
had bomb dogs, but some of the bomb dogs are
not trained to that level of evidence recovery. At F
trained dogs literally are sniffing explosives, probably multiple times a day.
Because we have to feed them to train dogs like
Beacon and maintain their sensitivity to certain odors. The dogs
(18:55):
are only fed when they detect the odors correctly, it's
classical conditioning. When the dogs come in order, beacon would
start salivating because it's Pablos theory, you know, the bell
rings he anticipated in the food coming in, so they
automatically salivate. So those are the changes that we look for.
So if the dog says, hey, I give you the
indication that the contract is you have to pay me,
(19:15):
that the payment is the food. So Michael, take me
back to the day. How does that day start for you?
On October seventh, two dozen two. By the time I
got here, it was a pretty chaotic scene. They had
the streets blocked off, a lot of law enforcement, a
lot of onlookers, a lot of media. The one thing
that really struck to me was actually where we're standing
(19:37):
right now was Iron Brown's backpack. You could see definitely
a see a little bit of a pool of blood
that was still left there. Someone said that they saw
somebody or heard a gunshot on the front of the
school up in that hill, so that would be across
the street from the cross street. And of course that
white box truck. They said that they saw a white
box truck that up in the hill to hear kind
(19:59):
of didn't makes sense to us. You would have to
literally bend the bullet if that was how the shot
was taking. Well, if you were to do the shooting,
where would you put yourself? The obvious place was probably
right in the woods. So from the front of the building,
the right side, if you walk out of the school
on the right side, there's a little bit of a
wooded area and then it goes to a park. So
(20:20):
I selected my search area and actually started to search.
We started in searching. We get to about midway in
maybe seven to ten feet out to the woodline, and
there was a tree and there was a huge branch
that was falling down. He stopped and he searched the
(20:41):
branch that was underground. And honestly, I actually wasn't paying
attention to at that point because I was actually watching
my step. So I had turned my head to look
at where I'm gonna put my foot. Next I heard
the PG County officer said, hey, look at your dog,
So I turned around. He started to racket bracket, meaning
(21:02):
he's in order, but he wants to get to where
the most of the order is coming from left to right,
left to right, left to right, boom, he sniffs and
he sits and a big druel comes out. So once
that occur, we stopped PG County officer, the PJ County officer,
the SWAT officer, where the alicers went out, got some
of the evidence technicians to come in and they all
(21:22):
start to actually literally searched this area. And then I
was told that the showcasing was located. If you step
back five ten ft, unless you really look, you're not
gonna see somebody hiding it there. So if you kind
of actually look, it's a perfect line of sight. So
I fully believe that he may have laid that rifle
(21:42):
right on that piece of word, took the shot. The
showcasing comes out, and it's that area where they located
the showcasing, and with that they work their way backwards
and that's where they find the tarot card, a tarot card,
(22:04):
one from a special deck of cards that some say
can predict the future. And the shooters didn't just leave
any card. They left the death card on It was
a skeletal night, riding a white horse and holding a
black flag. This image is said to show that no
one escapes death, whether rich or poor, young or old,
(22:27):
The card seemed to perfectly capture the snipers m oh, no,
one is safe. Everyone is vulnerable. But the more disturbing
aspect was what was written on the card. For you,
Mr Police, call me God. Do not release to the press.
Now they've got a God complex. This is retired Maryland
(22:49):
State Police Lieutenant David Reichenbach. So at least we're starting
to get a picture of what we're dealing with here
that card. At that time, I'd didn't even know about it,
and I was the commander in charge of the criminal
intelligence part of it. That was kept very very close
to the vest, and for good reason, we didn't want
that to get out there, but unfortunately it did. You know,
(23:14):
the following day, which was Tuesday, eight, w USA Channel
nine breaks the story about the tarot card, and for us,
that was a punch in the gut. More about that
calling card. It was left at the scene of the
most recent shooting. That's the school in Prince George's County.
It was a card from a fortune telling deck that's
known as the death card, with a note written on it,
(23:37):
Dear policeman, I am God. It's the latest chilling development
in this chilling case and massive investigation that wasn't supposed
to be released, that didn't need to be released at
that point, and there it is all over network news,
which meant we had an internal leak that actually plagued
(23:57):
this investigation throughout the entire twenty three days. Quite honestly,
evidence was getting leaked that you want to hold close
to the vest. And there's a couple of reasons behind that.
You never release everything that you know about a homicide
for the simple reason that whoever the bad guy is
should be the only other person other than the police
(24:19):
that really knows what happened. By this point, police were
receiving hundreds of calls every day on their tip line.
Now that the Tarot card information was public, the number
of calls only increased, and at times the phones were
so busy that callers couldn't get through. It became too
much for police to handle, and they had trouble figuring
(24:39):
out which tips were good and which ones weren't. With
everything being put out there in the media, now we've
got what I always called our confessors calling confessing that
they're the shooters. I'm the right a I wanted to
(25:03):
use all the time with stuff. There's all sorts of
psychological reasons why people do that, but it happens all
the time, and the more media attention a case has,
the more of these kind of folks that you have
come out of the woodwork for whatever reason. And fortunately
most of the time you can quickly dispel them and
(25:26):
eliminate them very quickly because they don't have enough information.
They can't even describe the crime scene, so you know
they didn't do it. However, with all the information being
out there and now the Tarot card, these people are
calling with enough information that you just can't ignore them.
So now these folks had to go on the suspect list,
(25:46):
so I was creating quite a few red herrings for US.
Police weren't happy about the Tarot card getting leaked to
(26:07):
the public, but the media felt it was necessary to
publish that information. Dave Stanner was a reporter for Channel nine.
His station broke the story about the Tarot card. The
Tarot card was first internally at our station, reported by
a reporter Channel I named Stacy Cohen. She found out
about this Tarot card in this message from the apparent
(26:27):
snipers to police, and it was soon confirmed by Mike Buchanan.
He was one heck of a reporter and if Mike
and Stacey you're telling me they have this information, I
know it's true. And we didn't immediately go with the story.
They worked with police. They let them know what we
have and say give us a good reason why we
shouldn't go with us, because reporters don't want to screw
up an investigation. We want to get our information out there,
(26:49):
but we don't want to make it harder to catch
people who are involved in crimes. Our news director at
the time was involved in it, and they all dealt
with police, and not one person in Prince George's County
Police or in Montgomery County Police said please don't air
this information, and I believe they aired it a short
time later when it aired, and the Washington Post also
(27:13):
did the same story. This set off the Chief of
Police of Montgomery County, Charles Moose, who pretty much attacked
both news organizations for reporting that story. I have not
received any message that the citizens of Montgomery County won't
Channel nine or the Washington Post or any other media
outlet to solve this case. If they do, didn't let
(27:34):
me know, we will go and do other police work.
And we were turn this case over to the media.
But today the people in my community have asked the
police department to work the case. So I beg of
the media let us do our job, because I am
convinced that we're broaching interference. If my team feels it's
important to put things out there, that's sad, And if
(27:57):
the media feels that it is their job to put
things out there are so today can be promoted, then
that is also sad. Chief Moose had singled out Channel
nine and The Washington Post, the two media outlets who
first broke the tarot card story. Washington Post reporter Josh
White took issue with Chief Moose's comments that tarot card
(28:20):
was a really important piece of both the investigation and
the public's understanding of what was happening. While certainly they're
always going to be things that law enforcement doesn't want out,
and they're going to be things that they want to
keep from the public in order to help them solve crimes, Frankly,
our job is to find out what those things are
and responsibly report what we believe will help further the
(28:42):
public's understanding of the situation. In the grand scheme of things,
there are plenty of things in every investigation that I'm
sure the police wish weren't out there, but by the
same token, for us to report it, we have to
know about it, and for us to know about it,
that means someone deeply alved in the investigation feels that
it's information that should be out there, or we wouldn't
(29:05):
know about it. There were aspects throughout the investigation that
you know, someone said this is going to cause harm.
That's something we take seriously and certainly way as we
make decisions. In that particular case with the Tarot card,
trying to understand at all what this was about was
of the most important aspect of what we could do
(29:25):
as as journalists. It's a tricky situation for police. It's
imperative to maintain control over sensitive information. As a journalist,
you have to inform the public about what's going on,
but you also don't want to report anything that might
interfere with the investigation, So reporters have to make a
(29:45):
tough decision. At the end of the day, the media
and law enforcement simply might not agree on what should
be published. But in this case, White thinks it was
important to release the tarot card info for Ano. Their
reason to him. It indicated that the attack was not
the work of foreign terrorists, and that was something the
(30:06):
public needed to understand. It immediately changed how people looked
at this. It was no longer maybe al Qaeda or ISIS.
It was certainly a version of terrorism. People were terrified,
but it changed the nature of I think how everybody
looked at it. What about law enforcement? Did they still
(30:27):
see this as possibly connected to foreign terrorism? Well, I
think everyone had to consider that potential. I think you
had to say, is this the next shooter drop? Because
now we've closed off the airlines, we've hardened the doors
between the passengers and the pilot and co pilot. Are
they going to come at us in a different way now?
(30:51):
My name is Clint Van Sant. I'm a farmer, FBI agent,
criminal profiler, and hostage negotiator. I mean this was terror.
I don't think there's any doubt that these shooters were
waging terror on the American public. The question is what
was the reason for that terror. You couldn't say, no,
(31:15):
this is not some organized event. But I saw and
heard of no evidence of any type of international connection.
The TERRT card, the call me god, I am God.
I couldn't see a radical Islamic fundamentalist who might be
(31:36):
doing this for his own religious purposes calling himself God.
I mean that that didn't make any sense. I mean
you would have said, I am acting on God's part,
I am the hand of God, I am the fist
of God. Perhaps, but I am God. Now, No, it
just did not ring true. The verbage that was used
(31:56):
in there was nothing that would lend itself off to
international terrorism. Are nothing that would lend itself to someone
trying to disguise themselves as a domestic terrorist when they
were in fact international. Internationals normally would take credit. They
want to take credit, They want to stand up and
beat their chest and say, look what we can do.
(32:19):
That wasn't taking place. So in the absence of that,
I think in my particular case, it seemed like more
a domestic situation for a defined purpose. There were a
few other possibilities. When investigators met to discuss the tarot card,
(32:40):
someone mentioned the death cards left by soldiers in the
movie Apocalypse. Now to th Autodiamonds, what that let's telling
No did this? Someone else remembered that God was the
nickname of the chief sniper in the v Seals. God
(33:02):
God God, here, God, we have a single shooter Southeast Tower. Yeah.
Him was the sniper a military man, or at least
a fan of military movies. Others thought the Tarot card
indicated the work of a serial killer with an interest
in the occult. Whether these were terrorists, serial killers, or
(33:27):
something else, it made no difference. Paranoia was at an
all time high. Children were being shot in broad daylight,
and the airtime devoted to the case was NonStop on
nearly every major TV network. The entire country was watching.
The fact that a child was shot was a pivotal moment.
(33:48):
It showed a willingness on the part of the attackers
to go after anybody. This is Washington Post reporter Josh White.
And it was at that moment that people really changed
their lines about how scared to be, about how cautious
to be. The schools really started responding. Any adult who
(34:08):
lived in this region had to wonder, how do I
keep my kids safe, even at school? And it was
knowledge that they were willing to invade even are what
are considered to be some of our safest spaces. Even
President George W. Bush weighed in about the shooting of
Igram Brown a few days later, the President number one
has wanted to make certain that all the resources of
(34:29):
the federal government have been made available through the a
t F, through the FBI, and through other agencies at
the federal government as well to help the local law
enforcement community. And that's been done. The President urges people
to take all reasonable and prudent cautions that the law
enforcement community in the case that should be taken. First
of all, I'm just sick to my stomach to think
that there is a cold blooded killer at home taking
(34:52):
innocent life. I weep for those who have lost their
loved ones. The idea of moms taking their kids to
school and sheltering them from a potent so sniper attack
is not the American I know sniper attacks well. It
is a form of terrorism, but in terms of the
terrorism that we think of, we have no evidence one
way or the other, obviously, But anytime anybody is randomly shooting,
(35:13):
randomly killing, randomly, taking life, it's a cold blood and murderer.
You know, it's a sick mind. For investigators, the man
hunt was about to get personal. A tragic turn of
events would flip the investigation on its head, and the
sniper's got was an FBI agent. Next time on Monster
(35:39):
d C Sniper, I was absolutely sure that we were
going to get a shooting. I got a call from
a source saying you need to get out to Manassas
there's been another one. And the next thing, I see
our police officers running with their guns drawn to an
apartment complex across the street where there's a white vehicle
that looks sort of like a box truck. People process
(36:02):
a lot less information than we think. They get the
sense that they're seeing everything when in fact they're seeing
very little. So we had a pretty good game plan,
but the problem was we weren't being provided good intelligence
and suspect information from Lookout That hurt us. So now
the real focus is what do I do when I'm
(36:23):
pumping guests. I have to get guest line from my car.
There are gas stations that are starting to put up
barricades or harps to block you. It showed that if
somebody wants to go after someone who they have no
connection to randomly in a metropolitan area, there's millions of people,
what's stopping them. Monster DC Sniper is a fifteen episode
(36:48):
podcast hosted by Tony Harris and produced by iHeart Radio
and Tenderfoot TV. Matt Frederick and Alex Williams are executive
producers on behalf of iHeart Radio, alongside producers Trevor Young,
Ben Kiebrick, and Josh Than Payne. Lindsay and Donald Albright
are executive producers on behalf of Tenderfoot TV alongside producers
(37:08):
Meredith Steadman and Christina Dana. Original music is by Makeup
and Vanity Set Special Thanks to w A m U
American University Radio for usage of clips originally broadcast on
October seven, two thousand two, on The Cojo Namdi Show.
If you haven't already, be sure to check out the
first two seasons at Lanta Monster and Monster the Zodiac Killer.
(37:31):
If you have questions or comments, email us at Monster
at I heart media dot com, or you can call
us at one eight three three to eight five six
six six seven. Thanks for listening.
Welcome to Monster DC Sniper, a production of I Heart
Radio and Tenderfoot TV. The views and opinions expressed in
this podcast are solely those of the podcast author or
individuals participating in the podcast, and do not represent those
of I Heart Media, Tenderfoot TV, or their employees. Listener
discretion is advised. Monday, October seven, two two. It's now
(00:27):
day six of the Sniper investigation. After two whole days
with no shootings, the area seemed calm, but that feeling
didn't last long. It happened very early in the morning,
well before the buses or any classes began. This is
Karen Pumphrey, a former teacher at Tasker Middle School. I
was on the landing and I heard someone kick the
(00:49):
front door with such ferocity. I thought somebody was out
there playing early unsupervised. And I heard all this yelling,
so I was not real happy about it. And I
expected to see some kids out front, and I didn't.
It was only one boy, iron and he was about
twenty ft down near the drive. He was alone, nobody
(01:12):
else and he was yelling and he was holding his stomach.
So I walked over and I asked him what's the matter,
and he said I've been shot. I knew it was
in pain. It was clear, but um, I really didn't
think it was shot. So I was like, we're gonna
get you some help. I went in. I said, Iron
is hurt. He says he's been shot. So they call
(01:33):
nine one one, Hello, Hello, this is banking. The Captain
Middle School. We had a town that but that said,
he and the principal got up and when we came out,
he wasn't out front anymore. Only his backpack was there,
and this silver car was pulling away from the curb.
We didn't know what was wrong with him, and we
didn't know who was in the car. So one of
(01:56):
the counselors came running up, jumped in his car and followed.
There is a ruthless person on the loose. What un
nerves this community the most is the randomness of the murders,
ordinary people doing ordinary things. They killed the five people
in one day and then went on the rampage for
(02:17):
the next month. It is quite a mystery. The police
say they have never had a crime quite like this.
Be careful, these guys are using weapons that are gonna
go right straight through our bulletproof vest. From my Heart
Radio and Tenderfoot TV. This is Monster DC Sniper. Thirteen
(02:43):
year old Iron Brown arrived at Tasker Middle School at
about seven thirty am on October seven. It seemed to
be a completely normal Monday morning, except, of course, a
sniper was on the loose in the DC area, and
on this morning, Iron Brown became the sniper his eighth victim.
But before school officials could get help to him, Iron
(03:04):
Brown disappeared. John Lloyd was the principal at Tasker Middle School.
He explained what was happening to dispatcher, Alright, how are
you the principles to school? Did somebody to drive off
with him here? I don't know where, I had no idea.
It turns out, you know, his aunt had dropped him
(03:25):
off and then went to pull away. It must have
occurred immediately because she hadn't gotten out of the parking
lot yet. And then it turns out she did hear
the shot, so she came back. But we didn't know that.
We didn't know who was taking him Christopers County. I
think I'm gonna be able to drive my nancy who
(03:46):
to the hospital. What's the matter with him? He just
got shut If he's gonna die, Iron Brown's aunt, Tanya Brown,
actually called one as she rushed him to the hospital
are Tanya was trapped in the morning rushia hour traffic
(04:08):
and iron was bleeding out in her cart. I gotta go,
let me go, Brown Brown, I need to but I'm
almoup there. I'm getting to turn in right now. He
didn't see he shot, and he doesn't know. I didn't
see anybody, and he didn't see anybody, know. Okay, go
(04:31):
ahead and go into the arm. We're gonna sit all throughout, Okay, okay,
all right. You know, we knew within ten minutes, fifteen
minutes that he was shot, that his injuries were extensive,
and that he was going to be meta back to Children's.
And then at that point, you know, the buses were
starting to show up, the onslaught of media and police
(04:55):
presence was just crazy or helicopters in the air from
every Newton's agency. The FBI was on site. And then
of course immediately, like within minutes, parents start calling, I'm
coming to get my kids. We had at the time
maybe ud kids, and by the end of the day
(05:16):
we had twenty three left. I really understand that parents
are concerned, but I think under the circumstances. The safest
place for the children right now is inside of that
building with adults. So we're not gonna dismiss school. We're
gonna keep school in session, and we are going to
(05:37):
secure students within buildings. I'm almost positives. They said, do
not come to the school. But I didn't make it
to the school. So the hundreds of other parents, it's
very difficult to the parents. I had to come to
the school, and your job could have been in danger.
My name is Gerald Kamer. I lived in brandy Wantro.
(05:59):
I woke up that more on it. I spoke to
my wife and my kids, and from my understanding, she
was going to take him to school. My son was
attending Taska Middle School. Of course she did, you know,
normal kids. Goodbye, I have a good day be a.
As I was leaving home and saw a bunch of
(06:20):
police cars and anilants and fire trucks over by the school,
and I thought about stopping over there, but then I said,
I'm let me get out of here, as too much traffic.
It's like getting about fifty And I hear on the
radio that breaking news boy had been shot at Benjamin
Tasker Middle School. So from that point. I'm rooting fast
down Route fifty to the school and calling my wife
(06:43):
to find out what's going on, and she's taking the school.
Is he okay? She's not answering the phone. I went
to the school. It was chaotic. There were children everywhere
that the parents everywhere, police, five personnel, animulants, e M teams.
Unbelievable thing. And I'm walking through the parking lot. There
was a lot of kind of greeting their children in
(07:05):
tears of joy that it wasn't their child that was shot.
And I'm scanning the scanning. I finally located my son,
who broke down in tears and it was a big
relief to know that he was okay. At the same time,
it was said my son actually took the class of
two was the young man who was shot? Thirly emotional day.
(07:27):
I mean, just to know that my son could have
been a target. It's a scary few imagine learning that
someone had been shot at your child school. As a parent,
there's no bigger fear than finding out it was your
child who was injured. But while adults were coming to
pick up their children, Iron Brown was rushed into surgery.
(07:55):
The youngshire came into the hospital and he had already
bled a significant amount, was already getting transfusions, so he
was not in good shape. My name is Martin Eichelberger.
I am a pediatric surgeon at Children's National Medical Center.
During the day, early morning, I happened to be called
(08:16):
by our communications center said, look, you better look at
the TV here because of the fact that there was
some youngster that has just been shot. That was enough
to know that we were going to have to operate
on this ulcture within what's called the golden hour. Your
chances of survival from any kind of injury is much
greater if you can get surtical care within the first hour,
(08:38):
so we started to get our team ready. What we
did learn was that he had been taken to one
of the urgent care centers that was close to this
middle school. They did a terrific job over there of
resuscitating this yuksure by making sure he had an i V.
They put a tube in his chest because he had
been shot in his left chest. Took probably a half
(08:59):
hour from the time he was shot to the time
he got to us. During the operation, there are a
lot of different steps that were involved. He had a
gunshot wound just underneath his zyphoid, and it went through
the rib and ended up if you can think of
a trajectory up towards his scapula, the tip of his scapulate,
(09:20):
which is a little bit on the lower side. And
he had an injury that basically hit several organs in
the abdomen and also his diaphragm and his lung. And
it took a while to make sure that all of
these organs were properly dealt with as we were going along,
and it was it was an hour and a half
(09:42):
to our operation. He got stabilized, he stopped leading. We
were able to treat his lung without having to take
any of the lung out. A couple of the of
the organs so similarly were partially had to be removed,
but in general he tolerated very very well. He's lucky
because the bullet, you know, if the angle had been
(10:04):
just a little bit more towards the middle, it would
have hit his heart. You know, there's nothing really we
probably would have been able to do. So even though
we have a great team, not all patients survived, and
so we were happy just to have him stable. And
during that time there was an effort by the enforcement
(10:25):
community to try to retrieve the bullet. Dr Eichelberger's colleague,
Kurt Newman was in charge of communicating with the police,
and so Dr Newman came to me and said, this
is what they want to try to get the bullet.
Would it be easy to do? And I looked the
X ray and putting my finger down where I thought
(10:46):
the bullet was, and yes, I could palpate it with
my finger. I was able to pull out this bullet.
I gave it specifically to Dr Newman, who gave it
to a specific person to make sure that that chain
of evidence was kept intact. When we were contacted about
(11:12):
what had happened, and of course we all sat shocked.
We just couldn't believe, and we kept asking are you sure?
Are you sure? My name is Dr Wayne R. Curtis,
cousin to the Brown family. We're obviously very scared and
anxious about what was going to happen with him having
(11:34):
gotten shot like that at such a young age, and
that he would come out of it okay. But it's
time told he's doing okay. But that time we were
just all just concerned for his life. We went to
the hospital with my sons to visit with him. At
that point in time, there was a request to meet
(11:56):
with the press. National media wanted Iron Brown's parents to
provide a statement, but Curtis as the parents were still
processing their shock. So as we came out the back
of the hospital to approach the press corps, you can
imagine if you're not in front of something like that
before and you've got I mean, god, it must have
been fifty people with cameras and asking questions and it
(12:20):
can be unnerving. As we were walking out the hallway,
I don't think we got more than five steps onto
the sidewalk after the building, and it just said, look,
we can't do this. You should do this, and I said, okay,
I'll do it. He continues to remain in critical but
stable condition. He's a fighter. We remain optimistic, as our
(12:40):
doctors have told us, this is a marathon, not a spread,
but we are confident that we will make it to
the finish line. Do you think about the magnitude of
a child, any person getting shut but you know, the
children get shot and sort of magnifies it even more.
We had a psychological issues from from a current the
(13:04):
family as much as possible. They try to normalize his
life and their lives of a very, very unfortunate tragedy.
Iron Brown was alive and safe, but back at Tasker
Middle School, authorities were still trying to make sense of
(13:25):
the attack. What kind of person would shoot a thirteen
year old? Soon police will get a major clue a
communication from the snipers. The shooting at task Or Middle
(13:49):
School sent the region into a frenzy. It was now
clear that the sniper attacks were not over, and now
the discussions about who was behind the attacks cant and
you once again, the question came up, is this foreign terrorism?
Many in the d C area certainly thought so. On
(14:09):
the day Iron Brown was shot, w A m U
s Cojoe Namdi show fielded live calls about the shooting.
I'm concerned about my kids safety because I think this
shooter or shooters is trying to make a statement that
I can shoot Americans any time, any place, anywhere I
want to, and they're doing it around the nation's capital
(14:30):
to make a statement. Was calling an agreement with your
past caller mentioning some ties between the shootings and terrorism,
And I just see this as being completely related to
the timing of what's going on today in our country,
and the media had helped fuel that fear. All over
(14:50):
cable news TV stations were speculating that this was quite
possibly an act of terror. He is orchestrating this whole
event really to spread fear, to spread terror, because he
wants to be in charge, and he is executing people
just to show his power. It became pretty clear to
(15:13):
people that these random shootings across d C and around
d C were linked. This is journalist and historian Garrett graft.
He says it made sense that people thought foreign terrorists
were responsible for the sniper attacks. There was a very
quick realization that this could be the next stage of
(15:36):
a terror campaign. You had people begin to call in
suspicious activity reports all over the city. This was, in
some ways, maybe exactly the second wave that we had
been led to fear was coming ever since the nine
eleven attacks. In some ways, the idea that these sniper
(15:57):
killings would be somehow linked to Al Qaeda seemed a
very logical theory at the time. The idea that here
you had a terrorist really aiming to undermine Americans just
going about their daily lives, you know, making it impossible
(16:18):
to do the things that hundreds of millions of Americans
literally had to do every day. Go buy groceries, fill
up your car with gas, drive to work. The attacks
on these commuters, these workers, these families around d C,
in some ways seemed a very logical next stage of
(16:41):
Al Qaeda targeting the homeland and really threatened to make
ordinary daily life in America insecure. While the country was
debating who was behind these attacks, investigators were working to
find a sniper. Follow the shooting of Iron Brown, police
(17:02):
shut down the area surrounding Tasker Middle School. They began
searching looking for any clues. Benjamin Tasker Middle School, where
Iron Brown was shot, is around twenty miles east of Washington,
d C. And about seventy five miles northeast of where
the last shooting occurred in Spotsylvania, Virginia. Was there something
(17:26):
special about this school that drew the snipers this far out?
I went to see for myself, and as we pulled up,
I noticed the school was right next to a highway
Route fifty and it was surrounded by thick wooded areas.
Maybe this was the ideal spot to hide with a
quick getaway nearby, it was in these woods that authorities
(17:48):
searched for evidence after the shooting. I asked one of
the investigators to meet me here and walked me through
what happened on the morning of October seven. My name
is Mike Pile with the United States Martial Service. I
over see our canine operations program, and back in the
two thousand two, my partner was exposed to detection canine
Beacon and he was trained for explosives and weapons detection.
(18:10):
I'm curious as to the jurisdictional lines here. Right, a
number of agencies are here. Tell me why the US
Marshal Services called in so it's about resources. We're not
coming in here to obviously lead the investigation. This is
PG County, so obviously PG County Police Department, this is
their scene. But there's not a lot of dogs. Back then,
(18:33):
they were trained specifically to find guns and shellcasings. They
had bomb dogs, but some of the bomb dogs are
not trained to that level of evidence recovery. At F
trained dogs literally are sniffing explosives, probably multiple times a day.
Because we have to feed them to train dogs like
Beacon and maintain their sensitivity to certain odors. The dogs
(18:55):
are only fed when they detect the odors correctly, it's
classical conditioning. When the dogs come in order, beacon would
start salivating because it's Pablos theory, you know, the bell
rings he anticipated in the food coming in, so they
automatically salivate. So those are the changes that we look for.
So if the dog says, hey, I give you the
indication that the contract is you have to pay me,
(19:15):
that the payment is the food. So Michael, take me
back to the day. How does that day start for you?
On October seventh, two dozen two. By the time I
got here, it was a pretty chaotic scene. They had
the streets blocked off, a lot of law enforcement, a
lot of onlookers, a lot of media. The one thing
that really struck to me was actually where we're standing
(19:37):
right now was Iron Brown's backpack. You could see definitely
a see a little bit of a pool of blood
that was still left there. Someone said that they saw
somebody or heard a gunshot on the front of the
school up in that hill, so that would be across
the street from the cross street. And of course that
white box truck. They said that they saw a white
box truck that up in the hill to hear kind
(19:59):
of didn't makes sense to us. You would have to
literally bend the bullet if that was how the shot
was taking. Well, if you were to do the shooting,
where would you put yourself? The obvious place was probably
right in the woods. So from the front of the building,
the right side, if you walk out of the school
on the right side, there's a little bit of a
wooded area and then it goes to a park. So
(20:20):
I selected my search area and actually started to search.
We started in searching. We get to about midway in
maybe seven to ten feet out to the woodline, and
there was a tree and there was a huge branch
that was falling down. He stopped and he searched the
(20:41):
branch that was underground. And honestly, I actually wasn't paying
attention to at that point because I was actually watching
my step. So I had turned my head to look
at where I'm gonna put my foot. Next I heard
the PG County officer said, hey, look at your dog,
So I turned around. He started to racket bracket, meaning
(21:02):
he's in order, but he wants to get to where
the most of the order is coming from left to right,
left to right, left to right, boom, he sniffs and
he sits and a big druel comes out. So once
that occur, we stopped PG County officer, the PJ County officer,
the SWAT officer, where the alicers went out, got some
of the evidence technicians to come in and they all
(21:22):
start to actually literally searched this area. And then I
was told that the showcasing was located. If you step
back five ten ft, unless you really look, you're not
gonna see somebody hiding it there. So if you kind
of actually look, it's a perfect line of sight. So
I fully believe that he may have laid that rifle
(21:42):
right on that piece of word, took the shot. The
showcasing comes out, and it's that area where they located
the showcasing, and with that they work their way backwards
and that's where they find the tarot card, a tarot card,
(22:04):
one from a special deck of cards that some say
can predict the future. And the shooters didn't just leave
any card. They left the death card on It was
a skeletal night, riding a white horse and holding a
black flag. This image is said to show that no
one escapes death, whether rich or poor, young or old,
(22:27):
The card seemed to perfectly capture the snipers m oh, no,
one is safe. Everyone is vulnerable. But the more disturbing
aspect was what was written on the card. For you,
Mr Police, call me God. Do not release to the press.
Now they've got a God complex. This is retired Maryland
(22:49):
State Police Lieutenant David Reichenbach. So at least we're starting
to get a picture of what we're dealing with here
that card. At that time, I'd didn't even know about it,
and I was the commander in charge of the criminal
intelligence part of it. That was kept very very close
to the vest, and for good reason, we didn't want
that to get out there, but unfortunately it did. You know,
(23:14):
the following day, which was Tuesday, eight, w USA Channel
nine breaks the story about the tarot card, and for us,
that was a punch in the gut. More about that
calling card. It was left at the scene of the
most recent shooting. That's the school in Prince George's County.
It was a card from a fortune telling deck that's
known as the death card, with a note written on it,
(23:37):
Dear policeman, I am God. It's the latest chilling development
in this chilling case and massive investigation that wasn't supposed
to be released, that didn't need to be released at
that point, and there it is all over network news,
which meant we had an internal leak that actually plagued
(23:57):
this investigation throughout the entire twenty three days. Quite honestly,
evidence was getting leaked that you want to hold close
to the vest. And there's a couple of reasons behind that.
You never release everything that you know about a homicide
for the simple reason that whoever the bad guy is
should be the only other person other than the police
(24:19):
that really knows what happened. By this point, police were
receiving hundreds of calls every day on their tip line.
Now that the Tarot card information was public, the number
of calls only increased, and at times the phones were
so busy that callers couldn't get through. It became too
much for police to handle, and they had trouble figuring
(24:39):
out which tips were good and which ones weren't. With
everything being put out there in the media, now we've
got what I always called our confessors calling confessing that
they're the shooters. I'm the right a I wanted to
(25:03):
use all the time with stuff. There's all sorts of
psychological reasons why people do that, but it happens all
the time, and the more media attention a case has,
the more of these kind of folks that you have
come out of the woodwork for whatever reason. And fortunately
most of the time you can quickly dispel them and
(25:26):
eliminate them very quickly because they don't have enough information.
They can't even describe the crime scene, so you know
they didn't do it. However, with all the information being
out there and now the Tarot card, these people are
calling with enough information that you just can't ignore them.
So now these folks had to go on the suspect list,
(25:46):
so I was creating quite a few red herrings for US.
Police weren't happy about the Tarot card getting leaked to
(26:07):
the public, but the media felt it was necessary to
publish that information. Dave Stanner was a reporter for Channel nine.
His station broke the story about the Tarot card. The
Tarot card was first internally at our station, reported by
a reporter Channel I named Stacy Cohen. She found out
about this Tarot card in this message from the apparent
(26:27):
snipers to police, and it was soon confirmed by Mike Buchanan.
He was one heck of a reporter and if Mike
and Stacey you're telling me they have this information, I
know it's true. And we didn't immediately go with the story.
They worked with police. They let them know what we
have and say give us a good reason why we
shouldn't go with us, because reporters don't want to screw
up an investigation. We want to get our information out there,
(26:49):
but we don't want to make it harder to catch
people who are involved in crimes. Our news director at
the time was involved in it, and they all dealt
with police, and not one person in Prince George's County
Police or in Montgomery County Police said please don't air
this information, and I believe they aired it a short
time later when it aired, and the Washington Post also
(27:13):
did the same story. This set off the Chief of
Police of Montgomery County, Charles Moose, who pretty much attacked
both news organizations for reporting that story. I have not
received any message that the citizens of Montgomery County won't
Channel nine or the Washington Post or any other media
outlet to solve this case. If they do, didn't let
(27:34):
me know, we will go and do other police work.
And we were turn this case over to the media.
But today the people in my community have asked the
police department to work the case. So I beg of
the media let us do our job, because I am
convinced that we're broaching interference. If my team feels it's
important to put things out there, that's sad, And if
(27:57):
the media feels that it is their job to put
things out there are so today can be promoted, then
that is also sad. Chief Moose had singled out Channel
nine and The Washington Post, the two media outlets who
first broke the tarot card story. Washington Post reporter Josh
White took issue with Chief Moose's comments that tarot card
(28:20):
was a really important piece of both the investigation and
the public's understanding of what was happening. While certainly they're
always going to be things that law enforcement doesn't want out,
and they're going to be things that they want to
keep from the public in order to help them solve crimes, Frankly,
our job is to find out what those things are
and responsibly report what we believe will help further the
(28:42):
public's understanding of the situation. In the grand scheme of things,
there are plenty of things in every investigation that I'm
sure the police wish weren't out there, but by the
same token, for us to report it, we have to
know about it, and for us to know about it,
that means someone deeply alved in the investigation feels that
it's information that should be out there, or we wouldn't
(29:05):
know about it. There were aspects throughout the investigation that
you know, someone said this is going to cause harm.
That's something we take seriously and certainly way as we
make decisions. In that particular case with the Tarot card,
trying to understand at all what this was about was
of the most important aspect of what we could do
(29:25):
as as journalists. It's a tricky situation for police. It's
imperative to maintain control over sensitive information. As a journalist,
you have to inform the public about what's going on,
but you also don't want to report anything that might
interfere with the investigation, So reporters have to make a
(29:45):
tough decision. At the end of the day, the media
and law enforcement simply might not agree on what should
be published. But in this case, White thinks it was
important to release the tarot card info for Ano. Their
reason to him. It indicated that the attack was not
the work of foreign terrorists, and that was something the
(30:06):
public needed to understand. It immediately changed how people looked
at this. It was no longer maybe al Qaeda or ISIS.
It was certainly a version of terrorism. People were terrified,
but it changed the nature of I think how everybody
looked at it. What about law enforcement? Did they still
(30:27):
see this as possibly connected to foreign terrorism? Well, I
think everyone had to consider that potential. I think you
had to say, is this the next shooter drop? Because
now we've closed off the airlines, we've hardened the doors
between the passengers and the pilot and co pilot. Are
they going to come at us in a different way now?
(30:51):
My name is Clint Van Sant. I'm a farmer, FBI agent,
criminal profiler, and hostage negotiator. I mean this was terror.
I don't think there's any doubt that these shooters were
waging terror on the American public. The question is what
was the reason for that terror. You couldn't say, no,
(31:15):
this is not some organized event. But I saw and
heard of no evidence of any type of international connection.
The TERRT card, the call me god, I am God.
I couldn't see a radical Islamic fundamentalist who might be
(31:36):
doing this for his own religious purposes calling himself God.
I mean that that didn't make any sense. I mean
you would have said, I am acting on God's part,
I am the hand of God, I am the fist
of God. Perhaps, but I am God. Now, No, it
just did not ring true. The verbage that was used
(31:56):
in there was nothing that would lend itself off to
international terrorism. Are nothing that would lend itself to someone
trying to disguise themselves as a domestic terrorist when they
were in fact international. Internationals normally would take credit. They
want to take credit, They want to stand up and
beat their chest and say, look what we can do.
(32:19):
That wasn't taking place. So in the absence of that,
I think in my particular case, it seemed like more
a domestic situation for a defined purpose. There were a
few other possibilities. When investigators met to discuss the tarot card,
(32:40):
someone mentioned the death cards left by soldiers in the
movie Apocalypse. Now to th Autodiamonds, what that let's telling
No did this? Someone else remembered that God was the
nickname of the chief sniper in the v Seals. God
(33:02):
God God, here, God, we have a single shooter Southeast Tower. Yeah.
Him was the sniper a military man, or at least
a fan of military movies. Others thought the Tarot card
indicated the work of a serial killer with an interest
in the occult. Whether these were terrorists, serial killers, or
(33:27):
something else, it made no difference. Paranoia was at an
all time high. Children were being shot in broad daylight,
and the airtime devoted to the case was NonStop on
nearly every major TV network. The entire country was watching.
The fact that a child was shot was a pivotal moment.
(33:48):
It showed a willingness on the part of the attackers
to go after anybody. This is Washington Post reporter Josh White.
And it was at that moment that people really changed
their lines about how scared to be, about how cautious
to be. The schools really started responding. Any adult who
(34:08):
lived in this region had to wonder, how do I
keep my kids safe, even at school? And it was
knowledge that they were willing to invade even are what
are considered to be some of our safest spaces. Even
President George W. Bush weighed in about the shooting of
Igram Brown a few days later, the President number one
has wanted to make certain that all the resources of
(34:29):
the federal government have been made available through the a
t F, through the FBI, and through other agencies at
the federal government as well to help the local law
enforcement community. And that's been done. The President urges people
to take all reasonable and prudent cautions that the law
enforcement community in the case that should be taken. First
of all, I'm just sick to my stomach to think
that there is a cold blooded killer at home taking
(34:52):
innocent life. I weep for those who have lost their
loved ones. The idea of moms taking their kids to
school and sheltering them from a potent so sniper attack
is not the American I know sniper attacks well. It
is a form of terrorism, but in terms of the
terrorism that we think of, we have no evidence one
way or the other, obviously, But anytime anybody is randomly shooting,
(35:13):
randomly killing, randomly, taking life, it's a cold blood and murderer.
You know, it's a sick mind. For investigators, the man
hunt was about to get personal. A tragic turn of
events would flip the investigation on its head, and the
sniper's got was an FBI agent. Next time on Monster
(35:39):
d C Sniper, I was absolutely sure that we were
going to get a shooting. I got a call from
a source saying you need to get out to Manassas
there's been another one. And the next thing, I see
our police officers running with their guns drawn to an
apartment complex across the street where there's a white vehicle
that looks sort of like a box truck. People process
(36:02):
a lot less information than we think. They get the
sense that they're seeing everything when in fact they're seeing
very little. So we had a pretty good game plan,
but the problem was we weren't being provided good intelligence
and suspect information from Lookout That hurt us. So now
the real focus is what do I do when I'm
(36:23):
pumping guests. I have to get guest line from my car.
There are gas stations that are starting to put up
barricades or harps to block you. It showed that if
somebody wants to go after someone who they have no
connection to randomly in a metropolitan area, there's millions of people,
what's stopping them. Monster DC Sniper is a fifteen episode
(36:48):
podcast hosted by Tony Harris and produced by iHeart Radio
and Tenderfoot TV. Matt Frederick and Alex Williams are executive
producers on behalf of iHeart Radio, alongside producers Trevor Young,
Ben Kiebrick, and Josh Than Payne. Lindsay and Donald Albright
are executive producers on behalf of Tenderfoot TV alongside producers
(37:08):
Meredith Steadman and Christina Dana. Original music is by Makeup
and Vanity Set Special Thanks to w A m U
American University Radio for usage of clips originally broadcast on
October seven, two thousand two, on The Cojo Namdi Show.
If you haven't already, be sure to check out the
first two seasons at Lanta Monster and Monster the Zodiac Killer.
(37:31):
If you have questions or comments, email us at Monster
at I heart media dot com, or you can call
us at one eight three three to eight five six
six six seven. Thanks for listening.
Popular Podcasts
Good Game with Sarah Spain
Good Game is your one-stop shop for the biggest stories in women’s sports. Every day, host Sarah Spain gives you the stories, stakes, stars and stats to keep up with your favorite women’s teams, leagues and athletes. Through thoughtful insight, witty banter, and an all around good time, Sarah and friends break down the latest news, talk about the games you can’t miss, and debate the issues of the day. Don’t miss interviews with the people of the moment, whether they be athletes, coaches, reporters, or celebrity fans.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
Crime Junkie
If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people.