Speaker 1: Welcome to Monster DC Sniper, a production of I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio and Tenderfoot TV. The views and opinions expressed in
Speaker 1: this podcast are solely those of the podcast author or
Speaker 1: individuals participating in the podcast, and do not represent those
Speaker 1: of I Heart Media, Tenderfoot TV, or their employees. Listener
Speaker 1: discretion is advised by the evening of the By about
Speaker 1: nine thirty ten o'clock at night, we knew who we
Speaker 1: were looking for, we knew what they were in. We
Speaker 1: knew these people were going to continue to kill people
Speaker 1: until they were stopped. We just didn't know where to
Speaker 1: find them. I guess it was probably eleven thirty that night.
Speaker 1: I'm going home to Frederick, and as I approached Frederick County,
Speaker 1: I switched over to Frederick Barrick channel and I called
Speaker 1: the bar because I'm required the duty sergeant. Sergeant Hunter
Speaker 1: Mark comes on and says copy that six six two,
Speaker 1: can you go to secure channel one? And I knew
Speaker 1: something was up. I switched over to channel one and
Speaker 1: I got on the radio and start says I just
Speaker 1: got a phone call. Five minutes after that radio station
Speaker 1: there in Frederick broadcast that that's who we were looking for.
Speaker 1: A citizen spotted them parked in that rest Arian Myers
Speaker 1: and and I told Sergeant hunter Mark, send everybody you got,
Speaker 1: and he said, well, counting you, sir, that's three, because
Speaker 1: they're all in Montgomery County. Well saddle up, boys, our
Speaker 1: old adage, one riot, one trooper, let's go. There is
Speaker 1: a ruthless person on the loose. What unnerves this community
Speaker 1: the boast is the randomness of the murders, ordinary people
Speaker 1: doing ordinary things. They killed the five people in one
Speaker 1: day and then went on the rampage for the next month.
Speaker 1: It is quite a mystery. The police say they have
Speaker 1: never had a crime quite like this. Be careful, these
Speaker 1: guys are using weapons that are gonna go right through
Speaker 1: our bulletproof vest. From my Heart radio and Tenderfoot TV,
Speaker 1: this is monster d C sniper. I wasn't anticipating this
Speaker 1: ending well, once they realized they were cornered, I knew
Speaker 1: we were in for a shootout. I just knew it.
Speaker 1: It was the night of October Maryland State Police Lieutenant
Speaker 1: David reich and Ball was on his way home when
Speaker 1: he learned that the sniper's car had been spotted just
Speaker 1: minutes after a radio station broadcast the details about the
Speaker 1: Blue Caprice. A witness saw it parked in a rest
Speaker 1: area forty five miles away up in the mountains of
Speaker 1: northwest Maryland. I drove out to the scene with Rake
Speaker 1: and Bass so he could explain to me exactly what
Speaker 1: happened that night. When Sergeant hunter Mark told me that
Speaker 1: the sniper or car had been spotted in the rest area,
Speaker 1: I said, are you sure? And he said, it's confirmed
Speaker 1: as best as we can confirm it. The caller who
Speaker 1: I'm on the line with said they had heard it
Speaker 1: on the radio that the police were looking for this vehicle.
Speaker 1: And Sergeant hunter Mark says, what are your orders, sir?
Speaker 1: And I said, my orders are notify the Joint Operations
Speaker 1: Center of the sighting, let them know that I am
Speaker 1: in a route, and will establish a perimeter. I had
Speaker 1: that police car flat out at a hundred and fifteen
Speaker 1: miles as fast as that poor thing would go. So
Speaker 1: day we're ten miles out from Frederick. Yep, what's happening
Speaker 1: in your head? What's going through my head is how
Speaker 1: are we going to deal with this? The training kicks in.
Speaker 1: I asked Sergeant hunter Mark, who do I have going?
Speaker 1: He tells me, you've worked with these guys in narcotics.
Speaker 1: We're all narcs together, so I knew they had the
Speaker 1: same swat team basic training that I had. My goal
Speaker 1: is twofold number one, get up here. Let's secure this scene.
Speaker 1: The other thing going through my mind is if we
Speaker 1: can get there and in position before they leave that
Speaker 1: rest area, no matter what, they're not getting out. They're
Speaker 1: not going to get past us. If we have to
Speaker 1: use lethal force to stop them, if we have to
Speaker 1: crash a police car into that caprice, We're going to
Speaker 1: do what we need to do. They're not getting out
Speaker 1: of that rest area. I mean, I'm flying, I've got
Speaker 1: the center of the car right on the dotted line.
Speaker 1: I'm straddling both lanes as fast as I can go.
Speaker 1: The next thing is going through my mind is if
Speaker 1: I were these bad guys, what would I do? And
Speaker 1: my thought process was one would be sleeping in the car,
Speaker 1: the other one would be in the woods with that rifle.
Speaker 1: What professionally we would call on overwatch? We had handguns
Speaker 1: and a shotgun. We were outgunned. I had contemplated, Hey,
Speaker 1: just the three of us, that's go bomb Russiam. But
Speaker 1: if we did that and the scenario that I was
Speaker 1: thinking about came true, then we were dead. He's going
Speaker 1: to be able to kill all of us before we
Speaker 1: even figure out where the shots coming from. So that
Speaker 1: was last resort. The next thought process was, let's see
Speaker 1: if we can somehow get any other civilians out of
Speaker 1: that rest area and seal that rest area in. I'm
Speaker 1: worried about the potential for a hostage barricade situation. I'm
Speaker 1: worried about a high speed pursuit. I'm worried about them
Speaker 1: carjacking and eighteen wheeler and now we've got them basically
Speaker 1: driving a tank which they're gonna run over any police
Speaker 1: car we've got. I mean, you've killed people, you've wounded
Speaker 1: for more, you're the most wanted to people probably in
Speaker 1: the world. Why not go out and blaze a glory
Speaker 1: at the bottom of this hill right before we get
Speaker 1: off the exit. You're exactly one mile from the rest area.
Speaker 1: The rest area is right on top of that mountain.
Speaker 1: M Are you in touch with your other guys on
Speaker 1: the radio at this point? At this point, the other
Speaker 1: hearing me, TFC Draskovic, Paschal and the canine guy, we're
Speaker 1: just announcing that they were arriving, and I also had
Speaker 1: ordered silent running through, no lights, no sirens, nothing, and
Speaker 1: right at the beginning of this rest area, just pull
Speaker 1: over on the right shoulder here. That's where we met.
Speaker 1: It was myself, TFC Draskovic, TFC Paschal, and Rich Poffenburger,
Speaker 1: the canine trooper out of Hagerstown. I was patched in
Speaker 1: with our witness and I asked them, do you see anything? Nope,
Speaker 1: everything's quiet. Do you see us no? Do you hear
Speaker 1: us no? Whitney Donohue, the witness who had first reported
Speaker 1: the caprice, agreed to stay on his cell phone at
Speaker 1: the rest stop. Dispatchers patched Donna Hughes telephone through to
Speaker 1: Rank and Ball so the two could talk. Rank and
Speaker 1: Ball figured that if his witness hadn't seen the police
Speaker 1: cars pulled up, then neither had the snipers. So at
Speaker 1: that point I tell TFC Draskovic and Paschal blocked this entry.
Speaker 1: So they pulled their car sort of in a V
Speaker 1: right about where the rest areas sign is. My canine guy,
Speaker 1: I said, I want you to go in the middle
Speaker 1: between the entrance and the exit. Get the dog out,
Speaker 1: keep him quiet. Anybody that comes out of this rest
Speaker 1: area on foot, assume they are the sniper, and turned
Speaker 1: the dog loose. Keep in mind they had us out gunned.
Speaker 1: We had handguns on a shotgun. They had that Bushmaster
Speaker 1: and I told him I'm going to the exit and
Speaker 1: I will set up my command post there. And then
Speaker 1: eventually I got another trooper out of Hagerstown and him
Speaker 1: and I blocked the exit. So that's how we stood
Speaker 1: for the first twenty minutes. The next incoming troopers, we
Speaker 1: had them blocked the interstates, both directions. I wanted everybody
Speaker 1: off the mountain. From what we could tell, we might
Speaker 1: have had a dozen trucks parked in the truck lock.
Speaker 1: As luck would have it, we had a couple of
Speaker 1: truck drivers start to come out to leave. We stopped them,
Speaker 1: searched their rigs, and I asked them if they wanted
Speaker 1: to be good Americans, and it was just like, well, yeah, troop,
Speaker 1: what do you need? I said, well, we got the
Speaker 1: snipers in the rest area, and it was holy shit,
Speaker 1: you're kidding me, right, I said, no, his ambastards are
Speaker 1: in there. I just took a piss and I said,
Speaker 1: can you throw your truck across this exit so that
Speaker 1: that car cannot get out of here, Yes, sir, be
Speaker 1: maur honor. Now I'm on the phone with my witnesses,
Speaker 1: and I'm on the phone with the Joint Operations Center because,
Speaker 1: as you can imagine, they were losing their collective minds.
Speaker 1: After weeks of working over time and dozens of dead
Speaker 1: end leads, police were tantalizing Lee close to an arrest.
Speaker 1: Attentions were rising. We start getting orders from the Joint
Speaker 1: Operations Center. Have you done this? Have you done that?
Speaker 1: I understand their concerns. These are special agents in charge.
Speaker 1: Their jobs are on the line. They don't know me,
Speaker 1: they don't know my training. They want to take charge.
Speaker 1: That's why they're special agents in charge in the FBI.
Speaker 1: I understand that the problem is they were in Montgomery County.
Speaker 1: I'm here, I know this rest area. I know my troopers.
Speaker 1: They don't. So it got a little bit intense. Then
Speaker 1: the next thing that happens is Trooper Smith and I
Speaker 1: are on that end, and of course our attention is
Speaker 1: towards the interior of the rest area, and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, I hear Dwayne Smith, y'all gone gunne and
Speaker 1: I turned out of the corner of my eye. I
Speaker 1: see a man coming with a rifle. He's got his
Speaker 1: hat on backwards, he's wearing shorts. And as I happened
Speaker 1: to look, as I start to train my weapon on him,
Speaker 1: I see d e a about this big and I realized,
Speaker 1: oh my god, we're gonna have a friendly fire situation here.
Speaker 1: And that's when I ordered, if you're not in uniform,
Speaker 1: get off the mountain. Then the pushback started. My agents
Speaker 1: can be up there. They've been told to be up there,
Speaker 1: and I said, you do not understand, sir. It is dark.
Speaker 1: We're going to get one of them killed. And when
Speaker 1: that happens, if the snipers are in that car, we're
Speaker 1: in a firefight, because we're gonna wake him up. Right now.
Speaker 1: I've got the advantage of surprise. I want to keep it.
Speaker 1: And at one point the U. S. Marshall came on
Speaker 1: and basically put me in charge. The U. S. Marshall's
Speaker 1: office trumps everybody, so we eased that situation. As police
Speaker 1: shut down the highways and a swarm of officers assembled
Speaker 1: for the takedown, law enforcement worried that the media might
Speaker 1: blow their cover. The other immediate concern was is all right,
Speaker 1: it's on the radio media is listening to police communications.
Speaker 1: They know there's an army of federal, state, and local
Speaker 1: law enforcement heading to Myersville. Apparently there is a lot
Speaker 1: of what they described as police activity, a lot of
Speaker 1: officers responding to where this car was fought at. We
Speaker 1: are on the access roads at exit forty two on
Speaker 1: Interstate seventy. They have the entire highway north of this
Speaker 1: exit blocked off with the sheriff's deputies and Maryland State troopers.
Speaker 1: And then it dawns on me, what happens if Channel
Speaker 1: one two ABC flies over with their helicopter. Ah, that's
Speaker 1: gonna blow what element of surprise. I had made a
Speaker 1: phone call to a friend of mine US Secret Service,
Speaker 1: and I asked him affairs a way we could have
Speaker 1: airspace secured above us. He called me back in less
Speaker 1: than thirty seconds by where Presidential Authority Secret Service, Frederick
Speaker 1: County's airspace is secured. We did have one of our
Speaker 1: affiliate helicopters here, but apparently the police were not happy
Speaker 1: to see that new helicopter in the area, and they
Speaker 1: have ordered it to fly away from the immediate scene
Speaker 1: to not compromise their investigation. Then it was just a
Speaker 1: matter of time awaiting as Rank and Ball guarded the
Speaker 1: rest stops exit. Montgomery County Police is Captain Drew Tracy
Speaker 1: met with the team of SWAN officers that they named
Speaker 1: the Tango Team at the bottom of the wooded hill
Speaker 1: behind the rest stop. The Tango Swan Team worked out
Speaker 1: a plan to capture the snipers they had surprised for
Speaker 1: twenty one days. Now, we had surprise and we had
Speaker 1: kind of a burning desire inside of us to put
Speaker 1: this to an end. We had to At the rest stop,
Speaker 1: there was about seventy parking spaces, there was bathrooms. The
Speaker 1: vehicle was back then and because of a tempted windows,
Speaker 1: we could not see inside the blue caprice. We weren't
Speaker 1: even sure they were in there. We figured they may
Speaker 1: not be in there, but we still need an assault plan.
Speaker 1: And I remember being in a woodline. I'm saying, Okay,
Speaker 1: what's our plan if they go mobile? And then I
Speaker 1: looked at these guys who I know, who I respect.
Speaker 1: They're highly trained, and I said to myself, Drew, shut up.
Speaker 1: They got it, and I just backed off. Police scanned
Speaker 1: it behind the rest stop with night vision and infrared sensors.
Speaker 1: They wanted to make sure that Malvo and Mohammed weren't
Speaker 1: hiding somewhere in the trees. There was an aircraft that
Speaker 1: flew over the rest area. Was some sort of a helicopter,
Speaker 1: and to this day, I do not know what kind
Speaker 1: of aircraft that was. But it made no sound, not
Speaker 1: one sound. It was not civilian, it was not law enforcement.
Speaker 1: The only thing I can tell you is I felt
Speaker 1: it more than heard it. And I looked up and
Speaker 1: the leaves were rustling, and I thought, there's no wind.
Speaker 1: What the hell is that? And then this shadow went sideways,
Speaker 1: real slowly over my head towards the interior of the
Speaker 1: rest area. And then it dawned on me that is
Speaker 1: a military aircraft. And I know who was in it.
Speaker 1: And you know, to this day, God buss him. He
Speaker 1: will not tell me what kind of aircraft he was,
Speaker 1: He says, I'm what you're talking about, Dave. The woods
Speaker 1: looked clear, so the Tango swat team assembled at the
Speaker 1: base of the hill. It was now three thirty am,
Speaker 1: hours after the sniper's car had been spotted. The Tango
Speaker 1: swat team made its final preparations before they climbed up
Speaker 1: through the woods to assault the sniper's car from the rear.
Speaker 1: The decision on the takedown was to go with six individuals,
Speaker 1: one from Maryland State Police, one from Montgomery County, and
Speaker 1: four FBI HASSES rescue team. We had a game plan.
Speaker 1: We had two designated shooters, we had breachers to breach
Speaker 1: the windows, and we had hands on people. And we
Speaker 1: practiced real quick in a woodline, and then a decision
Speaker 1: was made. You know, everybody stood in line, thumbs up,
Speaker 1: thumbs up, grab shoulder, grab shoulder, go, no comments, no nothing.
Speaker 1: After four hours of anxious waiting, suddenly everything went into
Speaker 1: high gear rank and ball was given the heads. Just
Speaker 1: before the Tangos one team entered the rest area, I
Speaker 1: got the message Tango team. Thirty seconds out. Dwayne and
Speaker 1: I came down to get between the bad guys and
Speaker 1: our civilians. The Tango team is fully warmed. They've got
Speaker 1: ballistic vests, helmets, night vision. They had at least two
Speaker 1: MP five. They comed out of the woods, slightly stooped,
Speaker 1: weapons up, fully intent on their target. As they get
Speaker 1: close to the car, the night vision goggles come up.
Speaker 1: They split into two groups, three down the driver's side,
Speaker 1: three down the passenger side, and even though they're three
Speaker 1: guys in the line. They're moving. It's one. I'm in
Speaker 1: the woodline and listening. I'm praying that there's no shots fired.
Speaker 1: My heart's running a mile a minute. And I hear
Speaker 1: the breaking of windows. The Tango team took out the
Speaker 1: passenger rear window, driver's front window with spring loaded baton,
Speaker 1: and out of the vehicle they came. I hear police, police,
Speaker 1: get on the ground. You know. I'm listening. I'm listening.
Speaker 1: And then I hear the word clear, and I started
Speaker 1: walking from the woodline and I see two things right away.
Speaker 1: I see like a glistening of like light. And when
Speaker 1: I looked down, the glistening was Malvo Marvel was on
Speaker 1: the ground, face down, handcuffed. And what happened is when
Speaker 1: they breached the tempered windows, the glass got in his
Speaker 1: hair and it hit the light and he didn't say
Speaker 1: one word. And I looked down. I looked right at him,
Speaker 1: and he was sweating. He was sweating pretty good for
Speaker 1: that cold night. And then I hear jabbering. It was
Speaker 1: John Mohammed. He was just jabbering away. It didn't have
Speaker 1: a lot of meaning to me. It was just kind
Speaker 1: of big talk. And he was on the ground he
Speaker 1: was searched. I was right there when they opened his
Speaker 1: wallet and there was several pieces of false identification in
Speaker 1: different names. Remember looking at it, going, oh boy, Mohammed
Speaker 1: did not impress me one little bit. You could see
Speaker 1: the fear in his face. Now, Lee Malvo, the young one,
Speaker 1: different story. I've arrestled a lot of people, but this
Speaker 1: is one of those people that you just know looking
Speaker 1: at him, this guy isn't done killing if he gets
Speaker 1: the chance. He's cuffed. He's sitting cross legged with Trooper
Speaker 1: Draskovic standing right behind and probably the largest state tripper
Speaker 1: in Maryland. Anybody else in their right mind should have
Speaker 1: been in complete fear. Not this kid. This kid just
Speaker 1: looked at me with that dead shark eyed look. Pal,
Speaker 1: I'd kill you and everybody here if I had the chance.
Speaker 1: They were put in cars and of the helicopter escort
Speaker 1: down the road they went. From that point, we did
Speaker 1: a quick clear of the caprice to make sure there
Speaker 1: was no explosives or anything else to be in Bob,
Speaker 1: and then we pulled back. Investigators took over, and that's
Speaker 1: when they went to get to Warren's. I stayed on
Speaker 1: the scene, secured the scene, search warrant was obtained, all
Speaker 1: the lab guys got up there, and there's still that
Speaker 1: little bit of doubt in the back of your mind
Speaker 1: until they pulled that damn sniper rifle out of the
Speaker 1: back seat of that car. Hidden in a secret compartment
Speaker 1: behind one of the car's back seats. Police found a rifle,
Speaker 1: a bipod, and discope. And I'll never forget as long
Speaker 1: as I live the noise of when the lab guy
Speaker 1: cocked that round out of that rifle and seeing it's
Speaker 1: spinning around in a circle in the air, and the
Speaker 1: tinkle that it made when it hit the parking lot.
Speaker 1: No formal charges yet in the sniper case, but from authorities,
Speaker 1: no doubts that they've got their math inside the car,
Speaker 1: the two suspects were sound asleep, and authorities, who feared
Speaker 1: a violent confrontation, instead made a textbook peaceful arrest. We
Speaker 1: feel very positive about being here. We have the weapon,
Speaker 1: it is off the streets so long as she's been
Speaker 1: so frustrated, And as police officers, when the news finally
Speaker 1: broke that the two snipers were in custody and all
Speaker 1: the officers involved were safe, it was a tremendous relief.
Speaker 1: It wasn't a celebration. There was no high five and
Speaker 1: going around or anything like that. It was just it's over.
Speaker 1: I was happy that it was over, but it was
Speaker 1: even happier watching my mom and my elderly neighbor go
Speaker 1: to the store for the first time. Okay, she was
Speaker 1: so scared to go anywhere. That was my biggest relief,
Speaker 1: was actually seeing my mom be able to live life again.
Speaker 1: They had that satisfaction to know that that our evidence
Speaker 1: from Alabama was used to stop somebody from doing what
Speaker 1: they were doing. It felt just awesome to bring justice
Speaker 1: to the victims so they know what happened. It's not
Speaker 1: comforting to them, it's just a sense of closure. I
Speaker 1: feel good because people who were not in danger anymore.
Speaker 1: But you know, I was dealing with my pain, you know,
Speaker 1: and my daughter was still miss her mom. I was
Speaker 1: just so mad. I was at work and someone came
Speaker 1: and told me your brother's killers have been caught. And
Speaker 1: it just took a while for it all to sink in.
Speaker 1: I immediately started getting phone calls from people wanting to
Speaker 1: do interviews and things. I was just amazed that it
Speaker 1: wasn't terrorists. My gut that this was international terrorism was wrong,
Speaker 1: but we're still trying to figure out, Hey, you've got
Speaker 1: two guys. You've got an older guy, and you got
Speaker 1: this young KIDTI seventeen years old. What's this about. I
Speaker 1: remember feeling this immense relief and then just disbelief when
Speaker 1: the information came out that it was an older guy
Speaker 1: and a young guy, like a young guy, a young
Speaker 1: guy did this? Why? Journalistically, this moment of being arrested,
Speaker 1: that's the moment when we really kick into gear because
Speaker 1: suddenly there's two suspects and a story to tell about
Speaker 1: how we got to that point and who these people
Speaker 1: are and why this happened. To this day, the why
Speaker 1: this happened is somewhat elusive people who do this work.
Speaker 1: You can be really happy about the case, but you know,
Speaker 1: unfortunately there's going to be more coming. You turn around
Speaker 1: and yeah, you know, you dust yourself off and you
Speaker 1: get ready to go back to work. And that's Bernard
Speaker 1: forsythe he led the homicide investigation in Montgomery County when
Speaker 1: the attacks first started. For the public, the arrests led
Speaker 1: to a tremendous sense of relief. Kids could play outside
Speaker 1: again and no one had to worry as they pumped gas.
Speaker 1: But for Hamis investigators like forsythe the DC sniper case
Speaker 1: didn't end with the arrests. While the immediate threats seemed
Speaker 1: to be over, there were still questions to be answered,
Speaker 1: what was the motive and who was actually taking the shots,
Speaker 1: Mohammed or Malvo. But more importantly, detectives and journalists would
Speaker 1: soon discover that the snipers had committed many more crimes
Speaker 1: than anyone realized. We ended up going all around the
Speaker 1: country trying to track leads down and finding out that
Speaker 1: these subjects actually did more. What had Mohammed and Malvo
Speaker 1: been doing in the months between the shooting of Kenya
Speaker 1: Cook in February and the spree that started in d
Speaker 1: C in October. Detectives needed to interview Mohammed and Malvo
Speaker 1: and scour through evidence in the Blue Caprice to retrace
Speaker 1: the snipers steps between Washington State and the nation's capital.
Speaker 1: After the arrest, agents took John Mohammed and Lee Boyd
Speaker 1: Malvo to Montgomery County to interview them. They were handcuffed
Speaker 1: and locked alone in separate rooms while officers prepared to
Speaker 1: question them. Suddenly, a crash rang out from Malvo's room.
Speaker 1: The agent assigned to guard him, unlocked the door and
Speaker 1: rushed inside. Malvo had slipped one hand out of his handcuffs,
Speaker 1: stacked a chair onto a desk, and was climbing into
Speaker 1: the space above the ceiling tiles. The agent pool melbow
Speaker 1: to the floor. Other officers heard the commotion and ran in.
Speaker 1: Malvo was moved to a new, more secure room, where
Speaker 1: the furniture was bolted to the floor. There, Terry Ryan,
Speaker 1: a Montgomery County detective, began a strange interview with Malvo.
Speaker 1: Malvo refused to say a word, pantomiming that his lips
Speaker 1: were field, but he responded to questions through gestures. Ryan
Speaker 1: wanted to know if something unexpected happened at the final
Speaker 1: shooting of Conrad Johnson that caused Malvo to leave the
Speaker 1: Duffel bag and glub behind because love. Ryan wrote in
Speaker 1: his report that Malvo nodded and his eyes welled up
Speaker 1: with tears. He grabbed his collar and began to rock
Speaker 1: back and forth in his chair. Meanwhile, Mohammed's questioning wasn't
Speaker 1: going much better. Mohammed told officers he was innocent. He
Speaker 1: said that he had found the Bushmaster rifle in a dumpster.
Speaker 1: The day before. The suspects weren't cooperating, but police had
Speaker 1: plenty of evidence to examine. First, they needed to confirm
Speaker 1: that the Bushmaster rifle from the Caprice was the one
Speaker 1: used in the shootings, so they brought the rifle to
Speaker 1: Walter Dandred, the firearms examiner at the a t F.
Speaker 1: We test fire it in the water tank so that
Speaker 1: we could recover the bullet in more or less a
Speaker 1: pristine condition. On one end of that water tank, there's
Speaker 1: a a shooting port. We stick the barrel in there
Speaker 1: and we do take two shots. For comparative purposes, We'll
Speaker 1: take those two projectiles that we just test fired, put
Speaker 1: them on a comparison microscope, and put the evidence projectile
Speaker 1: fragment on the microscope, and then look at those together.
Speaker 1: If all of that is corresponding, then we will call
Speaker 1: that an identification. Ballistics tests on the gun found inside
Speaker 1: the sniper's car match the bullets and shell casings used
Speaker 1: by the sniper. The rifle from the Capris was a match.
Speaker 1: It was the weapon that had been used to kill
Speaker 1: ten and injure three in the DC area. It was
Speaker 1: the one used in Alabama as well, and those were
Speaker 1: only the shootings that the police knew about. As investigators
Speaker 1: searched the Caprice, they found more and more evidence, evidence
Speaker 1: that connect the Snipers to crimes all across the nation.
Speaker 1: Police also learned how the snipers got away with shootings
Speaker 1: in broad daylight. They had modified the car so they
Speaker 1: could fire a shot from inside without being seen. Today,
Speaker 1: the snipers blue Chevy Caprice is kept by the National
Speaker 1: Law Enforcement Museum. It's in a warehouse that is normally
Speaker 1: inaccessible to the public. David Reichenbau met me there to
Speaker 1: explain how the Snipers turned the car into a mobile
Speaker 1: sniper outpost. The museum's collections manager, Laurence Sidney showed us
Speaker 1: to the car. Still a little messy, but there it is.
Speaker 1: Whoa This is not a wastra, not the Sniper's Caprice.
Speaker 1: Is a formidable car with navy blue matt paint. It
Speaker 1: has dull hubcaps and dark tinted windows. It felt strange
Speaker 1: to stand next to it, this car that the Snipers
Speaker 1: had used to commit so many cold blooded acts of evil.
Speaker 1: Now the car sits in a museum warehouse under sterile
Speaker 1: neon lights. It's been gutted, its seats torn apart by
Speaker 1: the FBI when they searched for evidence, so they tore
Speaker 1: everything out of it, so it's not exactly how it
Speaker 1: was when they lived with it. That they certainly made
Speaker 1: some strange modifications. Investigators found the car had been modified
Speaker 1: into a killing machine, with the snipers shooting through a
Speaker 1: hole in the trunk of the car. And we can
Speaker 1: take a look at the trunk. So there it is,
Speaker 1: there's the famous cut out just above the license plate.
Speaker 1: The snipers had cut a jagged notch into the trunk
Speaker 1: and opening just large enough to fit the end of
Speaker 1: the rifle barrel sticks out here, tripod was here. They
Speaker 1: had a brown glove that did shove through that hole.
Speaker 1: With this trunk down and a brown glove shoved in there,
Speaker 1: nobody noticed it. But the hole that the snipers carved
Speaker 1: into the trunk was just the beginning To use the
Speaker 1: weapon scope. The snipers would have needed to keep the
Speaker 1: trunk lid slightly ajar, just enough for the site to
Speaker 1: clear so they could get site picture down range. Anybody else,
Speaker 1: your your trunk opens, it'll eventually creep up like that
Speaker 1: because it's on spring. You don't want to do that
Speaker 1: and be seen, So you hooked the bungee cord, the
Speaker 1: one of little loops in here near the lock. That
Speaker 1: way he could control it. So when he was done shooting,
Speaker 1: you just pulled the trunk back down drove off. The
Speaker 1: snipers also created the secret entrance into the trunk through
Speaker 1: the backseat of the car, So the back seat pops
Speaker 1: down and you just crawl in here to the back.
Speaker 1: See that a little You see how they sort of
Speaker 1: goes down. That's where the rifle was when we poured
Speaker 1: it out of the car, so you wouldn't be able
Speaker 1: to see the rifle. See the back seat. Rik and
Speaker 1: Boss says that when they made the arrest, the car
Speaker 1: was littered with evidence. They found two walkie talkies, maps
Speaker 1: with locations of the shootings circled, and a note with
Speaker 1: the task Force tip line numbere. It looked like a
Speaker 1: car that somebody had been living in for a month.
Speaker 1: It clearly smelled like body odor and trash. Just picture
Speaker 1: the back seat, the driver's seat, floor filled full of
Speaker 1: fast food containers and some of their personal belongings, close stevds,
Speaker 1: some bags, and there were dated receipts and prepaid phone
Speaker 1: cards that investigators could use to retrace the sniper steps.
Speaker 1: The most important piece of evidence, though, was a laptop
Speaker 1: computer that proved a treasure trove of information. Investigators learned
Speaker 1: that the laptop had originally belonged to a man from Clinton, Maryland,
Speaker 1: a man named Paul Larufa. When the snipers started randomly
Speaker 1: shooting people, nobody said, oh, you know, this could be
Speaker 1: related to what happened to Paul. Nobody had reason to
Speaker 1: think that until they found my computer. My name is
Speaker 1: Paul Larufa. My wife and I decided to do a
Speaker 1: crazy thing like open a restaurant. So we did that
Speaker 1: in so in two thousand and two, were in our
Speaker 1: sixteenth year, and uh in September of that year is
Speaker 1: when when it happened. What they say is the start
Speaker 1: of everything. That they killed the five people in one
Speaker 1: day really wasn't a start. That's when the whole panics
Speaker 1: started for the next month, but it at least started
Speaker 1: on the East coast when they me There have been
Speaker 1: some recent developments in Lee Boy Malbo Supreme Court case
Speaker 1: that our team is actively investigating. As a result, Episode
Speaker 1: twelve will be released in two weeks. Next week, we
Speaker 1: will release a bonus episode. It's a behind the scenes
Speaker 1: look at the Monster series, and an update on Lee
Speaker 1: Boy Malvo's case still to come this season on Monster
Speaker 1: d C Sniper, they did have a three phase plan.
Speaker 1: The first phase was to shoot five Caucasions per day.
Speaker 1: Phase two they were going to shoot a pregnant woman.
Speaker 1: Washington was the first. There was Arizona. We don't know
Speaker 1: anything about the Atlanta shooting, the on anything about the
Speaker 1: next night shooting in Baton. Rouge Lee Malvo. When I
Speaker 1: looked at him, I knew he was a victim. He
Speaker 1: was a child who had been brainwashed. Do you have
Speaker 1: him listen to tapes when he was falling asleep giving
Speaker 1: him subliminal suggestions that there was essentially a war going
Speaker 1: on between blacks and whites. At the end of the
Speaker 1: Sooner View, I said, what was the motivation? Why did
Speaker 1: you guys do this? And he looked at me and
Speaker 1: he says, and I said, well, what does that mean?
Speaker 1: The matrix and things of that nature were part of
Speaker 1: the indoctrination. Well, that's someone like this loose. I think
Speaker 1: anything you can't tell them here in Virginia something. It
Speaker 1: doesn't save him. Okay, two minutes? Who did I do
Speaker 1: believe he was brainwashed? For lack of a better term.
Speaker 1: I get the feeling he agrees he has to pay
Speaker 1: a price, but I don't know if he thinks he's
Speaker 1: already paid it or not. I don't know the answer
Speaker 1: to that, but I'd like to ask him. You know,
Speaker 1: it's hard enough work in one murder and to have
Speaker 1: these third team shootings just in our area, let alone,
Speaker 1: what else went around the country. You know, we knew
Speaker 1: it was going to be a monumental task. One of
Speaker 1: the really most alarming moments was when Mohammed stood to
Speaker 1: represent himself. We had never heard from Mohammed at that point,
Speaker 1: and he stood up in court and started presenting a case.
Speaker 1: Part of Mohammed's indoctrination was to decessitize lee to the violence,
Speaker 1: to shootings. There's no amount of psychological coercion that would
Speaker 1: force somebody to, let's say, kill, if they didn't already
Speaker 1: have some kind of predisposition. Might he get out someday.
Speaker 1: I'm convinced he will, but I don't know when that
Speaker 1: time is. I remember feeling just basically shock and disblief
Speaker 1: that he could have done this. He just looked so innocent.
Speaker 1: How shocking, How shocking that a person who could commit
Speaker 1: such evil acts, could look like that. Yeah. Monster DC
Speaker 1: Sniper is a fifteen episode podcast hosted by Tony Harris
Speaker 1: and produced by iHeart Radio and Tenderfoot TV. Matt Frederick
Speaker 1: and Alex Williams are executive producers on behalf of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, alongside producers Trevor Young, Ben Kiebrick, and Josh
Speaker 1: Than Payne. Lindsay and Donald Albright are executive producers on
Speaker 1: behalf of Tenderfoot TV alongside producers Meredith Steadman and Christina Dana.
Speaker 1: Original music is by Makeup and Vanity Set. If you
Speaker 1: haven't already, be sure to check out the first two seasons,
Speaker 1: Atlanta Monster and Monster the Zodiac Killer. If you have
Speaker 1: questions or comments, email us at Monster at I heart
Speaker 1: media dot com, or you can call us at one
Speaker 1: eight three three to eight five six six six seven.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.