Washington police think caller was serial sniper

WASHINGTON - Police hunting the sniper who is terrorising the Washington region were hoping to hear again last night from a mysterious caller involved in a cryptic dialogue with investigators.

Quoting law enforcement sources, the Washington Post reported yesterday that police had started a dialogue with a man they believe is the serial sniper who has killed nine people and wounded three others since October 2.

The newspaper said police began delivering messages through the media after they found a handwritten letter at the scene of the sniper's last shooting on Sunday in Ashland, Virginia, 130km south of Washington.

The head of the task force investigating the serial shootings urged the caller to phone again, saying an earlier communication had not been clear.

"The person you called could not hear everything you said. The audio was unclear and we want to get it right," Montgomery County police chief Charles Moose said yesterday in a message delivered at a televised news briefing. "Call us back so that we can clearly understand."

Moose had given an indication earlier that investigators had received some sort of message.

"We are going to respond to a message that we have received. We are preparing our response."

He gave no details about who the caller might be and has not said whether the caller is the sniper. He disclosed on Monday that police discovered a "message" at the scene of the Ashland shooting, which critically injured a 37-year-old man.

The man, in critical but stable condition, was conscious and responding to his wife's voice, said doctors at the Medical College of Virginia Hospitals in Richmond.

A statement was read from the man's wife in which she thanked the Richmond area for its support and also asked for prayers for the sniper.

The man, who is not from Virginia, was shot as he and his wife were walking across a parking lot after leaving a restaurant.

Each of the victims has been hit with a single bullet from a high-powered, long-range rifle. The shootings, most in the Maryland and Virginia suburbs of Washington, have all been linked by ballistics analysis.

The crimes have cast a pall of fear over the region. Schools kept hundreds of thousands of students inside for two weeks and thousands of sports events and other outdoor activities have been cancelled.

Business has been slowed by public reluctance to venture outdoors. Most of the shootings have been at shopping areas or petrol stations.

Schools in Ashland and elsewhere around Richmond, the capital of Virginia, were to be closed for a second straight day in response to the shooting.

The Post said the law enforcement sources were confident they were communicating with the sniper because information either in the phone calls or letter indicated intimate knowledge of a message written on a "Death" tarot card left at the scene of a school shooting in Maryland on October 7.

"There is no reason for us to believe it's not from the sniper," said one of the sources.

The dramatic arrest yesterday of two men in a white van near Richmond gave investigators brief hope that they had caught the sniper.

But police said the two were not involved in the shootings. The Mexican and Guatemalan were being deported for immigration violations.

- REUTERS

Further reading:
The Washington sniper

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