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Sniper Case Probe Gathers Pace
Updated 10:43 PM ET October 23, 2002


By Mark Wilkinson

ROCKVILLE, Md. (Reuters) - Investigators hunting the sniper blamed for 10 killings in the Washington area have identified two people they want to talk to, one of whom may have previously served in the U.S. Army, federal government officials said on Wednesday.

Across the country in Washington state, FBI agents searched a property in Tacoma with metal detectors in an operation local media said was related to the search for the sniper, who first struck on Oct. 2.

Earlier on Wednesday police confirmed that a bus driver shot and killed on Tuesday in the Montgomery County district of Aspen Hill was the latest victim of the sniper, who has also wounded three people.

The federal government officials declined to say if the two people being sought were suspects in the investigation. They said the person who may have served in the Army had been stationed at Fort Lewis, in Washington state near Tacoma.

A spokesman for a federal, state and local task force in Rockville, Maryland, probing the sniper attacks said late on Wednesday there was a "50-50" chance officials in the investigation would hold a late night news briefing.

As part of the search in Tacoma, agents marked the yard off in narrow strips and painstakingly combed the soil and a large tree stump, apparently for bullets and metal fragments.

At a news conference outside the duplex, FBI spokeswoman Melissa Mallon declined to say what agents were looking for or whether the search was connected to the sniper.

"Right now we're at the house. It is a consensual search and we are conducting a search of the outside perimeter of the house," she said

According to neighbors interviewed by local television, FBI agents first approached the owner of the duplex on Tuesday night and showed up again early on Wednesday to prepare for the search.

Tensions ran high at schools around the nation's capital on Wednesday, a day after police disclosed a chilling message from the sniper warning, "Your children are not safe anywhere at any time."

In Washington's Maryland suburbs where six of the sniper killings occurred and a 13-year-old boy was critically wounded entering his school, schools continued to keep students indoors three weeks after the start of the shooting spree that has convulsed the U.S. capital region.

In a sign of the anxiety gripping the area, authorities briefly closed part of a major Maryland highway on Wednesday afternoon after a school bus driver reported seeing someone in a white box truck pull up next to him and point a gun at the children inside. Authorities were searching for the vehicle.

A white box truck was seen by witnesses at more than one of the shooting scenes.

Public school officials in Montgomery County, an affluent and usually tranquil suburb just north of Washington, said student attendance on Wednesday was 85 percent, compared with a normal rate of 95 percent.

A White House spokesman said the federal government was giving schools in the region $600,000 to strengthen security during the hunt for the sniper.

SEEKING DIALOGUE

Apart from Montgomery County, he has struck in the District of Columbia and in neighboring Virginia since beginning his spree, hitting each victim with a single bullet from a high-powered rifle.

Authorities said they were seeking a dialogue with the shooter who has eluded capture despite a massive manhunt by federal, state and local law enforcement officers.

According to reports, investigators found a letter several pages long near the site of Tuesday's shooting that renewed earlier demands for $10 million to be put into a bank account.

Moose said the first letter, found last weekend, included the threat to the children.

The Washington Post said the angry letter was found tacked to a tree behind an Ashland, Virginia, restaurant where a 37-year-old man was wounded on Saturday, about 85 miles south of Washington. The letter berated police as incompetent and listed six calls to the sniper task force that had been "ignored," the newspaper reported.

The letter reportedly said "five people had to die" because of the mishandled calls.

Moose declined to comment on the letters at the briefing on Wednesday, but Michael Bouchard of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, said authorities wanted to "develop some trust with this person."

"We are trying to open a dialogue. Any time there's a dialogue, we're hoping to resolve this peacefully," he said.

President Bush said on Wednesday he was praying for a quick end to the killing spree and offered full government resources to help catch the "ruthless" killer.