Speaker 1: Welcome to Monster DC Sniper, a production of iHeartRadio and
Speaker 1: Tenderfoot TV. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast
Speaker 1: are solely those of the podcast author or individuals participating
Speaker 1: in the podcast, and do not represent those of iHeartMedia,
Speaker 1: Tenderfoot TV, or their employees. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2: A deadly rampage victims slain randomly, all within a one
Speaker 2: mile radius, all within fifteen hours. The first shooting at
Speaker 2: six oh four last night, a fifty five year old
Speaker 2: Caucasian mail killed in the parking lot of a grocery store.
Speaker 2: Then early this morning, at seven forty one, a Hispanic
Speaker 2: man mowing his lawn shot dead. Half an hour later,
Speaker 2: a forty year old cab driver gunned down while pumping gas.
Speaker 2: Then another thirty minutes later, a Hispanic woman shot fatally
Speaker 2: in the head.
Speaker 3: It was a wrong eight in the morning.
Speaker 4: Aparked my car and I was laid for work, so
Speaker 4: I was running.
Speaker 3: My name is Susye Cooper.
Speaker 4: I was very lucky because at eight o'clock in the morning,
Speaker 4: I was the only car in that area, so they
Speaker 4: could easily have gotten me. I got inside the beauty
Speaker 4: shop and I went to have a cup of coffee,
Speaker 4: and all of a sudden I heard shot. I was
Speaker 4: really shaky. I opened the back.
Speaker 3: Door, thinking it was coming from there. No.
Speaker 4: But then night I went back up front of the
Speaker 4: shop and I saw this woman sitting on a bench.
Speaker 3: She was dead. It was so hard to believe what
Speaker 3: I was saying. You would think you're at a movie scene.
Speaker 3: You know, it was a mess.
Speaker 4: The bench was in front of a restaurant, so the
Speaker 4: bullet went through the window of the restaurant.
Speaker 3: That poor woman didn't see it coming.
Speaker 5: There is a ruthless person on the loose. What U
Speaker 5: nerves this community the most is the randomness of the murders.
Speaker 5: Ordinary people doing ordinary things.
Speaker 6: All that the victims appeared to have had in common,
Speaker 6: each was shot to death by a single bullet.
Speaker 7: Be careful, these guys are using weapons that are going
Speaker 7: to go right straight through our bullet proof vests.
Speaker 8: The massive man on continues, but police admit they don't
Speaker 8: know who are, what they're dealing with, or what their
Speaker 8: motive might be.
Speaker 6: The White Bag.
Speaker 9: From iHeartRadio and Tenderfoot TV. This is Monster DC sniper
Speaker 9: Thirty four year old Sierah Ramos was sitting on a
Speaker 9: bench in front of a Peruvian restaurant when the sniper
Speaker 9: shot and killed her. This was now the second day
Speaker 9: of attacks. Earlier that morning, Sunny Buchanan and prim Kumar
Speaker 9: Wallacher had both been shot and killed, making the third
Speaker 9: victim of the day. All of these shootings were horrifying
Speaker 9: and tragic, but for some reason, this shooting in particular
Speaker 9: always stuck with me, And when I visited the side
Speaker 9: of the murder, it unsettled me.
Speaker 10: Oh boy, this feels a little this feels a little
Speaker 10: loft putty.
Speaker 9: We're sitting in the parking lot and this is where
Speaker 9: Sarah Ramos was killed. Sarah was thirty four years old.
Speaker 9: She had just gotten off a bus and she was
Speaker 9: sitting on a bench, you know, next to a post office,
Speaker 9: and she was reading a book and she was shot.
Speaker 9: She was just I mean, the randomness of it. And
Speaker 9: that's what really gets you about all of these killings.
Speaker 9: You know, you're essentially a sitting duck. You have no
Speaker 9: way to defend yourself.
Speaker 10: No one did.
Speaker 9: A woman sitting on a bench reading a book. How
Speaker 9: friggin cowardly is that. It's just the idea that she's
Speaker 9: just plucked off man And just like that's no regard
Speaker 9: for human life at all. That's just that's literally target
Speaker 9: practice and they just drive away. That just sort of
Speaker 9: brings home for me the depravity of all of it.
Speaker 11: The victim was laying on a bench with a sheet
Speaker 11: over her. That was horrible, really. That's the first one
Speaker 11: that I went to. My name is John Desulis. I
Speaker 11: was a crime analyst for Montgovernent Keny Police. They called
Speaker 11: me to interview a witness who only spoke Spanish, Juan
Speaker 11: Carlos I think his name is.
Speaker 9: When police first arrived at the crime scene, they found
Speaker 9: one Carlos Vieta nearby.
Speaker 11: They don't know if he's a suspect, if he's a witness.
Speaker 11: He's probably around twenty two, I think, typical landscape looking
Speaker 11: guy where you know the landscape or uniform. So I
Speaker 11: took him aside and started asking him questions. He was
Speaker 11: pretty clear that he didn't see where the shots came from.
Speaker 11: There's a there's an access route that runs parallel to
Speaker 11: the parking lot. He was walking down that road and
Speaker 11: had actually passed the front of the store where she
Speaker 11: was sitting on the bench, and more or less as
Speaker 11: soon as he got past the like the corner where
Speaker 11: he could see her. He heard the shot. Within a
Speaker 11: few seconds, he saw a white box truck leave passed
Speaker 11: right by her and then drove west up to Georgia Avenue.
Speaker 11: It would have had to have been a drive by shooting.
Speaker 11: Almost It was like five seconds or something after he
Speaker 11: heard the shots, the van left the scene. He was
Speaker 11: the only one that was really close, and he was
Speaker 11: the only one that saw any kind of vehicle, And
Speaker 11: he described the box truck very well, you know, to
Speaker 11: the point where it had like damaged the rear bumper.
Speaker 9: Vita described a white box truck, a delivery truck with
Speaker 9: a cab and separate cargo. Area police immediately started pulling
Speaker 9: over white box trucks and similar vehicles, but finding that
Speaker 9: one truck in the middle of DC's rush hour traffic
Speaker 9: was almost impossible.
Speaker 11: Well, you know how many white box trucks there are
Speaker 11: out there.
Speaker 7: You're going to see at least two or three white
Speaker 7: vans or box trucks sitting in just about every parking
Speaker 7: lot in the country. My name is David C. Reichenbaugh,
Speaker 7: retired Lieutenant Maryland State Police.
Speaker 9: Reichenball played a major role in the DC sniper investigation
Speaker 9: and He later wrote a book that detailed what was
Speaker 9: going on behind the scenes.
Speaker 7: About nine thirty or so, I guess it was. I
Speaker 7: get a phone call from the Rockville Barrick Dave. I
Speaker 7: don't know what's going on here in Montgomery County, but
Speaker 7: there's been a rash of shootings. Montgomery police are running
Speaker 7: around like crazy. Looks like this might have started the
Speaker 7: night before. But we've got three bodies down and a
Speaker 7: shooter out there, and Montgomery County is asking for help.
Speaker 7: This could be the next terrorist attack. Can you get
Speaker 7: the state police rolling? If there's one thing that the
Speaker 7: Maryland State Police can do, and it's actually by design,
Speaker 7: we can get two hundred to three hundred troopers at
Speaker 7: any place in the state within a couple of hours.
Speaker 7: Our goal was to just simply flood the entire area
Speaker 7: with road troopers to supplement Montgomery County. The troopers were
Speaker 7: coming in from all over the state, and I had
Speaker 7: brief them on what we knew, which at that time was.
Speaker 12: Very very little.
Speaker 7: We were looking for a couple of guys in a
Speaker 7: white box truck shooting people. That's about what we knew.
Speaker 7: We didn't know if we had a single shooter. We
Speaker 7: didn't know if we had maybe multiple teams. Our troopers
Speaker 7: were stopping every white van, every white box truck, and
Speaker 7: their instructions were be careful because these guys are using
Speaker 7: weapons that are going to go right straight through our
Speaker 7: bulletproof vests. And a sniper case is about the worst
Speaker 7: con off case you can have. Most homicides, the shooter
Speaker 7: has some connection with the victim, boyfriend, girlfriend, ticked off, neighbor, relative,
Speaker 7: There's some sort of a connection that can be made.
Speaker 7: This case, we have nothing. A white van, white box truck,
Speaker 7: and a high speed bullet that's all we had. And
Speaker 7: spreading panic. We had plenty of that.
Speaker 13: There have been a number of white vans all across
Speaker 13: this county that have been stopped by police. Officer's a
Speaker 13: number of people calling in, in fact, so many people that,
Speaker 13: as Andrew mentioned, they're inundating the system. Don't call nine
Speaker 13: one one unless you feel that you have solid information
Speaker 13: about a white box truck.
Speaker 9: Police continued hunting for the white box truck, but the
Speaker 9: terror of October third was it over, and twenty minutes
Speaker 9: after the Ramo shooting, and just eight miles south on
Speaker 9: Connecticut Avenue, the sniper struck again The fourth shooting on
Speaker 9: October third, took place at nine fifty eight am. Maria
Speaker 9: Welsh stopped by Safeway after dropping off her kids at school.
Speaker 14: So I had come out of the grocery store. Literally,
Speaker 14: I remember just so vividly that the parking lot was
Speaker 14: completely empty.
Speaker 5: This is very quiet.
Speaker 14: It was probably about ten o'clock in the morning, and
Speaker 14: I just was loading the back of my car up
Speaker 14: and got in the car.
Speaker 5: And as I started the car and went to back out.
Speaker 14: Of my parking spot, I heard this loud like fop,
Speaker 14: this loud like kind of sound. Then at that moment,
Speaker 14: there was a gentleman walking behind my car. I remember
Speaker 14: like slamming on the brakes and saying, oh my goodness,
Speaker 14: did I just hit something? And he says to me, no,
Speaker 14: it came from in front of your car. So, as
Speaker 14: I was pulling up towards the main road, which is
Speaker 14: Connecticut Avenue, I hear someone calling for help and I
Speaker 14: kind of look over and I see this woman next
Speaker 14: to the vacuum cleaner laying on the ground.
Speaker 9: That woman, Lorii and Louis Rivera, had been cleaning her
Speaker 9: mini van using the gas station's vacuum. Now she was
Speaker 9: lying on the pavement tangled in the vacuum cleaner's hose.
Speaker 9: Maria Welsh, a nurse, jumped out of her car and
Speaker 9: raced over to help.
Speaker 14: And as I was running towards her, then I realized
Speaker 14: that I probably should have my cell phone in case
Speaker 14: I needed an ambulance. I turned to grab my cell phone,
Speaker 14: and when I turned background towards her, it looked like
Speaker 14: she was having a seizure. I at the time knew
Speaker 14: nothing about any snighbors shooting, and I thought that something
Speaker 14: had happened with the vacuum, like an electrical current of
Speaker 14: some sort. So as I was approaching her, I couldn't
Speaker 14: really do anything because the vacuum cleaner was still running.
Speaker 14: We always kind of learned that with you know, electrical equipment,
Speaker 14: you don't want to touch the victim.
Speaker 5: So I called nine one one.
Speaker 2: Yeah to the corner of Rolls Can.
Speaker 1: A woman was waking in her car.
Speaker 9: Something go ast you, I'm glacous.
Speaker 1: She's got me out of her nose in her mouth.
Speaker 15: What's coming out of her news in her mouth?
Speaker 16: Station? Yeah.
Speaker 14: The person that answered the phone said, Okay, well, do
Speaker 14: you know what happened? I said, no, I don't know
Speaker 14: what happened. I just heard this loud noise, like a
Speaker 14: loud bang. And she said, what kind of noise do
Speaker 14: you think it is? And I said, I don't know,
Speaker 14: like a bomb of some.
Speaker 15: Sort, like a bomb. Yeah, but it wasn't a bomb.
Speaker 17: I was like that kind of noise like a gunshot.
Speaker 9: Baby kind of.
Speaker 5: I said, I've never heard a gunshot.
Speaker 14: And she said, okay, just sit tight, we'll send an
Speaker 14: ambulance to you.
Speaker 5: And then the vacuum stopped.
Speaker 14: I do remember standing there being like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 14: Oh my gosh, what am I going to do for her?
Speaker 5: What can I do for her?
Speaker 14: And at this point a small crowd had sort of
Speaker 14: gathered around me, feeling like we have to do something,
Speaker 14: you know, what's the matter with her?
Speaker 5: Do something?
Speaker 14: And of course I make this big announcement like okay,
Speaker 14: I'm a nurse, I'm gonna do CPR. When I went
Speaker 14: to go pull the vacuum cleaner hose out from around her,
Speaker 14: she started bleeding from her mouth, which then prevented me
Speaker 14: from doing any kind of mouth to mouth, so I
Speaker 14: just started doing chest compressions. No ambulance arrives, there is
Speaker 14: a fire station that's less than a quarter of a
Speaker 14: mile from the gas station that I can see, and
Speaker 14: I'm thinking, why are they not sending me anything.
Speaker 5: I'm like, I need help.
Speaker 14: There's like a crowd now and we're all screaming, where's
Speaker 14: the ambulance, where's the ambulance. I later did find out
Speaker 14: that they had told first responders not to respond yet
Speaker 14: until the area was secure. And as a nurse, I
Speaker 14: can understand that. And you're trying to minimize the amount
Speaker 14: of casualties you have. You don't send everybody in, but
Speaker 14: when you're in it, I felt like I was being
Speaker 14: hung out to dry there for a second.
Speaker 5: Within a few minutes, this man shows up in this little.
Speaker 14: Pickup truck with like a tackle box of equipment and
Speaker 14: he says, I'm an EMT and I can help you.
Speaker 5: And I said great. I don't know what's happened.
Speaker 14: So at that point I start to notice that there's
Speaker 14: like swat team on top of the buildings across the
Speaker 14: street from us.
Speaker 5: There's agents everywhere.
Speaker 14: They have wrapped the entire area with like yellow tape,
Speaker 14: and they're now gathering people and telling them to go
Speaker 14: inside the gas station. And this agent comes up to
Speaker 14: me and tells me, I need to get inside the
Speaker 14: gas station quickly.
Speaker 5: I was like, I don't understand. I'm doing CPR. I'm
Speaker 5: a nurse.
Speaker 14: And he says the EMTs here, he can do it.
Speaker 14: You go inside, and I'm like, we really should be
Speaker 14: doing two persons CPR, and he's like, I'll do it
Speaker 14: and tells me to get inside the gas station. I said,
Speaker 14: I don't know why everyone's making such a big deal.
Speaker 14: This woman was vacuum your car, Like what is going on?
Speaker 14: So now we're all standing in the gas station and
Speaker 14: I called my husband at the time and I said, gosh,
Speaker 14: I'm so sorry. I decided to stop it the safeway
Speaker 14: before coming home, and something happened with some woman vacuumir
Speaker 14: car and I ended up doing CPR. So now the
Speaker 14: police are telling me I have to stay inside the
Speaker 14: gas station. And then within like five minutes, he calls
Speaker 14: me back and he's like, okay, you need to get
Speaker 14: out of there. That woman was shot and I was like, no,
Speaker 14: she wasn't. I think I would know if she'd been shot.
Speaker 14: I did CPR on this phone. There's no blood, there's
Speaker 14: no gunshot. I don't know what you're talking about. Mind
Speaker 14: you the bullet went through her back and then she
Speaker 14: fell backwards and landed on her back. There was no
Speaker 14: exit wound, so when we're doing CPR and chest compressions.
Speaker 5: There was nothing. You couldn't see anything.
Speaker 14: At this point, I think it was an FBI agent
Speaker 14: comes in to take our statements, and I remember asking,
Speaker 14: I said, you know, can you just tell me what
Speaker 14: happened with the woman?
Speaker 5: Was she shot? And he said she was.
Speaker 6: I got a phone call and that was one of
Speaker 6: the detectives. He asked me, are you Nelson Rivera. I
Speaker 6: said yes, and he said, Glorie is your wife? Said yes,
Speaker 6: she just got shot. And you know, from that point
Speaker 6: now my life changed completely. My name is Nelson Rivera
Speaker 6: and I was married to Laurie and Louis Rivera. I
Speaker 6: am from the country of Honduras, Central America. When I
Speaker 6: came to the United States, I started going to the
Speaker 6: churchurch Jesus Cribe litter Recent and that's when I met Laurie.
Speaker 6: She was a member of the church. She was a sweet,
Speaker 6: very sweet girl, and I fell in love with her.
Speaker 6: And the funny part was I didn't speak no English
Speaker 6: at all, so it was hard for me to ask
Speaker 6: her out for a date. But I figured out. I
Speaker 6: asked my older brother, can you call her? And told
Speaker 6: her I wanted to take her out for dinner. So
Speaker 6: he called her and she said, yeah, I take her
Speaker 6: to a Hispanic restaurant. And I don't know what to
Speaker 6: say because I didn't know how to say it. It
Speaker 6: was just weird and it's funny at the same time.
Speaker 6: You know, I was just looking at her and she
Speaker 6: was just looking at me. So after dinner, it was
Speaker 6: about eight o'clock at night. In front of us was
Speaker 6: the Temple Jesus, very very saying, and I knew that
Speaker 6: word Mary, And I asked her, do you want to
Speaker 6: marry me? And she told me, are you crazy? And
Speaker 6: I guess I was crazy by that time. I was
Speaker 6: lucky she took me back. We kept dating for a
Speaker 6: while and then we got married in November twenties. First
Speaker 6: in nineteen ninety seven, and Joselina she was born in
Speaker 6: January nineteen eighty nine, Laurie. She was a good mom.
Speaker 6: Joseline always wanted to go to the pool, and she
Speaker 6: always wanted Mommy to take her. She was so little,
Speaker 6: but she still remembered that mommy was taking her to
Speaker 6: the pool, and that's the only memory Jocelyne remember from
Speaker 6: her mom that morning before before I left to work.
Speaker 6: It was something completely different than any other day. She
Speaker 6: was sleeping and I just standing over her by the
Speaker 6: side of the bed for about five minutes and then
Speaker 6: I left. So when I was driving around eight o'clock
Speaker 6: in the morning, I was listening to the news in
Speaker 6: the radio and I heard about people being shot in Maryland.
Speaker 6: And I think it was about close to nine o'clock.
Speaker 6: I got a phone call and that was one of
Speaker 6: the detectives and he asked me, are you Nelson Rivera
Speaker 6: And I said yes, and he said are you driving?
Speaker 6: Said yes, it's somebody with you and I said yes,
Speaker 6: and he told me, can you pull over? I got
Speaker 6: something to tell you, but I want you to pull over.
Speaker 6: So I pulled over and he said, Laurie's your wife.
Speaker 6: Said yes, she just got shot. I just got off
Speaker 6: of that truck and I run across the street because
Speaker 6: I don't know what to do. And you know, I
Speaker 6: was lucky a car don't hit me or something. It's
Speaker 6: even hard, you know, after her so many years, she
Speaker 6: was so young, she was just twenty four years old.
Speaker 6: You know, we drove back to Kensington, Maryland, to that
Speaker 6: she had gas station where she got shot. You know,
Speaker 6: her blood was there, and you know, there was a
Speaker 6: lot of people and I was just wondering, you know,
Speaker 6: if my daughter was in the car. And fifteen minutes
Speaker 6: before that happened, she dropped Jocelyna off on the dacre.
Speaker 6: So I kicked her up and she was three years
Speaker 6: in eight month. But I said, you know, Joselyne, I
Speaker 6: got to talk to you. That was the most hard
Speaker 6: part for me to do. What am I going to say?
Speaker 6: You know, there's just millions of things to come to
Speaker 6: my head. I said, Jocelyne, Mommy is she's not gonna
Speaker 6: be with us anymore. She's with heaven with father. Now.
Speaker 6: She's gonna watch us from there. She's going to watch
Speaker 6: you the whole time. That was not an easy thing
Speaker 6: to say. It really really impact Joseline's life. Any holidays,
Speaker 6: any mother's day is just it's been hard. When she
Speaker 6: was young, you know, she was saying that Daddy, I
Speaker 6: just I just want to die, you know, to go
Speaker 6: with my mom because she's in heaven, so I want
Speaker 6: to be in heaven with her. You know, that was
Speaker 6: that was devastating for me every time when she was
Speaker 6: saying something like that, I said, you know, it's not
Speaker 6: our time yet. I said, everybody is going to have
Speaker 6: their own time, and she'll be waiting for us. That's
Speaker 6: the kind of thing I was dealing with. And you know,
Speaker 6: still and now she's she's twenty, but there are some
Speaker 6: moments you've seen. Still miss her mom. You know, it's
Speaker 6: not the same.
Speaker 9: While victims' families grieved the senseless loss of their loved ones,
Speaker 9: the police and the media were stepping into high gear.
Speaker 9: Here's former police Lieutenant David Reichenbaugh again.
Speaker 7: As word was getting out through the media and everywhere,
Speaker 7: the panic was starting to set in.
Speaker 2: Many of the merchants, out of fear, have locked their
Speaker 2: doors and they're letting customers in and out as necessary.
Speaker 5: There's a great deal of fear going on.
Speaker 7: If you remember, this is back in the early days
Speaker 7: of cable news, so this was new for law enforcement
Speaker 7: to have to deal with a media that was twenty
Speaker 7: four to seven. Causes some problems down the road because
Speaker 7: it was a learning curve, not only I think for
Speaker 7: the media, but also for us.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of concern since these shootings are so
Speaker 2: random and it's so public that parents have wanted to
Speaker 2: go to the schools and pull their kids out.
Speaker 13: A little while ago, we heard from the local police
Speaker 13: Captain Charles Moose.
Speaker 5: Here's what he had to say.
Speaker 18: We have no information that this is anything to do
Speaker 18: with the schools. None of the victims have been of
Speaker 18: anything close to school age. None of the locations are
Speaker 18: close to the schools. I think the school kids are safe.
Speaker 18: They will be released under normal schedule. We won't create
Speaker 18: a situation of panic of traffic that at this point
Speaker 18: the police department is not capable of hounding. Now, certainly
Speaker 18: I can't arrest a parent that insists on going to
Speaker 18: the school to get their kid, but please don't do it.
Speaker 18: It doesn't help the situation at this point. So please
Speaker 18: the media if you can help me get that message out.
Speaker 9: Derek Balliles was a public information officer for Montgomery County, Maryland.
Speaker 9: It was his jump to manage relations between the media
Speaker 9: and the police.
Speaker 16: Dealing with the media on a case that's attracted the
Speaker 16: attention of the country was a little bit overwhelming. Showed
Speaker 16: up in our parking lot and just set up tents
Speaker 16: in In fact, we called it Camp Moose. Those of
Speaker 16: us who are public information officers refer to how big
Speaker 16: an event is based upon how many chemical toilets are delivered,
Speaker 16: and I believe this was a five seater, so it
Speaker 16: was big. I'd go out and talk to the media
Speaker 16: to find out what they wanted to know, and then
Speaker 16: come back to Chief Moose and the others who were
Speaker 16: making the decisions about what was going to be said.
Speaker 16: We tried to tell the public everything we could about
Speaker 16: how to keep safe. Of course, there's things that we
Speaker 16: can't tell you because we're in the process of investigating
Speaker 16: it at this time that if we were to release
Speaker 16: the information early it might ruin everything. We didn't have
Speaker 16: a whole lot of information to tell the public, so
Speaker 16: we've tried to provide the best information we could to people,
Speaker 16: and one of those things was about the white panel van.
Speaker 8: Police have had little to go on, only one witnesses
Speaker 8: description of a white truck speeding away from one murder's a.
Speaker 8: School Children were kept indoors through the they and police
Speaker 8: were on hand when schools let out. Police admit they
Speaker 8: don't know who are, what they're dealing with, or what
Speaker 8: their motive might be.
Speaker 12: The first big day is like, why Montgomery County, who
Speaker 12: has a grudge? What are they trying to prove?
Speaker 9: That's Patrick McNerney, the homicide detective who'd been assigned to
Speaker 9: the first murder outside the Shopper's food warehouse. Now after
Speaker 9: four more shootings in Montgomery County, the case and potential
Speaker 9: motives looked very different.
Speaker 12: Who are people who work for the police department might
Speaker 12: be a little unhinged, either current or retired. Let's find
Speaker 12: out where these people are and actually put your hand
Speaker 12: on them and know where they were during this timeframe.
Speaker 12: And that was our first thing we did, kind of
Speaker 12: like you know, Wizard of Oz, start at the very
Speaker 12: beginning of the yellow brick road and you know, work
Speaker 12: your way out.
Speaker 9: But that theory would be quickly thrown out. That night,
Speaker 9: at nine to twenty pm, investigators got their first indication
Speaker 9: that the snipers weren't just focused on Montgomery County. The
Speaker 9: snipers had now moved into the nation's capital. It was
Speaker 9: now nine to twenty pm the night of October third.
Speaker 9: After laying low for almost twelve hours, the snipers had
Speaker 9: just shot their fifth victim of the day, and they
Speaker 9: crossed over the border into Washington, d C.
Speaker 18: Yeah, we got get a shot out here on the
Speaker 18: I'm on the corner at Georgia and drinking Collomnia.
Speaker 9: Street Intection, California.
Speaker 2: Okay, k A l M I A word north just
Speaker 2: by the topogra on a KFT.
Speaker 9: He was bleeding like a lor fucker.
Speaker 7: He's greaten that.
Speaker 9: The victim, Pascal Charlot, was a seventy two year old
Speaker 9: Haitian immigrant and a retired carpenter. He was standing on
Speaker 9: a street corner when he was shot.
Speaker 15: I need to try and drink it over.
Speaker 9: Come on right, Okay there, what's get here?
Speaker 7: It just got shot.
Speaker 16: He's freaking.
Speaker 6: He's like.
Speaker 16: He's still breeding.
Speaker 9: But Pascal Charlotte died less than an hour later. There
Speaker 9: were a few witnesses nearby when the shot rang out.
Speaker 9: One reported seeing a sedan driving with its headlights off.
Speaker 9: Another saw a bright flash of light, but that was
Speaker 9: about it. No one had spotted the white box truck
Speaker 9: let alone its license played. The next morning, Friday, October fourth,
Speaker 9: Maryland's chief medical examiner autopsied the victims and extracted bullet
Speaker 9: fragments from their bodies. He sent them to Wall Dandridge, Junior,
Speaker 9: a forensic firearm examiner at the ATF lab in Maryland.
Speaker 17: It's not unusual for state and local to ask ATF
Speaker 17: to assist them with firearms related crimes.
Speaker 10: ATF, in fact, is the firearms police. Essentially. My name
Speaker 10: is Walter Dandridge, Junior.
Speaker 17: I work for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Speaker 10: Firearms have rifling.
Speaker 17: Cut into the barrel and they're in a helical twist
Speaker 17: within the barrel, and so when the bullet is fired,
Speaker 17: that rifling imparts a spin on the bullet. You see
Speaker 17: a quarterback throw a football in slow motion and has
Speaker 17: this tight spiral and is flying straight and true. You
Speaker 17: want this tight spiral spin in order to maintain the
Speaker 17: stability of the projectile.
Speaker 9: A gun's rifling does more than add a spin to
Speaker 9: the bullet. It carves grooves into the sides of the
Speaker 9: bullet as well, creating marks that a forensic firearm examiner
Speaker 9: like Dandridge can analyze. Dandridge compared the bullets from different
Speaker 9: shootings against one another to see if they had been
Speaker 9: fired from the same gun.
Speaker 17: So I stick one projectile on the left stage of
Speaker 17: the comparison microscope, and I'll stick the second projectile on
Speaker 17: the right stage of the microscope, and I'm looking through
Speaker 17: the eyepiece, and I can manipulate the bullets on each
Speaker 17: of those stages, rotating them and looking at the microscopic marks,
Speaker 17: I could raise the magnification to twenty twenty five thirty
Speaker 17: x and see those marks clearly. If all of that
Speaker 17: is corresponding, then we will call that an identification, which
Speaker 17: would indicate that they were fired from the same firearm.
Speaker 9: Dandridge confirmed what everyone feared. All of the recovered bullets
Speaker 9: had been fired from the same high powered rifle. There
Speaker 9: was a sniper on the loose killed one person on Wednesday,
Speaker 9: October second, and then five more on Thursday, October third,
Speaker 9: And now it was Friday, October fourth, and everyone was
Speaker 9: on edge about what would happen next. Here's retired homicide
Speaker 9: Detective McNerney again.
Speaker 12: It was Friday. I had just gotten in into the
Speaker 12: office and my supervisor, Nick de Carlo, came to me.
Speaker 12: He says, listen, you need to get your papers together.
Speaker 12: You're going to Fredericksburg, Virginia for a shooting outside of
Speaker 12: a Michael's down there.
Speaker 10: Is emercy.
Speaker 6: Yes, I am in front of Michaels and somebody's out here,
Speaker 6: who need some help?
Speaker 8: Okay, let's go on.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure.
Speaker 8: There was a loud crack and she said she needs
Speaker 8: help and she's lying down home.
Speaker 15: So she got injured or uh yeah, I.
Speaker 12: Definitely injured shared herself.
Speaker 6: I'm not sure it was allowed.
Speaker 12: You know, it looks like she's been shot or shot.
Speaker 6: Yeah, she saw that.
Speaker 9: Okay, I could come back and get my son out
Speaker 9: of her car.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I know, let's get Okay, we're getting somebody on
Speaker 6: the way. I pulled up and there was a loud
Speaker 6: you know, gunshot.
Speaker 13: Did you see anything or anyone?
Speaker 7: You just heard a loud pop.
Speaker 13: I heard the call for help, and.
Speaker 14: I saw the car.
Speaker 2: You saw, Well, I didn't.
Speaker 14: I didn't see the car. You didn't see the car
Speaker 14: I saw.
Speaker 6: I noticed that a car was screwing away, but I
Speaker 6: did not see it.
Speaker 12: Okay, anyone else, No, the same thing.
Speaker 17: We were aware that the car sped away, but we
Speaker 17: did not actually cast us what it was.
Speaker 6: Okay, someone says there was a man in it.
Speaker 5: What about the lady at the sender?
Speaker 14: Did she see it?
Speaker 1: Lot?
Speaker 14: Are people around here right now?
Speaker 8: Did you actually see the car?
Speaker 2: No, she didn't see it.
Speaker 16: Okay, are you in the parking lot.
Speaker 11: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 9: Forty three year old Caroline Seawell was the seventh victim
Speaker 9: in just three days. She just finished a simple errand
Speaker 9: at Michael's and she was loading bags into her mini
Speaker 9: van when a bullet pierced her back. It tore through
Speaker 9: her liver and punctured her lung. But when detective McNerney
Speaker 9: heard that this shooting, like the first, took place at
Speaker 9: a Michael's craft store, he perked up.
Speaker 12: Now we at least have some connection, you know, what
Speaker 12: are the connection between these two places? And so this
Speaker 12: thing happens in Spotsylvania County in Virginia. My surprise, Nick said, listen,
Speaker 12: you got two helicopters waiting for you over at the
Speaker 12: police Academy and they'll take you down there. That was
Speaker 12: my big adventure to fly in the helicopter with the FBI.
Speaker 9: As Detective McNerney flew south to Fredericksburg, Virginia, Caroline Seawell
Speaker 9: was metavacked north to a hospital in Fairfax.
Speaker 12: As a matter of fact, our helicopters crossed one another's
Speaker 12: path on the way down there.
Speaker 9: Seawell was rushed into emergency surgery and miraculously she survived. Meanwhile,
Speaker 9: mcnerney's helicopter arrived in Fredericksburg.
Speaker 12: We landed right in the parking lot where the Michaels
Speaker 12: was down there. And when I went in talking to
Speaker 12: the manager of the place, you know, what is your
Speaker 12: connection with Montgomery County? Oddly enough, the same guy who
Speaker 12: set up the store Montgomery County set up the store
Speaker 12: in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Okay, well, now we have a connection.
Speaker 12: Then you know, why would somebody want to shoot you
Speaker 12: or somebody at the store and we're coming up with
Speaker 12: blanks on that.
Speaker 9: McNerney was convinced that the crimes were connected, but he'd
Speaker 9: need a bullet to prove it.
Speaker 12: The round was recovered, or what was left of it.
Speaker 12: As Sewell was putting stuff in the back of her van,
Speaker 12: her arm was up pulling down the tailgate when she
Speaker 12: was shot. The round went through her and stayed inside
Speaker 12: the rear of the van. I met with the sheriff, explaining,
Speaker 12: this is what we have Montgomery County. What you're telling
Speaker 12: me here fits the things that we're looking for. And
Speaker 12: then there was discussion about what are you going to
Speaker 12: do with the round? And they're like, well, we'll submit
Speaker 12: it to Virginia State Police and you know, we'll get
Speaker 12: something back in a couple of months. Like, let me
Speaker 12: make this offer to you. Sign the evidence over to me,
Speaker 12: and I'll take it directly down to the ATF lab
Speaker 12: and they'll examine it, hopefully within twenty four hours. They
Speaker 12: ultimately said that's the better route, and fortunately for me,
Speaker 12: the FBI stayed there with their helicopter. It was interesting though,
Speaker 12: this was a sniper helicopter, Old Hughy. So on the
Speaker 12: way down there, I could sit on the outboard seat
Speaker 12: looking out the window, the doors wide open. But on
Speaker 12: the way back the guys had their night vision goggles
Speaker 12: on and they were sitting on the outboard seat like wow,
Speaker 12: I didn't know it would be a target. But I
Speaker 12: got back there, I took the round to ATF.
Speaker 17: He had his lights and sirens on and the brakes
Speaker 17: were smoking when he reached the lab.
Speaker 9: That's forensic Firearm Examine Walter Dandridge Again.
Speaker 17: There was a lot of urgency during this time, but
Speaker 17: the urgency wasn't at the sacrifice of quality. We didn't
Speaker 17: do anything different with the sniper investigation other than once
Speaker 17: we received the evidence, we worked it right through. If
Speaker 17: that meant working all night. We did that as opposed
Speaker 17: to quitting after eight hours.
Speaker 12: The next morning decision was, yes, it's included in our case.
Speaker 12: Let's get the sheriff up here and do the press announcement.
Speaker 9: The weekend brought a break from the shootings, and some
Speaker 9: wondered if the spree had ended as quickly as it began,
Speaker 9: but police were working over time. They interviewed employees from Michaels,
Speaker 9: questioned white box truck owners, and checked up on people
Speaker 9: who'd recently bought or sold rifles in the area, but
Speaker 9: they didn't come up with many promising leads. On Saturday,
Speaker 9: October fifth, police said they had the tained demand Robert Baker,
Speaker 9: who had been reported missing around the time of the shootings.
Speaker 9: He'd left his home in Montgomery County, Maryland, and taken
Speaker 9: with him a rifle that fired the same kind of
Speaker 9: bullets used in the attacks, and reportedly he was affiliated
Speaker 9: with militia and white supremacist groups, but after initial hopes
Speaker 9: he was connected to the attacks, police ruled him out.
Speaker 9: Speaking to the Washington Post, Montgomery County Police Chief Charles
Speaker 9: Moose said, quote, I would just like to express the
Speaker 9: fact that mister Baker's vehicle is a dark blue GMC
Speaker 9: pickup truck. It never has been white, never has been
Speaker 9: associated with the white box truck we've been talking about.
Speaker 9: The Next day, Sunday, October sixth, marked the first funeral
Speaker 9: for one of the victims, prim Kumar Wallaker, the taxi
Speaker 9: driver who'd been shot at the gas station. Caroline Namro attended.
Speaker 9: She was the doctor who witnessed the shooting and gave
Speaker 9: of Wallacher CPR.
Speaker 15: It was very It was very emotional, obviously very devastating
Speaker 15: to his family. They asked me what his final words
Speaker 15: were and I told them, you know, unfortunately he didn't
Speaker 15: have time to say any messages to his family. And
Speaker 15: I did relate what had happened, and then they asked
Speaker 15: me to speak, which I was quite shocked that they
Speaker 15: wanted me to speak.
Speaker 10: It was a very big.
Speaker 15: Funeral, was in a church. During the time that people
Speaker 15: were speaking, I had a few minutes to sit down
Speaker 15: and collect my thoughts, and I did get up and speak.
Speaker 15: I remember saying that it was such a terrible waste
Speaker 15: of a life. This is devastating, and I remember thinking
Speaker 15: that I should try and say something religious, because it
Speaker 15: wasn't a church. So the only thing I could think
Speaker 15: of was a blessing to the family, that God would
Speaker 15: turn his face to them, shine his light on them,
Speaker 15: and give them peace, which is the priestly blessing. And
Speaker 15: I said to the police liaison lady, I said, I
Speaker 15: don't want my face to be on television. They still
Speaker 15: hadn't found the snipers. I didn't want anybody to find
Speaker 15: me or come to the house or anything. In the evening,
Speaker 15: if I was putting the kids to bed and it
Speaker 15: was very quiet in the house, just felt a little nervous.
Speaker 9: Everyone shared that anxiety, even police officers working the case.
Speaker 9: Here's retired Maryland State Police Lieutenant David Reichenbaugh.
Speaker 7: Again, I was a parent of a teenage girl at
Speaker 7: that point. Hey, your kids are everything. There's concern, there's panic,
Speaker 7: and of course there's that. I want to call it
Speaker 7: the unrealistic thought process, because I went through it too.
Speaker 7: I was concerned about my kid. Is my kid going
Speaker 7: to be a target in all this. Now, the police
Speaker 7: side of me says, that's just unrealistic and the odds
Speaker 7: are astronomical. But dad part of me says, hey, my
Speaker 7: kid could be the next target. I guarantee you every parent,
Speaker 7: certainly in Montgomery County and now the District of Columbia.
Speaker 7: We're beginning to think the same thing. How could you not?
Speaker 7: And then Monday October seventh, eight oh eight am, Benjamin
Speaker 7: Tasker Middle School are worst fear?
Speaker 9: Next time? On Monster DC Sniper.
Speaker 8: This was a copy of.
Speaker 12: Prince George's County Now on one call.
Speaker 1: Well, Hello, this is in middle school.
Speaker 6: Uh you got a child out the station. All right,
Speaker 6: I'm the Prince school to school here, I don't know where,
Speaker 6: I have no idea.
Speaker 7: That's the deathshead terror card. The message here is that
Speaker 7: quite obvious.
Speaker 10: Call me God.
Speaker 7: They decide who lives, they decide who dies.
Speaker 1: There was a very quick realization that this could be
Speaker 1: the next stage of a terror campaign.
Speaker 7: And there it is all over network news, which meant
Speaker 7: we had an internal leak.
Speaker 1: Monster d C Sniper is a fifteen episode podcast hosted
Speaker 1: by Tony Harris and produced by iHeartRadio and Tenderfoot TV.
Speaker 1: Matt Frederick and Alex Williams are executive producers on behalf
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio, alongside producers Trevor Young, ben keebrig and Josh Thain,
Speaker 1: Payne Lindsay and Donald Albright. Are executive producers on behalf
Speaker 1: of Tenderfoot TV, alongside producers Meredith Stedman and Christina Dana.
Speaker 1: Original music is by Makeup and Vanity Set. If you
Speaker 1: haven't already, be 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 iHeartMedia dot com,
Speaker 1: or you can call us at one eight three three
Speaker 1: two eight five six six sixty seven. Thanks for listening.