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

Author:Jon Wells
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3, pdf
Tags: Non-Fiction, Social Science, Mouvement pour le respect de la vie - Etats-Unis, Criminals & Outlaws, Meurtre - New York (Etat) - Amherst, Pro-life movement, Slepian, Murder, True Crime, Avortement - Etats-Unis, Abortion - United States, Kopp, Amherst, James, Abortion, United States, Pro-life movement - United States, Meurtriers - Etats-Unis, Barnett, General, Murderers - New York (State) - Amherst, Biography, Biography & Autobiography, Abortion & Birth Control, New York (State), Murderers
ISBN: 9780470155462
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2008-05-27T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15 ~ Tim Guttler

Hamilton, Ontario

Monday, January 24, 2000

The Canadian arm of the international joint sniper task force held a press conference—with spokesman Keith McCaskill from Winnipeg, Hamilton police chief Ken Robertson, and Dennis McGillis from the Ontario Provincial Police. There was an announcement. The OPP had officially issued an arrest warrant for James Charles Kopp in the attempted murder of Ancaster’s Dr. Hugh Short in 1995. No charges were announced in the attacks on Dr. Jack Fainman in 1997 or Dr. Garson Romalis in 1994. McCaskill added that the investigation would continue across the country, but refused to point the finger at Kopp in connection to the Winnipeg and Vancouver attacks. “We certainly know that Mr. Kopp may be a key to the investigations in Winnipeg and Vancouver,” McCaskill said, describing Kopp as “a person the police want to interview.”

Hamilton Police Chief Ken Robertson addresses media.

What was going on? It had been seven months since the Erie County grand jury had indicted Kopp for Dr. Slepian’s murder. Why had the OPP waited to file its charge? There was no new evidence, no break in the case. Investigators in Vancouver, Hamilton and Winnipeg had done all they could.

They had even pursued a possible link between Kopp and a fundamentalist Catholic sect called St. Pius X, which catered to Kopp’s known preference for attending mass in the traditional Latin. There were St. Pius X churches in Vancouver, Winnipeg and St. Catharines—a city 40 minutes east of Ancaster. A story making the rounds in the Winnipeg congregation had Kopp attending Our Lady of the Rosary. It was even suggested that he had helped organize the mass, but no one could confirm it.

Hamilton police had scoured the woods behind Dr. Hugh Short’s home several times looking for the weapon. They returned and searched again after the rifle was discovered behind Slepian’s house, three years after the Ancaster shooting—but found nothing. Hamilton police had found the hair fibers in the ski hat at the scene, and developed DNA from it, but could not confirm whose DNA it was. The decision to finally issue an arrest warrant for Kopp seemed more of an attempt to rekindle media interest and encourage tips. Chief Robertson would only say to gathered media that Hamilton police had reviewed the evidence with the OPP, discussed the case with Hamilton’s crown attorney, and decided to issue the arrest warrant.

The effectiveness of the task force had been called into question. In Winnipeg, McCaskill had publicly defended their work. He suggested FBI had caught a big break when Joan Dorn had called the police with Kopp’s license-plate number in Amherst—it “was not exceptional police work,” he was quoted saying in the Winnipeg Free Press. But the reality, despite the big announcement, pointed out columnist Susan Clairmont in the Hamilton Spectator, was that little was happening in the Canadian sniper hunt. At the same time the arrest warrant was issued, two of the three OPP officers who had been working with the task force were given new assignments.

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