by Tom Philbin
After five days without shootings, 37-year-old Jeffrey Hopper was shot dead on October 21. At the time, a white van was thought to be involved in the shootings and two immigrants were arrested, but this trial led nowhere.
Meanwhile the shooter had been sending taunting notes and other communications to Chief Charles Moose, Sheriff of Montgomery County. For example, the tenth victim was a bus driver in Aspen Hill, and after that killing, the sheriff received a note that said, in part: “Your children are not safe anywhere, at any time.”
An investigation that included federal agents had been going full tilt, but eyewitness accounts were spotty, although they included people spotting the white van and a gray car speeding away from the four shootings that had occurred in Aspen Hill.
Besides the notes, which were handwritten and inside plastic bags, Moose received Tarot cards with the Death sign, upon which was written “Call me God.”
A telephone call made by the killer and traced to a pay phone in Henrico County, Virginia, almost resulted in an arrest but that effort missed by minutes. But what the killer said was highly significant, particularly when he boasted about having committed a murder in a liquor store in Montgomery, Alabama.
On October 17, investigators matched that information to John Allen Muhammad, who was known to authorities. Muhammad’s exwife lived near the Capital Beltway in Clinton, a community in suburban Prince George’s County, Maryland, and had taken out an order of protection against him.
Further investigation found that Muhammad had bought a 1990 dark blue Caprice, but horribly, the cops screwed up. The Caprice had been stopped a couple of times by radio cars because it was in the area, but neither Muhammad nor his young friend, Lee Boyd Malvo, were suspected of being involved in the shootings. Also, cops had stopped Muhammad for a minor traffic infraction on October 3, two hours prior to the shooting of Pascal Charlot. Perhaps they had been focused on finding a “white van.”
In 2002, two killers cut a hole in the rear of a Caprice and used it as a firing porthole to gun people down on a random basis.
Finally, with Muhammad a suspect because of the Montgomery killing, an alert for the blue Caprice was put out. On October 24, a truck driver discovered Muhammad and Malvo sleeping in the car at a rest stop off Interstate 70 near Myersville, Maryland. The driver used his truck to block the exit and then called police, who made the arrest uneventfully.
Why Did They Kill?
The motive for the killings might have been Muhammad’s desire to kill his wife, Mildred, because she had won custody of his children as well as a court order keeping him away from them. Perhaps the plan was to cover up her murder by making her seem like another victim of the sniper, rather than the main target.
But Muhammad seemed crazy, wanting to do just about anything for Allah, while the boy, Malvo, said the motive was to kidnap children to extort money from the government and to “set up a camp to train children to terrorize cities.”
Both men were convicted. Malvo was given five life terms in prison, while Muhammad was executed by lethal injection on November 10, 2009.
The Beltway Snipers’ Deadly Toll
October 2: Man killed while crossing a parking lot in Wheaton, Maryland.
October 3: Five more murders, four in Maryland and one in D.C.
October 4: Woman wounded while loading her van at Spotsylvania Mall.
October 7: 13-year-old-boy wounded at a school in Bowie, Maryland.
October 9: Man murdered near Manassas, Virginia, while pumping gas.
October 11: Man shot dead near Fredericksburg, Virginia, while pumping gas.
October 14: FBI analyst Linda Franklin killed near Falls Church, Virginia.
October 19: Man wounded outside a steakhouse in Ashland, Virginia.
October 22: A bus driver, the final victim, killed in Aspen Hill, Maryland.
Items Found in the Caprice
Malvo and Muhammed had equipped the Chevrolet Caprice so well that it was, in effect, a rolling tank. These are some of the items found in it:
The Bushmaster .223-caliber rifle used in each attack.
A rifle scope for taking aim and a tripod to steady the shot.
A backseat that had the sheet metal removed between the passenger compartment and the trunk, enabling the shooter to get into the trunk from inside the car.
The Chevy Caprice owner’s manual with—the FBI Laboratory later detected—written impressions of the one of the demand notes.
The digital voice recorder used to make extortion demands.
A laptop stolen from one of the victims containing maps of the shooting sites and getaway routes from some of the crime scenes.
Maps, walkie-talkies, and many more items.
Q & A
In fall 2001, someone launched an anthrax attack on the United States, and though it was bad, it could have been much worse. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the media, and other groups warned the public numerous times and helped protect them against getting infected. Anthrax is a poison that everyone should know about. The following information about this sporeborne disease comes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Q. What is anthrax?
A. Anthrax is a serious disease caused by Bacillus anthracis, a bacterium that forms spores. A spore is a cell that is dormant but may come to life under the right conditions.
Q. How many kinds of anthrax are there?
A. There are three types:
Cutaneous (affects the skin).
Inhalation (affects the lungs).
Gastrointestinal (affects the digestive system).
Q. How do you get it?
A. Anthrax is not known to spread from one person to another. However, humans can become infected with anthrax by handling products from infected animals or by breathing in anthrax spores from infected animal products (like wool, for example). People also can become infected with gastrointestinal anthrax by eating undercooked meat from infected animals. And anthrax can be used as a weapon, as detailed in this chapter.
Q. How dangerous is anthrax?
A. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention classify agents with recognized bioterrorism potential into three priority categories: A, B, and C. Anthrax is classified as a Category A agent. Category A agents are those that:
Pose the greatest possible threat for a bad effect on public health.
May spread across a large geographic area or require public awareness.
Need a great deal of planning to keep them from harming the public’s health.
In most cases, early treatment with antibiotics can cure cutaneous anthrax. Even if untreated, 80 percent of people who become infected with cutaneous anthrax do not die. Gastrointestinal anthrax is more serious with one-fourth to more than half of cases leading to death. Inhalation anthrax is even more severe. In 2001, about half of the cases of inhalation anthrax ended in death.
Q. What are the symptoms?
A. The symptoms of anthrax differ depending on the type of the disease:
Cutaneous—The first symptom is a small sore that develops into a blister. The blister then develops into a skin ulcer with a black area in the center. The sore, blister, and ulcer do not hurt.
Gastrointestinal—The first symptoms are nausea, loss of appetite, bloody diarrhea, and fever, followed by bad stomach pain.
Inhalation—The first symptoms are cold or flu-like symptoms that can include a sore throat, a mild fever, and muscle aches. Later symptoms include cough, chest discomfort, shortness of breath, tiredness, and muscle aches. (Caution: Just because a person has cold or flu symptoms, do not assume that he or she has inhalation anthrax.)
Q. How soon do infected people get sick?
A. Symptoms can appear within seven days of the person coming in contact with the bacterium for all three types of anthrax. For inhalation anthrax, symptoms can appear within a week or can take up to forty-two days to appear.
Q. How is anthrax treated?
A.
Antibiotics are used to treat all three types of anthrax. Early identification and treatment are important. If someone has been exposed to anthrax but is not yet sick, health-care providers can use a combination of antibiotics (such as ciprofloxacin, levofloxacin, doxycycline, or penicillin) and the anthrax vaccine to prevent the infection. Once a person has been diagnosed with the anthrax infection, the treatment is a sixty-day course of antibiotics. The degree of success depends on the type of infection and how soon treatment begins.
Q. Can anthrax be prevented?
A. Yes, in some cases. A vaccine to prevent anthrax exists, but it is not yet available for the general public. Anyone who may be exposed to anthrax—including certain members of the U.S. armed forces, laboratory workers, and workers who may enter or re-enter contaminated areas—can get the vaccine. Also, in the event of an attack using anthrax as a weapon, people who have been exposed would get the vaccine.
Q. What should I do if I think I have anthrax?
A. If you are showing symptoms of anthrax infection, call your doctor right away.
Q. What should I do if I think I have been exposed to anthrax?
A. Contact local law enforcement immediately if you think that you may have been exposed to anthrax. This includes being exposed to a suspicious package or envelope that contains powder.
Q. What is the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) doing to prepare for a possible anthrax attack?
A. The CDC is working with state and local health authorities to prepare for an anthrax attack. Activities include:
Developing plans and procedures to respond to an attack using anthrax.
Training and equipping emergency-response teams to help state and local governments control infection, gather samples, and perform tests.
Educating health-care providers, media, and the general public about what to do in the event of an attack.
Working closely with health departments, veterinarians, and laboratories to watch for suspected cases of anthrax.
Developing a national electronic database to track potential cases of anthrax.
Ensuring that there are enough safe laboratories to quickly test suspected anthrax cases.
Working with hospitals, laboratories, emergency-response teams, and health-care providers to make sure they have the supplies they need in case of an attack.
The man carrying the black attaché case looked ordinary in every way as he approached the Northwest Orient Airlines service counter in Portland, Oregon. He didn’t draw any attention on that day before Thanksgiving in 1971. Later he was said to be about six feet tall with short brown hair and even features. He bought a ticket for Seattle and then got onto the plane.
No one made a big deal of the black attaché case he carried. Today, he never would have been able to get on the plane without first running the case though some sort of security apparatus.
A composite sketch of D.B. Cooper.
Indeed, if the airline had been able to do so in this particular case, the result might have been total panic and certainly would have been an immediate arrest. What this man did on that day led to much more stringent security regulations for airports and passengers, not only in America but also throughout the world.
The man gave his name as Dan Cooper.
Passing a Note
Cooper sat in a window seat. Once the plane was airborne, he took a note from his pocket and handed it to the attractive flight attendant, a woman named Florence Schaffner.
She was used to getting notes from passengers inviting her to dinner or whatever. That was what happened when you were an attractive flight attendant. She had a way of dealing with the notes. She slipped the one from Cooper into a purse unread.
A few minutes later, as she approached Cooper’s seat, he beckoned and she leaned down to hear his whisper.
“You better read that note,” he said. “I’m carrying a bomb in this attaché case, and if my instructions are not followed, I’ll blow up this plane!”
Schaffner nodded. She went to read the note, which was written neatly in ink, and then showed it to the other flight attendant, Tina Mucklow. It repeated that the man had a bomb in his briefcase and instructed the pilot to proceed to Seattle and pick up $200,000 in twenty-dollar bills by 5 p.m., as well as two parachutes with reserve chutes. He also wanted a fuel truck waiting so the plane could refuel. If this wasn’t done, the note said, the plane would be blown up. The flight attendants hurried into the cabin to show the note to the captain, William Scott, and other members of the crew.
Radioing Ahead
The captain radioed officials at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport to tell them what was going on, and they contacted the president of Northwest Orient, who authorized the payment of $200,000. There were about forty people on the plane, a Boeing 727-100, and the last thing he wanted was to have them killed.
Of course the FBI was contacted, and they hurried to gather the money, which would weigh 21 pounds. The hijacker had warned that he would not accept any bills that were in sequence. But the FBI knew they had to keep a record of the money, so they frantically microfilmed the bills—all 10,000 of them—while the plane approached Sea-Tac so the money would be ready by the time the plane touched down. Getting the bills took extra time, but Cooper allowed it. To fool the passengers, the plane circled the airport after the pilot claimed a mechanical glitch.
Later, when investigators tried to put things together, they thought that Cooper was from the area because he was easily able to recognize Tacoma from the air and knew that a military air base, McChord Air Force Base, was just twenty minutes or so from Sea-Tac.
He also knew how various planes performed and obviously had chosen the 727 for his caper for a reason. Later, when he was to exit the aircraft in flight, he knew that the wing flaps had to be dropped to reduce the plane’s speed to about 100 miles per hour.
The author is also well acquainted with how necessary it is to lower airspeed before exiting an aircraft. He was a paratrooper and will always remember the sensation of being tossed about like a leaf in the wind by the “prop blast” when jumping from a plane going only 90 miles an hour. When the jumpmaster looked out the open door of the plane, his skin was literally rippling and his skull was clearly visible, but when he pulled his head back in the plane, his face returned to normal instantly. Cooper seemed very familiar with airplanes—and jumping out of them.
The parachutes almost proved to be a huge stumbling block for the caper. The police were able to get a couple of military parachutes, but Cooper rejected them because he didn’t like the idea of chutes automatically opening at a certain height. Or maybe he was afraid that the chutes would be sabotaged so they wouldn’t open at all and he would end up as food for wildlife.
Still, the police finally came up with the chutes and reserves, taking them from a parachute-jumping school. The authorities could not give Cooper a sabotaged parachute because they didn’t know for sure if one of these parachutes was for a hostage passenger. If the chute was sabotaged, the hostage would be killed.
At around 5:30 p.m., while the plane was circling over Sea-Tac, Captain Scott was informed that the money and the parachutes were in place: “Everything is ready for your arrival.”
Cooper instructed the pilot to land and taxi to an isolated part of the field and also to dim the lights in the plane’s interior so that he could not be seen from the outside and picked off by a sharpshooter. He wanted a single person, not in a vehicle, to carry the parachutes and money into the plane. While this was happening, Cooper ordered the aft stairs to be dropped. The Northwest employee climbed the stairs and gave everything to Tina Mucklow.
Cooper then allowed the thirty-six passengers and Florence Schaffner to leave the plane, but Tina Mucklow and three crew members had to stay. While the plane was refueling and as Mucklow stood by, Cooper read an instruction card for operation of the aft stairs, which were lowered by gravity from the underside of the rear of the fuselage using a simple lever similar to an automobile emergency
brake. Cooper questioned Mucklow carefully about the stairs, and the flight attendant said she did not believe they could be lowered during flight. Cooper told her flatly that she was wrong.
Cooper also told the pilot that he didn’t want the plane flying higher than 10,000 feet, a height where they wouldn’t have to wear oxygen masks and where the flight would not be disrupted when he dropped the aft stairs. Cooper also told Captain Scott that he was wearing a wrist altimeter to check the altitude. The 727 was a small enough jet to be able to fly slowly, not exceeding 150 knots, or about 172 miles per hour, at that altitude. If the jet had been larger, the plane would not have been able to maintain such a low airspeed and would have crashed.
Also, Cooper thought that the way the three jet engines were mounted on the rear of the plane would not interfere with the aft steps going down.
Once the plane was airborne, Cooper told the crew that he wanted them to fly the jet to Mexico City, 2,200 miles away. But they demurred, saying that at the altitude and speed they were traveling, the jet would only be able to travel 1,000 miles, to about Reno, Nevada. Cooper accepted their word and told them they would have to refuel there.
Hazardous Flight
They also discussed what route to take, which definitely could not be one going through Reno at 10,000 feet. Several nearby mountain ranges were perilously close to the altitude at which the jet was supposed to be traveling.
They finally settled on a route, and the plane lifted off.
It was not ideal flying weather. As they flew, Captain Scott did the best he could to maintain the speed and altitude while fighting a strong wind. At 8 p.m., it became obvious to the crew that the hijacker was not going to Mexico City. A red light came on in the cabin, indicating that the aft stairs were being lowered. Over the intercom, Captain Scott asked, “Is there anything we can do for you?” The response was curt: “No!” It was the last word the crew heard from Dan Cooper.
