23 Days of Terror: The Compelling True Story of the Hunt and Capture of the Beltway Snipers by Angie Cannon

Author:Angie Cannon [Cannon, Angie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: True Crime, General, Murder
ISBN: 9781451604481
Google: Qyz9pGKY6bEC
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2010-06-15T23:55:52.679265+00:00

13

A Brief Hiatus

On Thursday, October 17, the sniper task force was dealt a major black eye, a real shiner.

Across the Washington area, residents were increasingly frustrated with the failure of police not only to stop the shootings but also to offer persuasive evidence that they were making progress at all. In schools, the restrictions on outside activity had kids and teachers on edge. Weekend soccer games had been canceled, leaving parents to fill gaping holes in the kids’ schedules without straying anywhere near a shopping mall, a highway, anywhere at all, really. It was as if the entire region—more than five million people—were in a bizarre lockdown, and no one could say when it would come to an end.

As horrifying as the shooting of Linda Franklin had been, the eyewitness accounts provided to police afterward seemed to offer some hope that the sniper might be slipping up. He had pushed things too far, ventured away from his trusty shooting places concealed in the woods, and allowed himself to be seen drawing down on Franklin in a busy parking garage. One eyewitness even identified the make of the sniper’s rifle, the Russian-made AK-74 assault rifle. Finally, with some hard evidence to go on—instead of the relentless focus on the mysterious white box truck—it seemed like it would be only a matter of time before the phalanx of law enforcement agents pursuing the sniper brought him to bay. Relying on the man’s account, Chief Manger and the other officials directing the task force investigation had implored the public over the past forty-eight hours to please be on the lookout for a cream-colored Chevy Astro van with a ladder rack and a malfunctioning taillight. The eyewitness had described the shooter in the parking garage and had even provided a partial tag number from the rear of the van. Newspapers and TV reports ran accounts of the eyewitness’s description. It was a bonanza of information!

And all of it was bogus.

It fell to Manger to deliver the news. “Information provided by one of the witnesses at the scene of the shooting in the Home Depot,” he told reporters at a packed news conference, “… is not credible. In addition, there have been several media reports related to the description of a specific weapon and the suspect. That information, as well, is not reliable.”

As much as ordinary residents were shocked and angered by the news—who would make up such a story? why?—no one was more frustrated and angry than Manger and other top police officials. After digesting the account of the eyewitness, they had ordered their troops to put in even longer days than before, running down leads around the clock on every AK-74 that had ever been sold anywhere near the Washington area. Other cops had been dispatched to run new checks on Astro vans purchased far and wide. They checked AK-74 rifle owners who also owned white vans—a list of ten or eleven people, whom officers further investigated. Empty coffee cups piled up. Computers whirred through the night.

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