Sniper: The True Story of Anti-Abortion Killer James Kopp

by Wells, Jon

  “What do you think about that?” Doris asked.

  He said nothing.

  Doris continued: “I mean, I don’t know if I really have a

  problem with it. It’s just bricks and mortar. Just a mill.” “But what if somebody gets hurt?” replied Jim. “That’s the

  problem. What if, say, a firefighter comes in there to help, totally

  innocent, and he gets hurt?”

  One thing was certain, the government would pin the bombing on pro-lifers. Clinton and his attorney general, Janet Reno,

  were out to crush the movement. “Someday, you know, they’ll

  come for me,” Jim said. “Whatever they say about me, don’t

  believe it. Don’t believe it until you talk to me.”

  Doris enjoyed Jim’s visits. They chatted, watched rental

  movies. Jim enjoyed old classics, Second World War movies

  like Midway, which struck a chord in him, focusing as it did on

  the Pacific—an underappreciated theater, he always felt—where

  his father had served. Among more recent movies, he loved The

  Usual Suspects, the convoluted thriller starring Kevin Spacey.

  So many good lines: “One cannot be betrayed if one has no

  people.” Lots of twists, where nothing is as it seems. Spacey

  had the best line in the movie, right near the end: “The greatest

  trick the devil ever pulled on man was to convince him that he

  didn’t exist.” A great line, although not original to the movie.

  The French poet Charles Baudelaire coined it in a short story in

  1864, chiding the myopia of those who celebrated the triumph

  of the Enlightenment. Jim Kopp, who took the long view on

  things, understood completely.

  He continued to earn money doing odd jobs, he used the alias

  Clyde Svenson while doing construction and carpentry work, in

  exchange for living in an unfurnished apartment in Jersey City.

  He had some small deals on the go. He and a man named Kent

  Richter sold a camper they owned in Kent County in Delaware.

  Jim gave $7,000 from the sale to young friend Jennifer Rock, for

  her to put in a bank account for him.

  In May he was in Florida. That same month there were ten

  butyric acid attacks on clinics in Miami, St. Petersburg, Orlando,

  Daytona Beach, and Clearwater. Shortly after that he created

  eight false Texas driver’s licenses for himself and other pro-lifers.

  In July there were five acid attacks in New Orleans and four in

  Houston.

  He spent time that summer at his friend James Gannon’s home

  in Whiting, New Jersey. Gannon always made Jim feel welcome.

  But a man named Alex, who shared Gannon’s place at the retirement village, didn’t care much for Jim just dropping in all the

  time, so he also stayed with Elizabeth Lewis, an elderly woman

  in the village. She noticed him always writing on the computer.

  What was he working on?

  On July 17, at 2:49 p.m., Jim Kopp’s black Chevy Cavalier

  entered Canada at the Queenston border crossing. Six days later

  the car returned to the United States at Niagara Falls.

  *** “Abortion is the killing of potential life. It is not pretty. It is not easy. In a perfect world, it wouldn’t be necessary.” Dr. Bart Slepian had insisted on saying that part in his speech. His niece, Amanda Robb, had helped him craft the words for a presentation he made to a Buffalo group called Medical Students for Choice.

  Why would Bart say those words to a pro-choice audience? He had to know pro-life activists would jump all over a quote like that, to illustrate that even abortion providers like Dr. Barnett Slepian had moral issues with the procedure. But Bart, being Bart, was simply telling it as he saw it, and damn the political optics. Quite obviously most terminated fetuses would otherwise live. But abortion was legal. Women requested them. OBs were needed to perform the surgery safely. Bart was an OB. And so he provided the service. He had a full-time private obstetrics and gynecology practice, where he provided prenatal and postnatal care. He also performed abortions at the GYN Womenservices clinic in downtown Buffalo. In one sense he was just doing his job, but Bart had become a visible player in the abortion wars in the area. Earlier in the year he was presented with a Choice Achievement Award at a rally in Buffalo marking the 25th anniversary of Roe v. Wade.

  Bart was 52 years old and had made it, climbed the ladder, was a successful doctor, family man. His father, Philip, had died nine years earlier, but had lived to see the success Bart had battled to become. Bart lived with his wife Lynne, and their four sons, Andrew, 15, Brian, 13, Michael, 10, and Philip, 7, in a large house on Roxbury Park in Amherst. It was an upper-middle-class neighborhood except for a couple of streets, like Roxbury, where the homes were palatial. Some in the area dubbed Bart’s home “the Taj Mahal.” It was a beautiful area, mature trees, lush lawns, parkland and sprawling backyards.

  As for the storm of protest surrounding his professional life, Bart joked darkly about his fate, as was his custom. Other OBs who provided abortion services were wearing bulletproof vests on the advice of police. Bart? He cracked that it wasn’t necessary, they’d probably just shoot him in the head anyway. But in fact Bart bought a vest, and got in the habit of watching his back, checking under his car for explosives.

  Lynne bought him a parrot once; Bart said the bird would probably outlive him—and that they should teach the parrot how to say a eulogy. He joked that, at his funeral, friends should all come in separate cars, it would make for a longer procession that way. Typical Bart. But the jokes revealed more than just his predilection for black humor. Perhaps Bart could sense that he was on a collision course that was inevitable.

  *** Wednesday, October 14, 1998 Eyes scan the White Pages of a phone book. Residential listing for D. Slepian, 93 Garden Parkway, Grand Island, New York. Phone ringing, 7:30 p.m. A woman named Ruth Slepian answers.

  “Hello?” she says.

  “Is Dr. Slepian there, please?” asks a man’s voice.

  Doctor? Ruth has a husband named David. He is not a physician. Her father-in-law, also named Slepian, was a doctor. But he has passed on.

  “Dr. Slepian—is dead,” she says.

  Pause.

  “Right. I don’t think so,” the man mumbles, the words barely

  audible.

  He hangs up. Prepare. Plan. Remove the vagaries of the moving target. Later, near the doctor’s private practice, a vanity plate on the car. “SLEPIAN.” Could shoot him right here, right now. Of course, that would mean shooting across the street, can’t imagine that would be appreciated, he reflected. Hard surfaces, traffic, residences, businesses, plenty of chance for ricochets.

  Sunday, October 18. A jogger, lanky, moving slowly, ungainly, through the leafy neighborhood, so slow that he was nearly

  Paradise Road, not far from the Slepian’s home. walking, up Paradise Road in Amherst. He wore glasses, had a reddish goatee. The next day, early morning, the jogger was in the same neighborhood, where two streets named Roxbury Park and Deer Run intersected.

  “Hello,” said a woman passing by him. The jogger said nothing. Friday, October 23, early morning, he shuffled through the neighborhood in his dark tracksuit. A landscaper working at a home made eye contact.

  “Hello,” said the worker. “Hi,” replied the jogger, before slowly disappearing around the corner.

  Later, a car passed through the neighborhood. It was a black Chevy Cavalier. It glided through a boulevard stop sign. There was a police cruiser nearby. The Cavalier made a U-turn, left the area, slowly, deliberately, with the cruiser following at low speed. The cop turned away, let him go. A close call.

  Kill? A thousand ways to kill someone, really, he reflected later. Blow up their car. Do a Rambo thing and e
mpty a magazine into them. Run them over with a car. Put nicotine acid on their steering wheel.

  Wounding, however, is tricky business.

  *** The phone rang at Jim Fitzgerald’s desk inside the FBI complex at Quantico, Virginia. It was early October. Fitzgerald, surrounded by stacks of papers in his office, picked up. It was the FBI’s legal attaché office in Ottawa. Fitzgerald had been with the bureau 13 years, grew up in Philadelphia. His official FBI title was supervisory special agent with the Behavioral Analysis Unit. One branch, of the unit was for training and education, the other, Fitzgerald’s branch was operational. In popular culture, though, Jim Fitzgerald was simply a profiler. It was too sexy a term for Hollywood and the media to resist. The psycho-thriller Silence of the Lambs—on which John Douglas, one of the original FBI profilers in the 1970s, served as technical consultant—ensured that. Some started to call analysts like Fitzgerald “the Silence of the Lambs boys.”

  The FBI called them “psychological profilers,” as early as the 1970s, back when behavioral psychology was a relatively new tool for deconstructing criminal minds, either to identify suspects, predict violent acts, or break down suspects once they were arrested. The titles had changed, however. “Psychological profiler” left the door open to cagey defense lawyers attacking their credibility in court. “Are you, in fact, FBI Special Agent Smith, a trained psychologist? No? Then why are you called a ‘psychological profiler’?” They became, instead, officially, “behavioral analysts.” Jim Fitzgerald worked in Unit Number One with nine other agents.

  His unit specialized in counterterrorism. The case of the abortion doctor sniper who targeted physicians in Vancouver, Ancaster, Winnipeg, and Rochester certainly qualified. The official on the phone from Ottawa briefed Fitzgerald on the latest information. He was told a profile of the sniper was being developed at the Ontario Provincial Police’s behavioral unit. Fitzgerald had dealt with the Ontario unit before—they did good work and, in fact, the FBI had trained OPP analysts. He asked to see the profile that had been developed to date. The OPP profiler was Jim Van Allen. Upon receiving the report, Fitzgerald saw that Van Allen already had a good handle on the profile.

  Sniper shoots at a doctor in each of 1994, 1995, and two in 1997. All of the shootings seem well planned, no weapon ever found. There was DNA recovered at the Ancaster shooting scene. All attacks came in early November. This was a ritual. Why at this time of the year? The sniper perhaps was motivated by both symbolism and tactics.

  Symbolism: He is perhaps shooting doctors to make a statement, to avenge the death of aborted fetuses. May well see himself as a soldier in the cause. November 11 is Remembrance Day, Canada’s day to honor its war dead. In the United States it’s Veterans’ Day. The timing packs religious symbolism as well. If the sniper is Catholic, that time of year is also notable for All Saints’ Day, which falls on November 1, and All Souls’ Day on November 2.

  Tactics: In November the nights grow long and dark. Most of the leaves have fallen from trees, making surveillance of homes in wooded areas easier.

  Jim Van Allen felt there was only one shooter, and that he was not a professional. The sniper was improving his technique with each hit but, paradoxically, had left evidence at each scene, been sloppy. Van Allen said the equipment used had been primitive, from the point of view of a trained marksman. The rifle was adequate, but it was the little things—the sniper wasn’t using web belts to carry his gear, he was dropping cartridges, casings. The tape he used to secure the garbage can lids in Vancouver had been silver duct tape, which was highly visible. A pro would have used black or olive-colored military tape.

  Jim Fitzgerald began developing his own take on the sniper. Behaviorally there is a clear difference between a long-range sniper and the killer who shoots at close range, brandishing a .38 in an alleyway, or breaking down a door and pointing a shotgun at a victim. The close-up shooter has no issue with using violence, probably has anger-management problems. The shooter is physically secure enough to personally confront someone face-to-face, whether it’s simply to tell them off or to pull a trigger. Little skill is required to shoot at close range. Target acquisition and kill zone are not relevant. The sniper mentality is much different. He lacks confrontational skills. He is more secretive, plans more, acquires lots of equipment, trains himself in weaponry and ballistics to guarantee success.

  The FBI had plenty of background on close-up gun killers. That year, 1998, guns were used to murder 11,798 people in the United States. True sniper attacks, on the other hand, were rare. In 1997, there had been just four reported cases of sniper killings in the entire country. The motive of the abortion sniper seemed clear enough. Fitzgerald knew that in instances where a serial offender acts based on need or fantasy, motive is often a complicated question. This shooter, however, had a definite political-religious mission. But, even within the subgroup of moral zealots, this sniper was different. Other anti-abortion extremists who had shot doctors did so with little deliberation, and in broad daylight. This one did not intend to get caught. He was relatively intelligent. He was traveling great distances, spreading out his attacks. The sniper was probably American. If so, he was striking in Canada because he knew cross-border investigations were complicated, thought Fitzgerald.

  Fitzgerald and Van Allen talked about the profile at length. One point was not included in the profile. It was one over which the two men disagreed: intent. Was the sniper shooting to kill or wound? Van Allen felt the sniper wanted to terrorize doctors. You do that by wounding them, leaving them crippled. He had certainly pulled it off so far. Fitzgerald disagreed. “You don’t take all that time and effort, with all the factors that can go wrong, unless you are prepared to kill,” he said. “You don’t take those kinds of shots from that distance and not hope to kill someone.”

  “It’s a dangerous game,” countered Van Allen, “but if he was shooting to kill, he’s even a worse shot than I give him credit for.”

  They agreed to keep that issue out of the profile. It wouldn’t help police catch the sniper, and, if their opinions were leaked, it might just inflame the sniper, challenge him to execute better or stay long enough at the next scene to finish off his target. The profilers knew that the urgent issue for police was whether the shooter would strike again before or near Remembrance Day. On this the G-man and the OPP cop agreed. The sniper was going to hit again, and soon. Police should be on alert, and so should doctors who provide abortions in both countries.

  On October 20, the joint Canada-U.S. police task force met in Winnipeg. They discussed the profile and other information and strategy. The implication of the profilers’ analysis was clear. At the end of the meeting, Winnipeg detective Ron Oliver stood up and addressed the group. “We need to anticipate,” he said. “There must be a sense of urgency. There may be a shooting coming up.”

  *** A fax arrived at the clinic where Bart Slepian worked. It was from the FBI. Be extra cautious at this time of year, it warned. Whoever shot obstetricians in Canada and Rochester was still out there. Clinic manager Marilyn Buckham told Bart about it.

  “Be careful,” she said. “I will,” he replied. The exchange had become their regular sign-off whenever Bart left the clinic for the day.

  “Thanks for coming,” she chirped.

  “Thanks for having me.”

  *** Amherst, N.Y.

  Friday, October 23, 1998 9:45 p.m.

  A man gripped a rifle in the woods behind Bart Slepian’s home: A decidedly unpleasant thing, shooting someone. But it’s not the act that answers the moral question, rather it is the desired result. Think about Dietrich Bonhoeffer: gave the Nazi salute to Hitler every day as he held the door to the staff car. Made his skin crawl. Salute the devil. Hated to do it. But he did it, to keep his cover, allow him to continue smuggling Jews to safety. Amazing, to meet the daughter of one of those survivors. She lives in Syracuse. An extreme honor.

  The clocks were to be turned back that weekend, the darkest time of the year. How many times had Jim
Kopp waited out there, late night, early morning, anticipating the shot that had not yet come?

  Twenty-four hours a day abortionists are preparing to kill more kids. A form of serial murder. Slepian’s been doing it for years. There is a stubbornness there that requires a strong response.

  He focused the binoculars on the back window. Bart and Lynne had just pulled in the driveway, returning from synagogue, marking the anniversary of Bart’s father’s death. Through the front door. The boys were home. Into the clean white kitchen. The rear window shade pulled halfway down.

  Keys rattle on the kitchen counter. Bart puts down his pager, his wallet. Opens the microwave door, places a bowl of soup inside. Sets the time. Walks out of the kitchen. Lynne stays, talking with Philip and Michael by the kitchen island. Andrew, the 15-year-old, lies on the couch in an adjoining room. Bart back in the kitchen. Ten feet away from Lynne and the boys. A popping sound. Bart feeling a blow to his back.

  “I think I’ve been shot.”

  Lynne, incredulous. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  Bart falling to the floor, Lynne running to him, blood pooling

  on the white floor. Lynne screaming for her son to call 911. Brian dialing, Philip watching, stunned. Andrew on his knees, trying to staunch the flow of blood from both sides of his father with paper towels.

  The bullet, having punctured the double-pane of the rear sunroom window and screen, had knifed through Bart, a cabinet, ricocheted off a wall between Lynne and the boys, past Andrew on the couch, hitting the marble fireplace mantel, fallen to rest on the hearth, spent.

  Dispatch to Amherst police at 10:07: possible shots fired, 187 Roxbury. Police officer Ted Dinoto in the area, at the house at 10:10 p.m. Dinoto on his knees in the kitchen, ripping open Bart’s shirt, seeing the hole in the left side of his back from the entrance wound, and at the right shoulder, the exit wound. Police and paramedics swarming to the street. Police search the neighborhood, the woods, finding nothing. The ambulance rushes Bart Slepian to Millard Fillmore Hospital. In the ER they declare him dead.