That salutation does sound like it was written by someone who isn't terribly comfortable with the English language. Natch, that would apply to just about every teenager in America, as well as the 'other guys'.
Posted on 10/09/2002 2:41:16 AM PDT by kattracks
The sniper who killed six people and wounded two others in the Washington area in the past week left a message to police at the scene of his last shooting scribbled on the Death card of the Tarot, The Washington Post said.
"Dear policeman, I am God," read the message on the card used in fortune telling, police sources consulted by the daily confirmed late Tuesday.
The message was found 150 yards (meters) from the school entrance in Prince George's County, Maryland -- northeast of here, where a 13-year-old boy was shot and seriously wounded Monday by the sniper as he was being dropped off by his parents.
The playing card was found in a wooded area where police also found a shell casing and a matted area of grass where they suspect the killer lay in waiting for his victim.
News of the message was first broadcast late Tuesday by the local WUSA-TV television station and confirmed later to the Post by police sources.
Questioned by the daily, Prince George's County Police chief Gerald Wilson, refused to comment on the report. "There's nothing I can say in regards to that."
Another police source told the daily the television report had severely impaired the police investigation into the shootings.
The 13-year-old who remains in critical condition in hospital was the latest victim of the killer who stalks his victims and is believed to be driving around in a white van.
Five people were fatally shot within a 16-hour period last week between Wednesday and Thursday in Montgomery County, Maryland.
A sixth victim was shot in the chest late Thursday while standing on a street corner close to the Maryland border in Washington DC.
On Friday, a woman was shot in the back in the parking lot of a shopping mall in Fredericksburg, Virginia, some 80 kilometers (50 miles) south of Washington. She was hospitalized and reported in fair condition.
No clear pattern has emerged in the attacks. The victims were both male and female, and of varying races and ages.
But ballistics tests have linked six of the eight shootings. Two bullets were in poor shape, making it difficult to link them conclusively to the other shootings, officials said.
Police believe a single gunman, described as a marksman using a high-powered hunting or military rifle, is behind the attacks.
Rewards for information leading to the capture of the killer have mushroomed from 50,000 dollars to almost 200,000 dollars.
Schools in the counties where the sniper has struck are keeping children indoors and police helicopters buzz overhead as public anxiety mounts over the eight random attacks.
We should be checking the alibis of all Planned Parenthood personnel.
Out of curiousity, who do you think it is? I'm going with ex military, white male, younger than the profile says- maybe 26- 32 yrs of age. After the calling card was found, I started to think it wasn't more than one guy after all, just someone who has always had a fantasy of sniping. The card said "I am God".
I would imagine it gives the guy an incredible sense of power to look through his scope and play the game of "I will now decide if you die or not". I would imagine the guy has lain in his house with his rifle trained on passersby or his neighbors while they were totally unaware of the "power" he held over them and I imagine even then, he received a powerful intoxication from the thought that he was "God-like" in the power of life and death he held in his trigger finger for the totally unsuspecting. I would imagine he had a round in the chamber, safety off, finger on the trigger with slight pressure applied when he "practiced" like this and he probably enjoyed the thought that those anonymous ones he allowed to keep living would never know how fortunate they were that he spared them.
I remember watching a video about snipers in the military. One of the guys was a police sniper. He did the above that I just described- maybe not with the evil thoughts and a round in the chamber but he definitely lay in his house aiming his rifle at his neighbors and dry fired the weapon for practice. He said he did this for hours at a time and reckoned it trained him to be sub-conciously connected to the target in his scope and prepared him for the random little movements people make. I found the guy to be kind of nutty myself.
I would also imagine this sniper hasn't been practicing at a commercial firing range lately. He probably likes to construct his own targets to look like humans and take them out into the hills somewhere to poke holes in them. He's probably fascinated with books like "Marine Sniper" or "One Shot, One Kill" and movies like "Enemy at the Gates".
Another thing about the calling card and its "I am God" message- in the Army the sniper is often nicknamed "God". This is what got me thinking about the ex-military angle in the first place. I wouldn't speculate on whether he had actually gone to the military sniping school or not or simply had wet dreams about being a sniper and going to the school- probably the latter, but then again, hard to say.
The only thing I can think of doing against him would be to call in a bunch of these ex military snipers, maybe even Carlos Hathcock himself, and ask them where they would set up in the area if they wanted to commit these sorts of crimes and then do stakeouts on these places. Maybe sit down and talk with them and find out a little bit about the sniper mentality. Maybe review the rolls of the soldiers who went through sniper school in the last 25 yrs and see how many are living in the area?
Yes, but only the "Fool" card, and only when appropriate. (I've been watching your posts, waiting ...)
Carlos passed away February 23, 1999 but I'd hope they've been doing that with the other military snipers
If you can talk to Carlos, you can probably devine who the sniper is all by your self as poor Carlos Hathcoc has passed away. RIP
Dan
Then you might want to play a game of solitaire with them there tarot cards 'cause it's gonna be a long wait... {;^)>
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He died about a year ago.
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Whoever it is, I suspect he's probably psychopathically meglamaniacal somewhat like Ted Bundy and/or Bill Clinton. Outside of that, I don't know.
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One way or the other, the phone lines don't reach that far.
Sounds to me like a teenager...or a hoax...or an inaccurate reporting of what was actually found at the scene.
Assuming it is accurate for a moment, it really does sound like a teenager, or perhaps some loonybird in his 20's.
This really points towards a homegrown nut, probably a teenager or young man, with a passing acquaintance with occult paraphernalia.
Alternatively, this could be a copycat.
Have the "death cards" in Afghanistan been Tarot, or just ordinary playing cards? If the former, this stuff has gone more mainstream than I thought.
The key to finding this person/s is catching them in site scouting before the next round of shootings. The guy in a park looking at views and buildings. The person in the cemetary who is looking at surrounding fields of view. A person looking at parking lot video equipment.(Remember Mrs. Toogood? she was smart enough to look horizontally for witnesses but not vertically)
Good post with valid points. One thing which bothers me about your profile and others is the snipers need to not stand out as noticeable.
My main question in establishing a profile would be "What are the demographics of the neighborhoods where the shootings occured?"
I would want to know this because whites and asians tend to be uncomfortable going into predominantly black areas.
Unless the shootings were totally random, this guy had to have done some reconnoitering of the area. Or at least been familiar enough with the neighborhoods to know safe engress and egress routes. In a predominately black area, a white person will be more noticable and vice-versa.
So, what are the demographics of the neighborhoods where the shootings occured? Be the neighborhood predominantly black, mixed race or predominantly white, important clues are there to be uncovered
Unless the tarot card turns up at other sites, it's hard to know if it was left by the shooter.
He probably likes to construct his own targets to look like humans and take them out into the hills somewhere to poke holes in them
Going out in the hills suggests a person more comfortable in a rural setting that in an urban one. Such person to me would be more likely to snipe in a rural setting, small town setting or urban setting where he didn't feel uncomfortable moving around in.
He's probably fascinated with books like "Marine Sniper" or "One Shot, One Kill" and movies like "Enemy at the Gates".
Very possible but the caliber used may suggest otherwise. "Marine Sniper" dealt with .30+ caliber weapons at long ranges. "Enemy at the Gates" while an urban combat setting also dealt with .30+ caliber weapons. Such wanna-be would likely practice his craft with a bore size larger than the .223 reportedly used.
Like the sniper you mentioned sitting in his room dry firing at neighbors, this guy could be doing the same with a laser sight.
A few years ago, my wife and I were in South Florida visiting some friends. One evening, we went to a nightspot on the beach and while sitting at a sidewalk cafe looking across the road at the ocean, we saw a laser periodically probe up and down the other side of the street. I appeared to be coming from one of the nearby condominiums so we moved closer to the wall of the cafe. Nothing happened but I've always wondered if someone was playing with a new laser pointer or if something more sinister was taking place.
That story aside, if totally random, this guy will screw up and be caught in short order. Unfortunately, a screwup in this case will most likely mean he had to strike again.
Seriously, I feel for this guy. His jurisdiction has, what, maybe 20 murders a year, and then all of a sudden he finds himself in the middle of this mess. It's a bit much to ask for him not to put a foot wrong when he finds himself all over national TV. I've found myself in that unenviable position when handling a "hot" case. Thank heavens it wasn't anything like this, but I'm not going to impute motives or think the worst of him just because he doesn't always show up well on the tube.
I remember when a tiny town in South Georgia was hit with the worst mass murder in the state's history (the Alday murders). They caught the perps pretty quickly, but it shook everybody, including law enforcement, badly enough that some things hit the news that shouldn't have (resulting eventually in a change of venue for the murder trial). I'm not surprised that this chief is overwrought. He has shown good sense in getting as much help as he can.
That salutation does sound like it was written by someone who isn't terribly comfortable with the English language. Natch, that would apply to just about every teenager in America, as well as the 'other guys'.
Yes. Of course. And he probably owns an SUV and does not love the planet. The fact that he thoughtlessly litters the ground with Tarot cards proves he is also an eco-terrorist.
He also does not care about the homeless and does not want to see womyn as members of the Augusta Country Club.
He does not want to allow voting privledges to animals and plants.
He does not want government to regulate the fat content of fast food.
He does not object to using images of idigenous peoples as sports mascots.
Terrorists aren't stupid and they can play games, too.
Look. Just as (in my opinion) the anthrax killer is a DOMESTIC KOOK who purposely wrote those letters to Capitol Hill, the White House, the Supreme Court, with strange grammar and "Allah Ahkbar" to make it look like a foreigner did it, there is just as much an equal, reverse possibility that a savvy Islamist terrorist (who has been here for years or may even be an American) could set the stage for the planting of evidence to 'make it look like a DOMESTIC KOOK case.
I see these two cases, ANTHRAX and now MARYLAND SNIPER still as reverse of what they appear on the surface to be.
Of course, the libs could also be pissed off immensely if the nickname for this dude or dudes morph from "BELTWAY SNIPER", to a more definitive "NEW AGE SNIPER" (thanks to the wiccan-satan connection)
If he had used the VII of Swords, now that would have been a completely different scenario.
My guess is that he was drawn by the imagery on the card, rather than the meaning. The fact that our forces in Afghanistan have been using similar cards should not be ruled out either.
Al Gore a sure shot? Come on.
Locked in a box...
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