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

by Wells, Jon

  *** On Thursday, March 29, the phone rang in Loretta’s apartment. It was 9 a.m.

  “Hello?”

  “Listen closely.”

  “Yes.”

  Michael Osborn’s ears burned as the bug picked up the conversation. Kopp.

  “I need to get out of this town because I am H-O-T,” Kopp said.

  “Really?”

  “Oh, not super H-O-T. Now, you’ve got no red lights at your end, right? Nothing in the news?”

  “Nothing in the news, no,” she said.

  “I mean, just answer the obvious stuff. I listened to some French news last night and there was no—no big deal. Do me a favor. In the next day or two I’ll get in contact with you, but do some thinking about—about Oz. Do you know what Oz is yet?”

  “I think so.”

  “Then I will send some letters. From Oz.”

  “Right.”

  “Oz. Dookesland. And to ROI, too.”

  Osborn listened. Oz? ROI?

  “Then I’ll return to the capital city of Dookesland and go to Jackie.”

  “OK,” said Loretta.

  Oz. Dookesland. Phonetic. Probably a play on Deutschland. Germany. Capital Berlin. He wants to fly from Berlin to Montreal. Misdirection. Kopp will mail letters to friends in the United.States and the ROI—Republic of Ireland—from Germany. Need to put out an alert, thought Osborn. Kopp plans to move, and soon.

  Chapter 19 ~ Sayonara

  Jim hung up the phone after finishing his conversation with Loretta. It was about 3 p.m. Later, he walked through the center of Dinan. Thursday was market day, a festive atmosphere, the town square packed with kiosks, the smells of old cheese and fresh baguettes. Vendors sold meat, vegetables, fruit, clothing, and wine in old bottles with homemade labels. There was a carousel for the kids.

  He walked into the post office. Behind the counter stood the clerk, whose white hair belied his youthful, animated face. The bearded man asked about a package left for a Francis Teller. The clerk checked. Jim prayed it would be there. The package was in. There were 300 francs inside.

  “Merci. Bonsoir, good evening.” Jim Kopp left through the sliding doors of La Poste, down six steps to the street. It was now nearly 4 p.m. He saw a police officer, a common sight in that part of town, with the police station nearby.

  “ Bonsoir,” Jim said.

  “Bonsoir,” replied the officer, who turned away. Jim walked on. How many times had he had brushes like that with police officers? There had been so many random encounters over the last several years, any one of which, he mused, might have put him on a slow boat to Siberia. He vanished into the crowd in the market. Past La Belle Epoque Pizzeria and the courtyard beside the market where the carousel turned around and around, carnival music swirling up into the air. Past the hotel de ville, along the Esplanade de la Résistance, and le Jardin du Val Cochere (“Garden of the Little Devils”) on his right, and between rows of 150-year-old Platane trees, which were bare and gray, with bulbous joints at the top. The historic ramparts of Dinan were to his left. He moved past the Tour de Beaufort, and the statue of Duclos, Mire de Dinan 1704-1772.

  Oz. A coarse language, German, which is no doubt why the French hold it in contempt. French being the language of beauty— according to the French!—but German, the language from which English actually derives.

  Dinan Police officers Christian Joncour and Henri Tardy took down Kopp. He walked the length of the promenade, about 100 meters. Then up the hill, along Rue du Fosse, up the stairs. His legs had to be tired, but when had Jim Kopp not been tired in the time he had been sleeping?

  English, derivative of the German, dominates the world: the language of commerce, bad enough for the French, but more than that, worst of all, the language of diplomacy! Diplomacy, a French creation, although the great statesmen, at least in Kissinger’s book, were men like the Brit Castlereagh, or

  Austrian Metternich, and Kissinger—good Nixon man, was German, although he officially renounced his citizenship. Kissinger. If H. Kissinger hadn’t done his thing in ’73, I’d have been on a one-way flight to Saigon. Me and Walt. Our draft numbers were high probability. Then Kissinger’s peace accord. Gord Liddy, the hotheaded egotist, screwed everybody with Watergate. Dad would have never touched Watergate, would not have soldiered along in the ranks if he had accepted the offer to go to D.C. Dr. Steinfeld, Nixon’s Surgeon General told me so, years ago. True story. Go ahead. Ask him. Ask him how his daughter is. She was gorgeous.

  Along Rue d’Horloge. Past the Hôtel de la Tour d’Horloge, a creaky, heavy-beamed old building. There was a tiny Madonna perched above the doorway of the store next to the hotel like a guardian angel. A few more steps and he would be out of the narrow side street and into the crowded square.

  Germany. Austria. Grandpa’s birthplace. Dad. The Marine, who was there, the crucible of death, Japan, and what would Dad have said now about my—success? Success by what measure, I suppose, but of

  Kopp is escorted into the courthouse in Rennes, Brittany. course that’s the point, Jim, you idiot. Hmm: “Jim Kopp’s struggle is the struggle of modern post-Christian civilization.” Yes. And the central point of it all is, will we strive to protect the weak? Will we? Where are we going? Quo Vadis?

  He felt a hard hand grab his shoulder. It exerted a forceful grip, an unfriendly one. How long had it been since he felt anyone grab him with force? It had once been such a staple of his life as an activist, used to be part of the game. There were two of them. Plainclothes. Large men. He struggled against the man squeezing his shoulder. It was no use. They twisted his arm behind his back, drove his body to the ground.

  “La police! La police!” Jim Kopp yelled. Perhaps he was trying to convince police that he was not James C. Kopp, the American fugitive. Or was it a last desperate attempt to sell someone, anyone, a bystander, on the idea that he was a victim, being attacked by thugs? An elderly woman approached the two men who were pinning down the thin, gaunt man, and hit them over the head with her umbrella. The man she thought to assist may have looked weak, but his appearance belied his strength. They had to fight to keep him in place, force his hands behind his back for cuffing, facedown,

  Dinan Post Office where Kopp retrieved his money. cheek grinding into the cobblestone. A car pulled up and he was pushed into the backseat. A brief drive to the police station around the corner. Silence in the car, Jim Kopp saying not a word. Escorted inside the station and down the hall, right turn, into a small, square overnight holding cell that was located right next to the drunk tank.

  What had gone wrong? His situation, prior to his arrest, had hardly been perfect, but he was ready to move, had enough money to get on a train, ultimately get to Germany, mail his letters, meet up with contacts, get to Canada, New York, and back to Loretta—and to the field. He did not know that the day before his arrest, local police had received a fax from the authorities in Paris, via the FBI. A man named James C. Kopp, who was on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List, was in Dinan, and planning to run. He could be armed and is dangerous. He had been using the post office to retrieve money being wired from the United States. Circulate his photo to post office employees, see if anyone recognizes him.

  The next day, the haggard-looking bearded man had stood in La Poste, feverishly rubbing rosary beads. The clerk named Christian Guillot studied him. When James C. Kopp left the post office, Guillot phoned the National Police. If the man returns, the clerk was told, phone us immediately. Later that day, he returned and retrieved an envelope. He left the office. Guillot phoned

  Prison in Rennes, France, where Kopp was taken. the police: he had come back. Guillot followed him out, saw a uniformed police officer standing on the corner. He motioned to the officer to follow Kopp. The officer started to move, but suddenly realized two plainclothes detectives had arrived. Their names were Christian Joncour and Henri Tardy, both 25-year veteran cops.

  They followed the fugitive as he walked around town, up the hill, down the narrow side streets, waiting for t
he right moment to arrest him. Kopp did not turn around, but it appeared that he was quickening his pace. He was almost in the main square, where he could disappear into the crowd, when they made their move. At the station, Captain Pascal le Taillendier searched Kopp. His passport said he was John O’Brien, from Ireland. Then Le Taillendier found two more Irish passports—one for Sean O’Briain, and one for Daniel Joseph O’Sullivan. He also found instructions written in French on how to operate a semiautomatic pistol, a scrap of paper with a written reference to a Western Union transfer for 300 dollars in the name of Francis Teller, and the 300 dollars cash.

  Kopp was placed in a small cell. National French police drove from Rennes, the regional capital, 30 minutes away, to take Kopp back with them to the prison facility there. They loaded James Kopp into a vehicle in Dinan and drove along the river to the Moulin Meen hostel. He was taken upstairs to his room to collect his things. The Japanese roommate was there, astounded at what was going on. His friend Jim Kopp looked at him and grinned.

  “Well. I guess it’s sayonara,” Kopp said.

  *** Buffalo, N.Y. That afternoon, when agents in the Buffalo FBI field office heard the news there were high-fives all around. Bernie Tolbert answered the phone in New York City. The agent on the other end had some good news for him. Kopp was in custody. Got him. Funny how things work out. Tolbert was no longer with the bureau. He had retired a month earlier, taken a new job as head of security with the National Basketball Association. He had thought about staying in the FBI just a bit longer, to see the Kopp investigation through to the end. They had been so close to nabbing him in Ireland. But he knew it was time to move on. The new job took him to Barcelona, Tokyo, Paris. But the Kopp case would never be far from his thoughts.

  When Tolbert left the bureau in February, he spoke with Lynne Slepian. The investigation had brought them very close. He tried to convince her that the case would remain a top priority with the bureau, even though he was leaving. And now, right after Bernie Tolbert heard the big news, he phoned Lynne. No answer. He called her cell phone. Lynne was at the doctor’s office with her mother.

  “Hello?”

  “Lynne—it’s Bernie. You sitting down?”

  “That all depends—what do you have to say?”

  “I told you we’d get him. And we did.” A long pause. He could

  sense Lynne’s emotion. He heard her begin to cry. Then the widow and the retired FBI agent were both in tears. Tolbert burst with pride over the work his old team had done. Some of the guys back in Buffalo had a poster made for him, the James Kopp wanted poster with “captured” splashed across it. Eventually he had it framed and matted and hung like a prized trophy on the wall of his NBA office on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.

  Dennis Malvasi under FBI escort.

  ***

  Brooklyn, N.Y. March 29, 2001 That afternoon rain clouds gathered, a damp chill in the air. Loretta Marra had been at the cramped, dingy laundromat a block away from her apartment at 385 Chestnut Street in Brooklyn. Her cell phone rang. It was Dennis. The news had spread. In France, where it was

  now evening, James Charles Kopp was in custody. “I’ll be right home,” Loretta said. She hung up, then phoned him back again. “Clean up the computer,” she said.

  Dennis killed the files. Loretta neared the outside of the building, towards the front door, when she saw FBI agents moving towards her. She was not about to submit quietly, she didn’t have it in her. She took a FedEx receipt out of her pocket and ripped it up, then pressed speed dial on her cell phone.

  “Put the cell phone away,” said an agent, grabbing her arm.

  She hung on to the phone and screamed—not a scream of terror, but a prolonged war cry, one of warning for Dennis, perhaps.

  “Put the cell down now!” yelled the agent over her shriek. “Right now! Drop it! Drop it!”

  The agent was on her now, turning Loretta around, forcing her hands up on the wall. Two uniform New York Police Department officers who happened to be nearby came running. Loretta saw the cops pull their guns. FBI agents flashed their badges for the police to see. A heavily armed FBI SWAT team moved upstairs to the apartment. The team had been well briefed on Dennis Malvasi’s violent history. Do not treat him lightly. He had blown up clinics. Take all precautions. Agents pushed Malvasi to the floor in the apartment, cuffed him, then escorted him outside. The couple’s two boys, ages five and two, were in the next room, looked after by agents.

  Malvasi knew the drill. “I’ve never met Kopp in my entire life,” he told agents. “I don’t know this man.”

  Neighbors emerged from the building, hearing the screams. They were shocked to see the photos of Marra and Malvasi in the newspapers the next day. Arrest warrants were processed charging that the couple had harbored and concealed “a fugitive, James Charles Kopp, and did aid and abet in his movement in interstate and foreign commerce to avoid prosecution.”

  Agents searched the apartment, collecting evidence. They found documents stuffed in the back of the toilet. They found letters from Kopp, Irish phone numbers, library cards for Joyce Maier, an address for Amy Boissonneault, an Internet printout from a group called the Pensacola Pro-life Hunt Club, a false Arizona driver’s license in Joyce Maier’s name, a social security card and birth certificate for one Rose Marie Carroll. They also found two Canadian birth certificates for Loretta Marra’s two sons, bills for electricity, gas, telephone for Ted Barnes, a driver’s learner permit for Joyce Maier. There were receipts for $4,381 in gold and silver bars—and four bars, plus cash, stuffed inside the base of a lamp, along with Marra’s legitimate passport in her own name. There were pages from the Army of God Code of Conduct handbook, and seven pages from the website of the Canadian Abortion Rights Action League—including pages listing abortion clinics in Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia.

  After the arrest, agents Michael McAndrew and Christy Kottis drove Marra to the 75th Precinct at 1000 Sutter Avenue in Brooklyn. After processing, Marra was driven to the U.S. Eastern District New York courthouse in an FBI van. She still looked for a way out.

  “As I see it, you two have three options,” she told the agents from the backseat. “One, is to quit doing what you do altogether.”

  The agents said nothing.

  “The second option is to do your job but to stop persecuting Christians. The third option would be the heroic and Christian thing to do, which would be to pull the car over right now, let me out and give me 20 dollars.”

  The agents still said nothing.

  “Look, I’m not insane. I don’t actually believe that you would let me out, but that would be the heroic thing to do.”

  Chapter 20 ~ St. Paul 4:18

  Lewisburg, Tennessee

  Tuesday, April 3, 2001 Five days after the arrests of Kopp, Marra and Malvasi, the phone rang at a farmhouse in Lewisburg, Tennessee. Susan Brindle picked up. It was John Broderick, the lawyer who had once defended her sister, pro-life radical Joan Andrews. Broderick talked to Brindle about the arrest of Jim Kopp in France. He was going to see Jim on Thursday. “Any messages for him?” he asked.

  “You’re seeing Jim?” Susan said, the name sounding more like “Jeem” in her southern accent. “Can I go with you?”

  “Susan—”

  “I’ll raise the money. Please. Can I go?”

  Susan Brindle had been a pro-life activist for years, although not as high-profile as Joan. She hadn’t seen Jim Kopp in years. Susan had first met him at a pro-life convention in Atlanta in 1987, gave him a ride one day. A real decent man, she thought, really holy. A pacifist, too. She didn’t want to believe he was guilty of murder, but needed to ask him in person and see his reaction to be convinced. Broderick agreed to Susan’s request. He would get her in.

  “There’s someone else I’d like Jim to meet,” she added.

  That “someone” was Bart Slepian’s niece, Amanda Robb.

  Bart’s death had hit her hard. She went on tranquilizers. Amanda started thinking about her uncle’s killer,
maybe too much. She went to a shootings range, felt an assault rifle rock her bones as she tried to blow holes in human-shaped targets at 100 yards. Amanda’s writing career had included a daytime Emmy nomination as part of a team writing television shows like All My Children. Now she was researching an article on Kopp, on the shooting, its impact on her own family. She wanted to meet her uncle’s killer.

  Her phone interview with Susan took place on the day of Jim’s arrest. The call had been prearranged, the timing was a

  Kopp’s lawyer in Rennes, Hervé Rouzaud-Le Boeuf. coincidence—although Susan felt there was deeper meaning. She didn’t believe Jim had shot Dr. Slepian and she believed the call was a sign that Jesus was welcoming Amanda into Jim’s life. So she would try to get Amanda an audience with him.

  The next day, April 4, Broderick, Susan, and Amanda each flew to Paris and met at Charles de Gaulle Airport. Together they took a train west to Rennes. Amanda agreed that for the first visit it would be just Susan and Broderick. At that time, Susan would prepare Jim for meeting a special visitor.

  ***

  Rennes, France Hervé Rouzaud–Le Boeuf rose early, dressed, looked out the window towards the old stone building a few blocks away. A room with a view, mused the lawyer with a grin, his pale blue eyes twinkling. The building down the street was the Rennes Court of Appeals. No matter how many times he saw it, the power of the building as a symbol never failed to strike a chord. It was where actions of the state were called into question, under the dispassionate protection of the French Constitution, by criminal lawyers such as himself, the place where justice must be done and must be seen to be done.

  Rouzaud–Le Boeuf cut a jaunty figure as he left his apartment building. He looked rather like the late Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau: modest height, silver-gray hair of liberal length poking out from underneath a black fedora, leather briefcase in hand, maroon shirt, tweed jacket, black scarf for the nip in the air. He was 54 years old, from a city in Brittany called Vannes, where they spoke not French but Breton. His office in Rennes was on Rue Bonne Nouvelle, first floor, near Place Sainte Anne. In his office he kept prints of ships and nautical maps, a tribute to his father, who had been a captain on oceangoing cargo vessels.