January 9, 2020 • 37 mins
On October 7th, our worst fear is realized. And the sniper leaves a message.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Monster DC Sniper, a production of iHeartRadio 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 iHeartMedia,
Tenderfoot TV, or their employees. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Monday, October seventh, two thousand and two. It's now day
six of the Sniper investigation. After two whole days with
no shootings, the area seemed calm, but that feeling didn't
last long.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
It happened very early in the morning, well before the
buses or any classes began.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
This is Karen Pumphrey, a former teacher at Tasker Middle School.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
I was on a landing and I heard someone kick
the 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
(01:07):
twenty feet down near the drive. He was alone, nobody 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.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
But I knew he was in pain. It was clear,
but I really didn't think it was shot. So I
was like, we're gonna get you some help. I went in.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
I said, Iron is hurt. He says he's been shot.
So they called nine one one.
Speaker 5 (01:35):
Oh hello, this is banking the cats in middle school,
we had a child outside that says he's spot.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
And the principal got up and when we came out,
he wasn't out front anymore, only as backack was there,
and this silver car was pulling away from the curb.
Speaker 4 (01:51):
We didn't know what was wrong with him, and we
didn't know who was in the car.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
So one of the counselors came running up, jumped in
his car and followed.
Speaker 6 (02:03):
There is a ruthless person on the loose.
Speaker 7 (02:06):
What unnerves this community the most is the randomness of
the murders, ordinary people doing ordinary things.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
They killed the five people in one day and then
went on the rampage for the next month.
Speaker 8 (02:18):
It is quite a mystery.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
The police say they have never had a crime quite
like this.
Speaker 9 (02:23):
Be careful, these guys are using weapons that are going
to go right straight through our bulletproof.
Speaker 10 (02:28):
Vest White.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
From iHeartRadio and Tenderfoot TV. This is Monster DC Sniper.
Thirteen year old Iron Brown arrived at Tasker Middle School
at about seven thirty am on October seventh. It seemed
to be a completely normal Monday morning, except, of course,
(02:54):
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 Brown disappeared. John Lloyd was the principal at Tasker
Middle School. He explained what was happening to a nine
one one dispatcher.
Speaker 8 (03:12):
How were you the principals to school.
Speaker 5 (03:15):
Did somebody's drive off with him here?
Speaker 10 (03:19):
I don't know where.
Speaker 8 (03:20):
I had no idea.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
It turns out, you know, his aunt had dropped him
off and then went to pull away. It must have
occurred immediately because she hadn't gotten out of the parking
lot yet.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
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.
Speaker 7 (03:41):
My first, Oh my god, I think I'm going to
be able to drive wind Nasty to the hospital.
Speaker 5 (03:47):
What's the matter with him? He just got shot.
Speaker 8 (03:50):
He is gonna die.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Iron Brown's aunt, Tanya Brown, actually called nine one one
as she rushed him to the hospital.
Speaker 7 (04:02):
So are you okay?
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Tanya was trapped in the morning rush hour traffic and
Iron was bleeding out in her car.
Speaker 11 (04:14):
I gotta go.
Speaker 12 (04:15):
Let me go, mis Brown, this Brown, I need you.
Speaker 4 (04:21):
But I'm almost there.
Speaker 12 (04:22):
I'm getting ready to turn in right now.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
He didn't see who shot if he doesn't know, I.
Speaker 8 (04:26):
Didn't see anybody, and he didn't see anybody.
Speaker 5 (04:29):
No, okay, go ahead and go in the yarm.
Speaker 13 (04:32):
We're gonna send user out, Okay.
Speaker 4 (04:33):
Okay, all right.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
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 met of 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 safe and then
of course, immediately, like within minutes, parents start calling I'm
coming to get my kids. We had at the time
maybe thirteen hundred kids, and by the end of the
(05:16):
day we had twenty three left.
Speaker 7 (05:19):
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. We're adults, so we're
not going to dismiss school. We're going to keep school
in session, and we are going to secure students within buildings.
Speaker 8 (05:39):
I'm almost positive they said do not come to the school.
But I did make it to the school. So there's
hundreds of other parents. It's very difficult to tell a
parent I had to come to the school when your
job could have been in danger. My name is Jerald Caverer.
I live in Brandywine, Maryland. I woke up that more it.
(06:00):
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, so of course
she's doing normal kids. Goodbye, I have a good day, behave.
As I was leaving, oh my side, a bunch of
police cars and amulans and fire trucks over by the school,
(06:24):
and I thought about stopping over there, but then I said,
now let me get out of here. It's too much trafficking.
So I get on abut fifty and I hear on
the radio that's breaking news a boy had been shot
at Benjamin Taska Middle School. So from that point I'm
driving fast down Route fifty to the school and calling
my wife to find out what's going on. Is she
(06:45):
taking to school? And say, okay, she's not answering the phone.
I went to the school. It was chaotic. There were
children everywhere that the parents everywhere that were police, five personnel, ambulance, emtens,
unbelievable singing, and I'm walking through the parking lot. There
was a lot of kindents greeting their children in tears
(07:05):
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
release to know that he was okay. At the same time,
it was sad. My son actually took a classes too
with the young man who was shot. Very emotional day.
(07:27):
I mean, just to know that mostarn could have been
a target. It's a scary fellow.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Imagine learning that someone had been shot at your child's 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.
Speaker 11 (07:55):
The youngster 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 youngster within what's called the golden hour. Your
chances of survival from any kind of injury is much
greater if you can get curtical 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 youngster by making sure he had an IV
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 scapula,
(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 an hour and a half two hour operation.
(09:43):
He got stabilized to he stopped bleeding. We were able
to treat his lung without having to take any of
the lung out. A couple of the organs 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 just a little bit more
(10:05):
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 survive, and so we were happy just to have
him stable. And during that time there was an effort
by the enforcement community to try to retrieve the bullet.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Doctor Eichelberger's colleague, Kurt Newman was in charge of communicating
with the police.
Speaker 11 (10:34):
And so doctor 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 at
the X ray and put my finger down where I
thought the bullet was, and yes, I could palpit it
with my finger. I was able to pull out this bullet.
I gave it specifically to doctor Newman, who gave it
(10:56):
to a specific person to make sure that that chain
of evidence was keptain tact.
Speaker 14 (11:10):
When we were contacted about what had happened, and of
course we all sat and shocked.
Speaker 15 (11:15):
We just couldn't believe, and we kept asking, are you sure?
Are you sure? My name is doctor Wayne R. Curtis's
cousin to the Brown family.
Speaker 14 (11:28):
We're obviously very scared and anxious about what was going
to happen with him having gotten shot like that at
such a young age.
Speaker 15 (11:36):
And that he would come out of it okay.
Speaker 14 (11:38):
But it's time told he's doing okay, but at that
time we were just all just concerned.
Speaker 15 (11:44):
For his life.
Speaker 14 (11:47):
We went to the hospital with my sons to visit
with him.
Speaker 15 (11:53):
At that point in time, there was a request to
meet with the press.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
National media wanted Iron Brown's parents to provide a statement,
but Curtis has the parents were still processing their shock.
Speaker 14 (12:06):
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 can be unnerving.
As we were walking up the hallway, I don't think
we got more than five steps onto the sidewalk after
(12:27):
the building and just said, look, we can't do this.
Speaker 15 (12:30):
You should do this, and I said, okay, I'll do it.
Speaker 16 (12:33):
He continues to remain in critical but stable condition. He's
a fighter. We remain optimistic, as our doctors have told us,
this is a marathon, not a sprint, but we are
confident that we will make it to the finish line.
Speaker 14 (12:49):
Do you think about the magnitude of a child, any
person getting shot, but you know when children get shot,
It sort of magnifies it even more.
Speaker 15 (13:00):
Had psychological issues from a current.
Speaker 17 (13:03):
The family as much as possible, they try to normalize
his life and their lives of a very, very unfortunate tragedy.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Iron Brown was alive and safe, but back at Tasker
Middle School, authorities were still trying to make sense of
the attack. What kind of person would shoot a thirteen
year old? Soon police would get a major clue, a
communication from the snipers. The shooting at Tasker Middle School
(13:49):
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 can once again.
The question came up, is this foreign terrorism? Many in
the DC area certainly thought so. On the day Iron
(14:10):
Brown was shot, wamu's Kojo Nandi show field that live
calls about the shooting.
Speaker 5 (14:17):
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 anytime, any place, anywhere I want to,
and they're doing it around the nation's capital to make
a statement.
Speaker 12 (14:32):
I 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.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
And the media had helped fuel that fear. All over
cable news TV stations were speculating that this was quite
possibly an act of terror.
Speaker 6 (15:00):
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.
Speaker 18 (15:10):
It became pretty clear to people that these random shootings
across DC and around DC were linked.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
This is journalists and historian Garret Graff. He says, it
made sense that people thought foreign terrorists were responsible for
the sniper attacks.
Speaker 18 (15:29):
There was a very quick realization that this could be
the next stage of 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
(15:52):
since the nine to eleven attacks. In some ways, the
idea that these sniper 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,
(16:17):
making it impossible 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, a drive
to work. The attacks on these commuters, these workers, these
families around DC, in some ways seemed a very logical
(16:40):
next stage of Al Qaeda targeting the homeland and really
threatened to make ordinary daily life in America insecure.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
While the country was debating who was behind these attacks,
investigators were working to find the sniper. Following the shooting
of Iron Brown, police shut down the area surrounding Tasker
Middle School. They began searching looking for any clues. Benjamin
(17:13):
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 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
(17:35):
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 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 seventh.
Speaker 19 (17:56):
My name is Mike Pyle with the United States Marshall Service.
Over see our canine operations program, and back in two
thousand and two, my partner was Explosive Detection K nine
Beacon and he was trained for explosives and weapons detection.
Speaker 13 (18:10):
I'm curious as to the jurisdictional lines here. Right, a
number of agencies are here. Tell me why the US
Martial Service is called in so it's about resources.
Speaker 19 (18:22):
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 that 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.
(18:42):
ATL trained dogs literally are sniffing explosives, probably multiple times
a day because we have to feed them.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
To train dogs like beacon and maintain their sensitivity to
certain odors. The dogs are only fed when they detect
the odors correctly.
Speaker 19 (18:57):
It's classical conditioning. When the dogs come in order, beacon
would start salivating because it's Pavlov's theory, you know, the
bell rings he anticipates in the food coming in, so
they automatically salivate. So those are the changes that we
look for.
Speaker 20 (19:11):
So if the dog says, hey, I.
Speaker 19 (19:13):
Give you the indication that the contract is, you have
kay me that the payment.
Speaker 20 (19:16):
Is the food.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
So Michael, take me back to the day.
Speaker 13 (19:20):
How does that day start for you?
Speaker 19 (19:22):
On October seventh, two thousand and 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 right now was Iron Brown's backpack. You could see
definitely to see a little bit of a pool of
blood that was still left there. Someone said that they
(19:46):
saw somebody or heard a gunshot on the front of
the school up on that hill, so.
Speaker 13 (19:50):
That would be across the street from the cross.
Speaker 19 (19:52):
The street, and of course that white box truck. They
said that they saw white box truck.
Speaker 15 (19:57):
That up in the hill.
Speaker 19 (19:58):
To hear kind of did makes sense to us. You
would have to literally bend a 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 I selected my search area and
(20:21):
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 branch that was underground. And honestly,
(20:44):
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 racket, meaning he's in order, but he wants to
get to where the most of the orders coming from
(21:06):
left to right, left to right, left to right. Boom,
he sniffs and he sits and a big drool comes out.
So once that occurred, we stopped PG County officer, the
PG County officer, the SWAT officer.
Speaker 20 (21:17):
Well, the officers went out, got some of.
Speaker 19 (21:19):
The evidence technicians to come in, and they all start
to actually literally search this area. And then I was
told that the shewcasing was located. If you step back
five ten feet, unless you really look, you're not going
to see somebody hiding there. So if you kind of
actually look, it's a perfect line of sight. So I
(21:39):
fully believe that he may have laid that rifle right
on that piece of word, took the shot. The shellcasing
comes out, and it's that area where they located the shellcasing,
and with that they've worked their way backwards and that's
where they find the terror card.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
A tarot card, 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,
(22:25):
young or old. The card seemed to perfectly capture the
sniper's mo o. No one is safe, everyone is vulnerable.
But the more disturbing aspect was what was written on
the card. For you, mister police, call me God. Do
not release to the press.
Speaker 20 (22:44):
Now they've got a God complex.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
This is retired Maryland State Police Lieutenant David Reichenbach.
Speaker 9 (22:52):
So at least we're starting to get a picture of
what we're dealing with here that card.
Speaker 20 (22:59):
At that time, I'd didn't even know about it, and I.
Speaker 9 (23:01):
Was a 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, the following day,
which was Tuesday, October eighth, WUSA Channel nine breaks the
story about the tarot card, and for us, that was
(23:23):
a punch in the gut.
Speaker 21 (23:24):
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, dear Policeman, I am God. It's
the latest chilling development in this chilling case and massive investigation.
Speaker 9 (23:45):
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 this investigation throughout the entire twenty three days.
Quite honestly, evidence was getting leaked that you want to
(24:07):
hold close to the vest.
Speaker 20 (24:08):
And there's a couple of reasons behind that.
Speaker 9 (24:11):
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
that really knows what happened.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
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 troubled figuring out which tips were good
and which ones weren't.
Speaker 9 (24:43):
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.
Speaker 7 (24:53):
I'm the ciphers.
Speaker 8 (25:00):
Oh, he describer, I want to hear someone tied.
Speaker 10 (25:05):
Up just a time with suff pas.
Speaker 9 (25:07):
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.
Speaker 20 (25:18):
Of the woodwork for whatever reason.
Speaker 9 (25:21):
And fortunately most of the time you can quickly dispel
them and 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
(25:42):
ignore them. So now these folks had to go on
the suspect list, so was creating quite a few red
herrings for.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
US police weren't happy about the Tarot card getting leaked
to the public, but the media felt it was necessary
(26:10):
to publish that information. Dave Statner was a reporter for
Channel nine. His station broke the story about the Tarot card.
Speaker 22 (26:17):
The Tarot card was first internally at our station, reported
by a reporter at Channel and I named Stacy Kohen.
She found out about this Tarot card in this message
from the apparent snipers to police, and it was soon
confirmed by Mike Buchanan. He was one heck of a
reporter and if Mike and Stacy are telling me they
have this information, I know it's true. And we didn't
(26:39):
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, 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
(27:00):
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 did the same story.
The set off the Chief of Police of Montgomery County,
Charles Moose, who pretty much attacked both news organizations for
(27:21):
reporting that story.
Speaker 23 (27:23):
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.
Speaker 20 (27:33):
If they do, then't let me know.
Speaker 23 (27:35):
We will go and do other police work and we
would 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 the media
(27:57):
feels that it is their job to put things out
there so today can be promoted, then that is also sad.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
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.
Speaker 24 (28:18):
That tarot card was a really important piece of both
the investigation and the public's understanding of what was happening.
While certainly they are 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
(28:40):
what we believe will help further the 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 involve the investigation feels that it's information that should
(29:03):
be out there, or we wouldn't know about it. There
were aspects throughout the investigation that 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
(29:24):
what we could do as journalists.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
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 tough decision. At the
(29:47):
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 another reason. To him, it indicated
that the attack was not the work of foreign terrorists,
and that was something the public needed to understand.
Speaker 24 (30:09):
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.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
What about law enforcement? Did they still see this as
possibly connected to foreign terrorism?
Speaker 10 (30:31):
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? My name is Clint Van Sant. I'm a
(30:54):
former 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, this is not some organized event. But
(31:19):
I saw and heard of no evidence of any type
of international connection, the terror card, the call me God,
I am God. I couldn't see a radical Islamic fundamentalist
who might be doing this for his own religious purposes
calling himself God. I mean, that didn't make any sense.
(31:42):
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. No, No,
that just did not ring true. The verbiage that was
used in there was nothing that would lend itself off
to international terrorism, or nothing that would lend itself to
(32:04):
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.
That wasn't taking place. So in the absence of that,
(32:24):
I think in my particular case, it seemed like more
a domestic situation for a defined purpose.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
There were a few other possibilities. When investigators met to
discuss the Tarot card, someone mentioned the death cards left
by soldiers in the movie Apocalypse.
Speaker 15 (32:45):
Now with me four diamonds like that death card.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
They telling, no, did it someone else remembered that God
was the nickname of the chief sniper in the nineteen
ninety movie Seals.
Speaker 15 (33:01):
God Got Got here.
Speaker 3 (33:04):
God, we have a single shooter selth East Power, Yeah,
I see him?
Speaker 2 (33:12):
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 something else,
it made no difference. Paranoia was at an all time high.
(33:33):
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.
Speaker 24 (33:44):
The fact that a child was shot was a pivotal moment.
It showed a willingness on the part of the attackers
to go after anybody.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
This is Washington Post reporter Josh White.
Speaker 24 (33:55):
And it was at that moment that people really changed
their minds about how scared to be, about how cautious
to be. The schools really started responding. Any adult who
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
(34:17):
are considered to be some of our safest spaces.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Even President George W. Bush weighed in about the shooting
of Ingram Brown a few days later.
Speaker 25 (34:25):
The President number one is wanted to make certain that
all the resources of the federal government have been made
available through the ATF, through the FBI, and through other
agencies of 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 prodent cautions that
the law enforcement community in the case that should be taken.
Speaker 6 (34:46):
First of all, I'm just sick to my stomach to
think that there is a cold blooded killer at home
taking innocent life. I weep for those who've 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
(35:07):
terrorism that we think of, we have no evidence one
where or the other. Obviously, but anytime anybody is randomly shooting,
randomly killing, randomly, taking life, it's a cold blood and murder.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
You know, it's a sick mind for investigators. The manhunt
was about to get personal. A tragic turn of events
would flip the investigation on its head, and the sniper's
scope was an FBI agent. Next time on Monster DC Sniper, I.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
Was absolutely sure that we were going to get a shooting.
Speaker 24 (35:44):
I got a call from a source saying, you need
to get out to Manassas. There's been another one.
Speaker 22 (35:51):
And the next thing I see are 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.
Speaker 10 (36:00):
People process a lot less information than we think. They
get this sense that they're seeing everything when in fact
they're seeing very little.
Speaker 26 (36:09):
So we had a pretty good game plan, but the
problem was we weren't being provided good intelligence and suspect
information from the lookout that hurt us.
Speaker 22 (36:21):
So now the real focus is what do I do
when I'm pumping guests. I have to get gasoline from
my car. There are gas stations that are starting to
put up barricades or harps to block you.
Speaker 24 (36:31):
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.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
Monster DZ Sniper is a fifteen episode podcast hosted by
Tony Harris and produced by iHeartRadio and Tenderfoot TV. Matt
Frederick and Alex Williams are executive producers on behalf of iHeartRadio,
alongside producers Trevor Young, ben Keebrick, and Josh Thain. Payne
Lindsay and Donald Albright are executive producers on behalf of
(37:06):
Tenderfoot TV alongside producers Meredith Stedman and Christina Dana. Original
music is by Makeup and Vanity Set. Special thanks to
WAMU American University Radio for usage of clips originally broadcast
on October seventh, two thousand and two, on The Kojo
Namdi Show. If you haven't already, be sure to check
(37:27):
out the first two seasons, Atlanta Monster and Monster the
Zodiac Killer. If you have questions or comments, email us
at Monster at iHeartMedia dot com, or you can call
us at one eight three, three two eight five six
six sixty seven. Thanks for listening.
Welcome to Monster DC Sniper, a production of iHeartRadio 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 iHeartMedia,
Tenderfoot TV, or their employees. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Monday, October seventh, two thousand and two. It's now day
six of the Sniper investigation. After two whole days with
no shootings, the area seemed calm, but that feeling didn't
last long.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
It happened very early in the morning, well before the
buses or any classes began.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
This is Karen Pumphrey, a former teacher at Tasker Middle School.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
I was on a landing and I heard someone kick
the 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
(01:07):
twenty feet down near the drive. He was alone, nobody 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.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
But I knew he was in pain. It was clear,
but I really didn't think it was shot. So I
was like, we're gonna get you some help. I went in.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
I said, Iron is hurt. He says he's been shot.
So they called nine one one.
Speaker 5 (01:35):
Oh hello, this is banking the cats in middle school,
we had a child outside that says he's spot.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
And the principal got up and when we came out,
he wasn't out front anymore, only as backack was there,
and this silver car was pulling away from the curb.
Speaker 4 (01:51):
We didn't know what was wrong with him, and we
didn't know who was in the car.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
So one of the counselors came running up, jumped in
his car and followed.
Speaker 6 (02:03):
There is a ruthless person on the loose.
Speaker 7 (02:06):
What unnerves this community the most is the randomness of
the murders, ordinary people doing ordinary things.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
They killed the five people in one day and then
went on the rampage for the next month.
Speaker 8 (02:18):
It is quite a mystery.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
The police say they have never had a crime quite
like this.
Speaker 9 (02:23):
Be careful, these guys are using weapons that are going
to go right straight through our bulletproof.
Speaker 10 (02:28):
Vest White.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
From iHeartRadio and Tenderfoot TV. This is Monster DC Sniper.
Thirteen year old Iron Brown arrived at Tasker Middle School
at about seven thirty am on October seventh. It seemed
to be a completely normal Monday morning, except, of course,
(02:54):
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 Brown disappeared. John Lloyd was the principal at Tasker
Middle School. He explained what was happening to a nine
one one dispatcher.
Speaker 8 (03:12):
How were you the principals to school.
Speaker 5 (03:15):
Did somebody's drive off with him here?
Speaker 10 (03:19):
I don't know where.
Speaker 8 (03:20):
I had no idea.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
It turns out, you know, his aunt had dropped him
off and then went to pull away. It must have
occurred immediately because she hadn't gotten out of the parking
lot yet.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
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.
Speaker 7 (03:41):
My first, Oh my god, I think I'm going to
be able to drive wind Nasty to the hospital.
Speaker 5 (03:47):
What's the matter with him? He just got shot.
Speaker 8 (03:50):
He is gonna die.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Iron Brown's aunt, Tanya Brown, actually called nine one one
as she rushed him to the hospital.
Speaker 7 (04:02):
So are you okay?
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Tanya was trapped in the morning rush hour traffic and
Iron was bleeding out in her car.
Speaker 11 (04:14):
I gotta go.
Speaker 12 (04:15):
Let me go, mis Brown, this Brown, I need you.
Speaker 4 (04:21):
But I'm almost there.
Speaker 12 (04:22):
I'm getting ready to turn in right now.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
He didn't see who shot if he doesn't know, I.
Speaker 8 (04:26):
Didn't see anybody, and he didn't see anybody.
Speaker 5 (04:29):
No, okay, go ahead and go in the yarm.
Speaker 13 (04:32):
We're gonna send user out, Okay.
Speaker 4 (04:33):
Okay, all right.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
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 met of 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 safe and then
of course, immediately, like within minutes, parents start calling I'm
coming to get my kids. We had at the time
maybe thirteen hundred kids, and by the end of the
(05:16):
day we had twenty three left.
Speaker 7 (05:19):
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. We're adults, so we're
not going to dismiss school. We're going to keep school
in session, and we are going to secure students within buildings.
Speaker 8 (05:39):
I'm almost positive they said do not come to the school.
But I did make it to the school. So there's
hundreds of other parents. It's very difficult to tell a
parent I had to come to the school when your
job could have been in danger. My name is Jerald Caverer.
I live in Brandywine, Maryland. I woke up that more it.
(06:00):
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, so of course
she's doing normal kids. Goodbye, I have a good day, behave.
As I was leaving, oh my side, a bunch of
police cars and amulans and fire trucks over by the school,
(06:24):
and I thought about stopping over there, but then I said,
now let me get out of here. It's too much trafficking.
So I get on abut fifty and I hear on
the radio that's breaking news a boy had been shot
at Benjamin Taska Middle School. So from that point I'm
driving fast down Route fifty to the school and calling
my wife to find out what's going on. Is she
(06:45):
taking to school? And say, okay, she's not answering the phone.
I went to the school. It was chaotic. There were
children everywhere that the parents everywhere that were police, five personnel, ambulance, emtens,
unbelievable singing, and I'm walking through the parking lot. There
was a lot of kindents greeting their children in tears
(07:05):
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
release to know that he was okay. At the same time,
it was sad. My son actually took a classes too
with the young man who was shot. Very emotional day.
(07:27):
I mean, just to know that mostarn could have been
a target. It's a scary fellow.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Imagine learning that someone had been shot at your child's 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.
Speaker 11 (07:55):
The youngster 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 youngster within what's called the golden hour. Your
chances of survival from any kind of injury is much
greater if you can get curtical 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 youngster by making sure he had an IV
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 scapula,
(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 an hour and a half two hour operation.
(09:43):
He got stabilized to he stopped bleeding. We were able
to treat his lung without having to take any of
the lung out. A couple of the organs 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 just a little bit more
(10:05):
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 survive, and so we were happy just to have
him stable. And during that time there was an effort
by the enforcement community to try to retrieve the bullet.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Doctor Eichelberger's colleague, Kurt Newman was in charge of communicating
with the police.
Speaker 11 (10:34):
And so doctor 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 at
the X ray and put my finger down where I
thought the bullet was, and yes, I could palpit it
with my finger. I was able to pull out this bullet.
I gave it specifically to doctor Newman, who gave it
(10:56):
to a specific person to make sure that that chain
of evidence was keptain tact.
Speaker 14 (11:10):
When we were contacted about what had happened, and of
course we all sat and shocked.
Speaker 15 (11:15):
We just couldn't believe, and we kept asking, are you sure?
Are you sure? My name is doctor Wayne R. Curtis's
cousin to the Brown family.
Speaker 14 (11:28):
We're obviously very scared and anxious about what was going
to happen with him having gotten shot like that at
such a young age.
Speaker 15 (11:36):
And that he would come out of it okay.
Speaker 14 (11:38):
But it's time told he's doing okay, but at that
time we were just all just concerned.
Speaker 15 (11:44):
For his life.
Speaker 14 (11:47):
We went to the hospital with my sons to visit
with him.
Speaker 15 (11:53):
At that point in time, there was a request to
meet with the press.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
National media wanted Iron Brown's parents to provide a statement,
but Curtis has the parents were still processing their shock.
Speaker 14 (12:06):
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 can be unnerving.
As we were walking up the hallway, I don't think
we got more than five steps onto the sidewalk after
(12:27):
the building and just said, look, we can't do this.
Speaker 15 (12:30):
You should do this, and I said, okay, I'll do it.
Speaker 16 (12:33):
He continues to remain in critical but stable condition. He's
a fighter. We remain optimistic, as our doctors have told us,
this is a marathon, not a sprint, but we are
confident that we will make it to the finish line.
Speaker 14 (12:49):
Do you think about the magnitude of a child, any
person getting shot, but you know when children get shot,
It sort of magnifies it even more.
Speaker 15 (13:00):
Had psychological issues from a current.
Speaker 17 (13:03):
The family as much as possible, they try to normalize
his life and their lives of a very, very unfortunate tragedy.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Iron Brown was alive and safe, but back at Tasker
Middle School, authorities were still trying to make sense of
the attack. What kind of person would shoot a thirteen
year old? Soon police would get a major clue, a
communication from the snipers. The shooting at Tasker Middle School
(13:49):
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 can once again.
The question came up, is this foreign terrorism? Many in
the DC area certainly thought so. On the day Iron
(14:10):
Brown was shot, wamu's Kojo Nandi show field that live
calls about the shooting.
Speaker 5 (14:17):
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 anytime, any place, anywhere I want to,
and they're doing it around the nation's capital to make
a statement.
Speaker 12 (14:32):
I 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.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
And the media had helped fuel that fear. All over
cable news TV stations were speculating that this was quite
possibly an act of terror.
Speaker 6 (15:00):
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.
Speaker 18 (15:10):
It became pretty clear to people that these random shootings
across DC and around DC were linked.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
This is journalists and historian Garret Graff. He says, it
made sense that people thought foreign terrorists were responsible for
the sniper attacks.
Speaker 18 (15:29):
There was a very quick realization that this could be
the next stage of 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
(15:52):
since the nine to eleven attacks. In some ways, the
idea that these sniper 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,
(16:17):
making it impossible 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, a drive
to work. The attacks on these commuters, these workers, these
families around DC, in some ways seemed a very logical
(16:40):
next stage of Al Qaeda targeting the homeland and really
threatened to make ordinary daily life in America insecure.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
While the country was debating who was behind these attacks,
investigators were working to find the sniper. Following the shooting
of Iron Brown, police shut down the area surrounding Tasker
Middle School. They began searching looking for any clues. Benjamin
(17:13):
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 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
(17:35):
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 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 seventh.
Speaker 19 (17:56):
My name is Mike Pyle with the United States Marshall Service.
Over see our canine operations program, and back in two
thousand and two, my partner was Explosive Detection K nine
Beacon and he was trained for explosives and weapons detection.
Speaker 13 (18:10):
I'm curious as to the jurisdictional lines here. Right, a
number of agencies are here. Tell me why the US
Martial Service is called in so it's about resources.
Speaker 19 (18:22):
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 that 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.
(18:42):
ATL trained dogs literally are sniffing explosives, probably multiple times
a day because we have to feed them.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
To train dogs like beacon and maintain their sensitivity to
certain odors. The dogs are only fed when they detect
the odors correctly.
Speaker 19 (18:57):
It's classical conditioning. When the dogs come in order, beacon
would start salivating because it's Pavlov's theory, you know, the
bell rings he anticipates in the food coming in, so
they automatically salivate. So those are the changes that we
look for.
Speaker 20 (19:11):
So if the dog says, hey, I.
Speaker 19 (19:13):
Give you the indication that the contract is, you have
kay me that the payment.
Speaker 20 (19:16):
Is the food.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
So Michael, take me back to the day.
Speaker 13 (19:20):
How does that day start for you?
Speaker 19 (19:22):
On October seventh, two thousand and 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 right now was Iron Brown's backpack. You could see
definitely to see a little bit of a pool of
blood that was still left there. Someone said that they
(19:46):
saw somebody or heard a gunshot on the front of
the school up on that hill, so.
Speaker 13 (19:50):
That would be across the street from the cross.
Speaker 19 (19:52):
The street, and of course that white box truck. They
said that they saw white box truck.
Speaker 15 (19:57):
That up in the hill.
Speaker 19 (19:58):
To hear kind of did makes sense to us. You
would have to literally bend a 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 I selected my search area and
(20:21):
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 branch that was underground. And honestly,
(20:44):
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 racket, meaning he's in order, but he wants to
get to where the most of the orders coming from
(21:06):
left to right, left to right, left to right. Boom,
he sniffs and he sits and a big drool comes out.
So once that occurred, we stopped PG County officer, the
PG County officer, the SWAT officer.
Speaker 20 (21:17):
Well, the officers went out, got some of.
Speaker 19 (21:19):
The evidence technicians to come in, and they all start
to actually literally search this area. And then I was
told that the shewcasing was located. If you step back
five ten feet, unless you really look, you're not going
to see somebody hiding there. So if you kind of
actually look, it's a perfect line of sight. So I
(21:39):
fully believe that he may have laid that rifle right
on that piece of word, took the shot. The shellcasing
comes out, and it's that area where they located the shellcasing,
and with that they've worked their way backwards and that's
where they find the terror card.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
A tarot card, 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,
(22:25):
young or old. The card seemed to perfectly capture the
sniper's mo o. No one is safe, everyone is vulnerable.
But the more disturbing aspect was what was written on
the card. For you, mister police, call me God. Do
not release to the press.
Speaker 20 (22:44):
Now they've got a God complex.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
This is retired Maryland State Police Lieutenant David Reichenbach.
Speaker 9 (22:52):
So at least we're starting to get a picture of
what we're dealing with here that card.
Speaker 20 (22:59):
At that time, I'd didn't even know about it, and I.
Speaker 9 (23:01):
Was a 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, the following day,
which was Tuesday, October eighth, WUSA Channel nine breaks the
story about the tarot card, and for us, that was
(23:23):
a punch in the gut.
Speaker 21 (23:24):
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, dear Policeman, I am God. It's
the latest chilling development in this chilling case and massive investigation.
Speaker 9 (23:45):
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 this investigation throughout the entire twenty three days.
Quite honestly, evidence was getting leaked that you want to
(24:07):
hold close to the vest.
Speaker 20 (24:08):
And there's a couple of reasons behind that.
Speaker 9 (24:11):
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
that really knows what happened.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
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 troubled figuring out which tips were good
and which ones weren't.
Speaker 9 (24:43):
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.
Speaker 7 (24:53):
I'm the ciphers.
Speaker 8 (25:00):
Oh, he describer, I want to hear someone tied.
Speaker 10 (25:05):
Up just a time with suff pas.
Speaker 9 (25:07):
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.
Speaker 20 (25:18):
Of the woodwork for whatever reason.
Speaker 9 (25:21):
And fortunately most of the time you can quickly dispel
them and 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
(25:42):
ignore them. So now these folks had to go on
the suspect list, so was creating quite a few red
herrings for.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
US police weren't happy about the Tarot card getting leaked
to the public, but the media felt it was necessary
(26:10):
to publish that information. Dave Statner was a reporter for
Channel nine. His station broke the story about the Tarot card.
Speaker 22 (26:17):
The Tarot card was first internally at our station, reported
by a reporter at Channel and I named Stacy Kohen.
She found out about this Tarot card in this message
from the apparent snipers to police, and it was soon
confirmed by Mike Buchanan. He was one heck of a
reporter and if Mike and Stacy are telling me they
have this information, I know it's true. And we didn't
(26:39):
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, 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
(27:00):
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 did the same story.
The set off the Chief of Police of Montgomery County,
Charles Moose, who pretty much attacked both news organizations for
(27:21):
reporting that story.
Speaker 23 (27:23):
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.
Speaker 20 (27:33):
If they do, then't let me know.
Speaker 23 (27:35):
We will go and do other police work and we
would 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 the media
(27:57):
feels that it is their job to put things out
there so today can be promoted, then that is also sad.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
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.
Speaker 24 (28:18):
That tarot card was a really important piece of both
the investigation and the public's understanding of what was happening.
While certainly they are 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
(28:40):
what we believe will help further the 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 involve the investigation feels that it's information that should
(29:03):
be out there, or we wouldn't know about it. There
were aspects throughout the investigation that 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
(29:24):
what we could do as journalists.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
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 tough decision. At the
(29:47):
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 another reason. To him, it indicated
that the attack was not the work of foreign terrorists,
and that was something the public needed to understand.
Speaker 24 (30:09):
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.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
What about law enforcement? Did they still see this as
possibly connected to foreign terrorism?
Speaker 10 (30:31):
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? My name is Clint Van Sant. I'm a
(30:54):
former 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, this is not some organized event. But
(31:19):
I saw and heard of no evidence of any type
of international connection, the terror card, the call me God,
I am God. I couldn't see a radical Islamic fundamentalist
who might be doing this for his own religious purposes
calling himself God. I mean, that didn't make any sense.
(31:42):
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. No, No,
that just did not ring true. The verbiage that was
used in there was nothing that would lend itself off
to international terrorism, or nothing that would lend itself to
(32:04):
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.
That wasn't taking place. So in the absence of that,
(32:24):
I think in my particular case, it seemed like more
a domestic situation for a defined purpose.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
There were a few other possibilities. When investigators met to
discuss the Tarot card, someone mentioned the death cards left
by soldiers in the movie Apocalypse.
Speaker 15 (32:45):
Now with me four diamonds like that death card.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
They telling, no, did it someone else remembered that God
was the nickname of the chief sniper in the nineteen
ninety movie Seals.
Speaker 15 (33:01):
God Got Got here.
Speaker 3 (33:04):
God, we have a single shooter selth East Power, Yeah,
I see him?
Speaker 2 (33:12):
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 something else,
it made no difference. Paranoia was at an all time high.
(33:33):
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.
Speaker 24 (33:44):
The fact that a child was shot was a pivotal moment.
It showed a willingness on the part of the attackers
to go after anybody.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
This is Washington Post reporter Josh White.
Speaker 24 (33:55):
And it was at that moment that people really changed
their minds about how scared to be, about how cautious
to be. The schools really started responding. Any adult who
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
(34:17):
are considered to be some of our safest spaces.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Even President George W. Bush weighed in about the shooting
of Ingram Brown a few days later.
Speaker 25 (34:25):
The President number one is wanted to make certain that
all the resources of the federal government have been made
available through the ATF, through the FBI, and through other
agencies of 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 prodent cautions that
the law enforcement community in the case that should be taken.
Speaker 6 (34:46):
First of all, I'm just sick to my stomach to
think that there is a cold blooded killer at home
taking innocent life. I weep for those who've 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
(35:07):
terrorism that we think of, we have no evidence one
where or the other. Obviously, but anytime anybody is randomly shooting,
randomly killing, randomly, taking life, it's a cold blood and murder.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
You know, it's a sick mind for investigators. The manhunt
was about to get personal. A tragic turn of events
would flip the investigation on its head, and the sniper's
scope was an FBI agent. Next time on Monster DC Sniper, I.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
Was absolutely sure that we were going to get a shooting.
Speaker 24 (35:44):
I got a call from a source saying, you need
to get out to Manassas. There's been another one.
Speaker 22 (35:51):
And the next thing I see are 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.
Speaker 10 (36:00):
People process a lot less information than we think. They
get this sense that they're seeing everything when in fact
they're seeing very little.
Speaker 26 (36:09):
So we had a pretty good game plan, but the
problem was we weren't being provided good intelligence and suspect
information from the lookout that hurt us.
Speaker 22 (36:21):
So now the real focus is what do I do
when I'm pumping guests. I have to get gasoline from
my car. There are gas stations that are starting to
put up barricades or harps to block you.
Speaker 24 (36:31):
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.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
Monster DZ Sniper is a fifteen episode podcast hosted by
Tony Harris and produced by iHeartRadio and Tenderfoot TV. Matt
Frederick and Alex Williams are executive producers on behalf of iHeartRadio,
alongside producers Trevor Young, ben Keebrick, and Josh Thain. Payne
Lindsay and Donald Albright are executive producers on behalf of
(37:06):
Tenderfoot TV alongside producers Meredith Stedman and Christina Dana. Original
music is by Makeup and Vanity Set. Special thanks to
WAMU American University Radio for usage of clips originally broadcast
on October seventh, two thousand and two, on The Kojo
Namdi Show. If you haven't already, be sure to check
(37:27):
out the first two seasons, Atlanta Monster and Monster the
Zodiac Killer. If you have questions or comments, email us
at Monster at iHeartMedia dot com, or you can call
us at one eight three, three two eight five six
six sixty seven. Thanks for listening.
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