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October 9, 2002
Investigators hope evidence will lead to finding a sniper
stalking Washington suburbs.
ROCKVILLE, Md. (AP) -- Investigators searching for a sniper
terrorizing the Washington suburbs found a tarot card with
the words, "Dear policeman, I am God," near a bullet
casing outside the school where a 13-year-old boy was critically
wounded, a source familiar with the investigation confirmed
Wednesday.
Police were also searching a wooded area behind a school in
Prince George's County after reports Wednesday of a suspicious
man seen carrying a long black bag in the area.
Montgomery County Police Chief Charles Moose, who has been
leading the investigation, wouldn't comment about the card
and said he was concerned that unapproved information was
being leaked.
"I need to make sure I don't do anything to hinder our
ability
to bring this person or these people into custody," Moose
said Wednesday.
The taunting message left on a tarot card known as the Death
card, first reported Tuesday night on WUSA-TV and then by
The Washington Post, was confirmed by a source Wednesday to
The Associated Press.
The shell casing was being checked against the National
Ballistics Identification Network, a database of crime-scene
firearms evidence maintained by the federal Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco and Firearms.
Looking for Evidence
The motive for the seemingly random crimes still eluded police
Wednesday, one week after the first of six slayings. Nearly
200 investigators were working their way through 1,600 leads
culled from 8,000 tips.
"We need just a shred of evidence," Prince George's
County
Police Chief Gerald Wilson said.
Police sources told the newspaper that the tarot card was
found next to the spent shell casing in a wooded area about
150 yards from the school entrance in an area of matted grass,
suggesting the gunman had lain in wait.
Prince George's County police issued a statement saying: "We're
not commenting on any potential evidence that may have been
located." Joseph Riehl, an agent for the ATF, also declined
comment.
Wednesday morning, police began searching a large park behind
Friendly High School in Fort Washington after receiving a
report of a suspicious man wearing a baseball hat and carrying
a long black bag, Cpl. Diane Richardson said. She said surveyors,
carrying long black bags containing tripods, had been seen
in the area earlier in the week.
A Prince George's County school spokeswoman said students
were being kept inside as county schools remained locked down.
Friendly High School is about 20 miles from Benjamin Tasker
Middle School, where the boy was shot.
Another Possible Victim
Even as they discarded one lead -- a man was released after
police questioned him about at least one rifle in his home
--
investigators wondered whether the sniper might have struck
weeks earlier, on Sept. 14, when a liquor store employee in
Montgomery County was wounded by an unknown assailant.
Bullet fragments recovered from the clerk who was wounded
at a shopping center in Silver Spring have been examined,
but the analysis has proved inconclusive.
"We are not linking it, we are not ruling it out,"
ATF agent
Michael Bouchard said of the shooting in the Hillandale Shopping
Center.
In Montgomery County, where five of the deaths occurred, Moose
urged people to keep calling in tips. The reward swelled to
more than $237,000.
"We feel like someone has information that will help
us bring
this situation to closure," Moose said.
Gov. Parris Glendening took a confrontational tone, repeatedly
calling the shooter "a coward" during a news conference.
Police believe the sniper has shot eight people, including
a
woman wounded 50 miles away in Virginia. One death occurred
on a Washington street; the others came within five miles
of each other in Montgomery County.
Investigators say the sniper apparently picked victims at
random and fired from a distance with a high-powered hunting
or military-style rifle. All the victims were felled by a
single
bullet.
The Sept. 14 shooting occurred outside the Hillandale Beer
and Wine store. Owner Arnie Zelkovitz said police interviewed
him about the incident, in which his 22-year-old employee
was shot in the back.
Zelkovitz said he believes the man was another sniper victim:
"It just seems too coincidental."
Students Responding Well
The 13-year-old
boy, who police have not identified, was in
critical but stable condition Wednesday with a wound to the
chest.
He was shot early Monday after his aunt dropped him off at
Benjamin Tasker Middle School.
Ballistics tests found that the bullet that struck him was
of
the same caliber as those that killed some of the others and
wounded a woman in Virginia. That woman was released from
the hospital Tuesday.
Dorothy Prather, a teacher at Tasker, said she was impressed
by how well students responded to the traumatic events. "The
only ones who seemed really concerned were the parents,"
she said.
At a nearby mall, employees at a Coldwell Banker real estate
office noticed shoppers were edgy.
"They don't get out of their car without looking around,
then
they dash in the store," Polly Rogers said. "You
don't see people on their porch, or playing tennis. We're
not used to this -- we think Bowie is the safest place."
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