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

by Wells, Jon

  “Bruce has an understanding with Kathy Mehltretter. It just needs to be formalized, technicalities worked out. Jim, the government stands to benefit so much from your admission. And what’s the government going to do, stand up in court and try to tell a judge that your admission did not help their case? Bruce has this expression—he said that won’t pass ‘the straight face test.’”

  Kopp said she was still in danger. She could be sacrificing her legal interests, and thus the interests of her family, by encouraging him to confess before trial.

  “Jim, if I were not positive that your admission will release us, I would beg you to endure your own moral pain and speak after our case was done with.”

  Jim Kopp finally had his opportunity to save Loretta. Everything changed after that. He confessed to the Buffalo News reporters, in Barket’s presence. He put it all out there, why he shot Dr. Slepian, how he did it. But Bruce Barket had made a big mistake. He did not yet have a deal finalized with the prosecution that a Kopp confession would automatically release Marra and Malvasi. The Buffalo News waited eight days before splashing “KOPP CONFESSES” on the front page. But Barket still had no signed deal from the prosecution.

  James Kopp, Barket’s new client, had figuratively hung himself. And Loretta Marra, his other client, was still in jail with her husband, and would not get a walk as he had promised her. Barket was furious. He felt the Buffalo News had lied to him, thought he had an understanding that the News would wait even longer before running the story. But the newspaper countered that, in fact, Barket had been promised nothing about the publication timetable. News editors said they told Barket that they would need time to write and edit the story, which would give him a bit of time, but there was no deal on how long that would take. Barket had made a major miscalculation. And he knew it.

  In November 2002, after Kopp’s confession, Marra and Malvasi were returned to Brooklyn to face trial. In early December they were again denied bail. Loretta Marra had sat in court that day, watched Kathleen Mehltretter recommend to the judge that the couple be kept in custody because they were a flight risk—despite Jim throwing himself on his own sword! They had a deal! Marra seethed, called the prosecutor a “lying bitch.” Turned out Jim had been right all along. It was too good to be true. They had been set up by the government.

  Chapter 28 ~ The Maltese Falcon

  Sentencing hearing

  Brooklyn Federal Courthouse

  August 20, 2003

  Judge Carol Amon listened to Loretta Marra’s story. Marra had spoken for a better part of the afternoon, flipping page after page of her speech, and was still not finished. “Ms. Marra, do you think you can summarize your last several pages for the court?”

  “Yes, I will try,” she said. She told the judge the prosecutors had acted in bad faith, had made promises that she and her husband would be released if Kopp confessed—and had then gone back on their word. And now the prosecution was trying to put them away for five years. “I hope you won’t let them get away with it,” she said. “Because Jim would never in a million years have made these admissions prior to the disposition of my case. I beg you, please do not let them get away with this.”

  “To summarize, Ms. Marra,” said Amon, “it is your position that Mr. Kopp made these admissions after conversations with you and that the motivating factor for him in making these admissions at the time he did was to benefit you and Mr. Malvasi?”

  “Yes.” Now it was Peter Katz’s turn. The prosecutor argued that in fact there had never been anything on the record, no “direct promise” for the release of Marra and Malvasi. And a newspaper was not the proper forum for Kopp to confess. Barket countered that Marra had been promised “credit” for delivering Kopp’s confession. The fly in the ointment had been when the Buffalo News published the confession story before he had a deal from the prosecution. “The reporters essentially lied to me,” said Barket. “They promised to hold the story.”

  Court adjourned until 9:30 the next morning. Judge Amon had come to a decision on the sentence. The government had tried to prove additional criminal conduct to maximize their punishment, to give them nearly three more years in jail. But Amon had decided the prosecution had not proved that sufficiently. “I’m not persuaded that the acts were anything more than harboring.” She looked at Barket. “How much time has been served already?”

  “Twenty-nine to 30 months, Your Honor. Since March 29, 2001.”

  Amon said that Marra’s words convinced her that she had a role in eliciting Kopp’s confession, and that she deserved some consideration for that. But, the judge continued, the bottom line was that Kopp’s confession, and Loretta Marra’s role in it, was mostly irrelevant. Based on a strict reading of the sentencing guidelines for harboring a fugitive, Marra and Malvasi had already technically exceeded the incarceration guideline for the crime. Barket’s eyes lit up.

  “Move time served, Your Honor,” he said.

  “Your Honor,” Katz interjected, “if you impose time served, that would not be appropriate.”

  “The guideline is low, in light of their conduct,” said the judge. “And Mr. Malvasi has a really disturbing background of violence.” But she decided to release Loretta Marra and Dennis Malvasi. “You are free to return to your children,” the judge said.

  In the gallery, friends broke into tears. Amon added a cautionary note. “You helped a man the FBI claimed was a murderer. And he was a murderer. Ms. Marra, in part of your statement you said you will continue to admire Mr. Kopp, and that your moral concern was not centered on his admission of killing, but that he lied to his followers about it. I find that troubling. I hope you will use your considerable intellect to educate your children; don’t poison them with any notion that you were political prisoners of an unfair system, because that was not the case. You are sentenced to time served, plus three years supervised release and a $100 fine. You must reside in the Eastern District of New York.”

  “West Milford, New Jersey, is where her family is, Your Honor,” said Barket.

  “Then she can go to New Jersey today. This court is adjourned.”

  After paying their $100 fine, Marra and Malvasi were officially released. They walked out the front door of the Brooklyn courthouse arm in arm into sunshine and a warm breeze. Their skin looked even paler outside, Marra looked fragile. Reporters surrounded them. Loretta didn’t want any part of it. Malvasi didn’t shy away.

  Dennis, do you think this experience will change you as far as your involvement in the anti-abortion movement goes?

  “I am an abolitionist. I have never been a member of the antiabortion movement. So I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Dennis, did you know that Kopp had killed Slepian when you invited him to stay at your apartment?

  “With this one, I was actually minding my own business. I have never met James Kopp, I have never spoken to the man. One thing I know is, if my wife ever asks permission again for someone I don’t know to stay at our house, I’m going to say no.”

  Dennis, was the murder of Barnett Slepian wrong?

  “I don’t want to answer that. I’m on federal parole. You guys are asking me loaded questions.”

  They started to move slowly away from the reporters. Among friends and family, Loretta Marra broke into a smile. She had delivered the speech of her life in court. Funny thing, though. Marra had gone to great lengths to prove to the judge that she was the one who had convinced Kopp to confess. He had done so in order to free her. But Judge Amon would have freed her anyway. Kopp’s confession was mostly irrelevant to the timing of Loretta’s release. A reporter asked Marra about that.

  Loretta, given that the judge released you and said the confession had little impact on her decision, do you regret, now, having convinced your friend Jim to confess?

  The pale green eyes stared unblinkingly, her face now showing color from the flush of the moment, the heat. Tiny beads of sweat had popped out on her forehead. “That’s a really good question,” she sa
id. “I’ll have to think about that one for a while.”

  Loretta, will you still take part in anti-abortion protests?

  “I just want to get back to my kids.” Her kids. She had gone to Canada to give birth to both of her children. Why? She smiled at the question. “Yes, that’s true. They were born in Canada because—”

  Bruce Barket cut her off in mid-sentence. “Ah-ah,” he said. “She’s not answering that.”

  Loretta and Dennis walked away with friends and family, through a park and the shade thrown by towering trees. Celebrations would follow in the weeks to come, 150 pro-life friends would gather with the couple at a hall in New Jersey. But for now, a dozen family and friends gathered for lunch in the sun at a sidewalk café on nearby Chilton Avenue. It was wonderful, God smiling on them all. Louis, Loretta’s seven-year-old, found a five-dollar bill on the sidewalk, used it to buy his mom and dad their favorite candy bars. Dennis and Loretta still wore their prison attire, the baggy white shirts, scrubs, but their appearance turned no heads, not in New York City. They finally tasted decent sandwiches, pickles. Sipped some Sangria. As they walked away, Loretta stopped and gave Louis yet another hug. And then her other son, the four-year old, ran into her thin arms. He was born in 1999 when Jim Kopp was on the run. Loretta picked him up, held him high, looked into his eyes, joy rippling through her. He was her baby. She had named him James.

  ***

  Buffalo Federal Detention Facility Batavia, N.Y. The scene is black and white, classic film noir, 1940s fedoras and trench coats. The movie was filmed in Jim Kopp’s old hometown, San Francisco, the action couched in fog and the dark corners of the Tenderloin district. In the final scene, hard-boiled detective Sam Spade, played by Humphrey Bogart, looks into the woman’s teary eyes. She had murdered Spade’s partner, tried to get away with it. And Spade had almost taken the rap for it—almost. And now he was confronting her.

  Jim’s mind returned to the present. But not for long. Thoughts overwhelmed him at times, crowding his mind, bouncing between places and people and events he had known, common connections, books, songs, Bible verse, Mother Teresa, pre-born babies, his family, Mom, Dad, Anne, Marty, Mary, Walt. The garish pink walls of Mary’s bedroom where she taught him to read “Jack and the Beanstalk.” Back to the present, looking into the face of a visitor on the other side of the glass of the prison visitor’s booth. Picking up the black phone to speak to the visitor. Was the FBI listening today? Of course they were. He looked beyond the visitor’s face, into the corridor. Who is that woman walking around out there? She looks like a federal prosecutor. What was she doing here? He picked his glasses up off the table, pressed them to his face, trying to make her out. No. It wasn’t her.

  The visitor mentioned Loretta Marra. Kopp had been overjoyed when he first heard that she had been freed in Brooklyn. Oh, to have been there to see it, he thought, to hear the music in the air—what a scene that must have been! As always, he was preoccupied by movies, novels. How would his own life, his story, unfold? What was the next twist, the next irony? And how would it end?

  So many of his reference points were related to pop culture, Hollywood. He pointed out that Novato, a town north of where he had lived in California, was where his mother and sister and grandmother were buried—and was next door, practically, to filmmaker George Lucas’s Luke Skywalker Ranch. And the hospital where he was born, South Pasadena Hospital? That was where a scene from the movie Pay It Forward was filmed.

  He loved Pay It Forward, which starred Helen Hunt and Kevin Spacey. He thought about it all the time. You have to see it, he urged. The film had polarized critics. Some applauded it as feel-good and well acted. Others ravaged it as sappy, sentimental and ultimately manipulative. The story is about a teacher who challenges his young students to come up with an idea that can change the world. It is meant as a motivational mental exercise. You can’t really change the world with an idea. Can you? But one boy, Trevor, takes the challenge seriously. He comes up with the “pay it forward” concept: he performs three acts of unsolicited kindness to three people, the only requirement being that each passes on the goodwill to three others. His teacher says it’s a utopian idea. But it catches on—all these disparate people, with no connection, suddenly coming together, and humanity is redeemed.

  Jim Kopp thought of the movie as the story of his life. But why? Pay It Forward has a surprisingly dark ending. Trevor is famous, the movement spreads. One day, he comes to the aid of a smaller child who is being picked on by schoolyard bullies, and is himself stabbed to death. Cue the candlelit vigil, soft music. Kopp had always seen himself as a victim soul. Suffer for the cause, for God, die, painfully. But Kopp was now almost 50, and still alive. But for how long? He was certain he still might face execution. Impossible, wasn’t it? France and the United States had long ago signed the extradition deal in his case. There would be no death penalty. He grinned at that bit of conventional wisdom. His case was still wide open. The trial on the federal charges was still to come. They would make an example of him. He had seen this letter, signed by Jacques Chirac, the French president. Read it with his own eyes. It proved that nothing is in stone, and the needle was still on the table. He was sure of that.

  But back to more immediate concerns. Goodness, how solitary confinement compressed his already busy mind, squeezed it all together! The federal trial was still weeks, months, away. And he did not want a date set any time soon. What was he planning to do at that trial? He had confessed already to shooting Dr. Slepian. But that meant nothing for the new trial. The government would need to prove his guilt all over again. Would federal prosecutors bring up his pattern of behavior to prove his crime? Not only had he shot Dr. Slepian, but he had very likely shot Dr. Hugh Short in Ancaster, had cased out the property at least a week in advance?

  Canada was part of Jim Kopp’s story. The visitor mentioned Ancaster to Kopp—Jim, they have your DNA from Dr. Short’s backyard. They can put you at the scene. Kopp put his hand over his mouth as if gagging himself, shook his head. No, don’t talk about Canada. Anything but that, he replied. He’ll be on a slow boat to Siberia if he does—nothing against Siberia! It’s better than prison!

  In the movie that was his life, how did the next scene look? For him, for Loretta, for pro-life? Jim Kopp would have a surprise for everybody before he was done in court. Was he not a lawyer’s son? The reporters, the prosecutors will all end up looking like idiots. He had even written it out.

  “Imagine a letter, the very existence of which would send any number of lawyers, etc. etc. all scurrying and fussing yak yak.”

  What did that mean?

  The black-and-white images returned. San Francisco. The cold dark heart of Bogart’s Sam Spade, who, true to nothing or no one but his own code, is telling Brigid that her number is up. She is the real killer.

  “Yes, angel, I’m gonna’ send you over,” Spade said.

  “Don’t, Sam,” she replied. “Don’t say that even in fun. I was frightened for a moment there, you do such wild and unpredictable things.”

  “You’re taking the fall. I hope they don’t hang you, precious, by that sweet neck.”

  “You’ve been playing with me, just pretending you cared for me, to trap me like this. You didn’t care at all! You don’t love me!”

  “I won’t play the sap for you,” he snapped.

  “It’s not like that! You know in your heart that in spite of anything I’ve done, I love you.”

  Spade stared at her, his eyes hard, unrelenting.

  “I don’t care who loves who,” he said. “I won’t play the sap. You killed Miles and you’re going over for it.”

  “How can you do this to me, Sam?”

  “Chances are you’ll get off with life. If you’re a good girl, you’ll be out in 20 years. I’ll be waiting for you. And if they hang you, I’ll always remember you.”

  A classic scene. If Kopp had one “hot tip” it was to watch that final scene from The Maltese Falcon. He’d been thinking about it an a
wful lot lately. Anyway. If Jim Kopp could just finish the latest draft of the essay he was writing about Dad, his mind would be eased considerably. Still need to clean up a few things for publication. The reference to General Douglas MacArthur, for starters, as “Dugout Doug.” Don’t think that derogatory label would be appreciated by military types. But it should be a good read. He’d come to terms with his father. Dad had beaten his drinking near the end of his life, had made a comeback. Oh, and he still needed to find a new bridge in the narrative of the novel he was working on. Perhaps use a “sunset piano” touch. Sunset piano, he reflected, was the part that comes two-thirds of the way through every movie—every “classical” movie, not the dumb action stuff. There is a sunset, and gorgeous music washing over all of it. Yes.

  Don’t fret about the writing, Jim, you dope. As always, at times like this, just think about Joni Mitchell, Court and Spark. Your guardian angel is writing for you. Just put the words on paper and everything will take care of itself.

  The discussion with the visitor returned to Loretta’s release. What was it, he thought, about living in a cell—in a concrete room the size of a bathroom—that made one’s emotions reverberate so acutely? It was all overwhelming. Just wonderful. God had watched over them, Loretta and Jim, the whole time. He really had. Jim had known it would unfold one petal at a time, and it had. Loretta was free to be with her children again. She was still in danger, though, he thought. Very much so. Children. The meeting with the visitor came to an end. Jim hung up the phone and picked up his stack of papers, stood to leave, knocked on the door for the guard to come and escort him back into the general population. Through the glass, the visitor raised his voice to ask one more question. Did Loretta name her son James after you? Jim Kopp stopped, his mouth breaking into a wide grin, eyes twinkling.

  “You’ll have to ask Loretta.”

  Epilogue

  Buffalo, N.Y.