Posted on 10/28/2002 7:02:42 AM PST by EggsAckley
SNIPER ESCAPE BID
FBI agents grab him as he flees
THE 17-year-old Washington sniper made a dramatic freedom bid—by punching his way through the CEILING of an interview room.
John Lee Malvo seized his chance after being left alone by FBI interrogators.
He leapt on a table and quickly smashed the flimsy ceiling tiles with his fists—then began hauling himself up into a ventilation shaft.
Agents dashed into the room, grabbed his flailing legs and wrenched the struggling teenager back down.
Last night the FBI refused to comment on the embarrassing incident at the "secure" and secret federal centre in Baltimore, Maryland.
Malvo and fellow sniper John Muhammad, 41—who face the death penalty in seven different jurisdictions —are refusing to help enquiries into their reign of terror in the US capital.
Posed
One agent said: "Never mind co-operation. They're not even talking."
The pair—who killed ten and wounded three in a 21-day spree— could also be charged with an unsolved murder on America's west coast.
Keenya Cook, 21, was killed in February with a single head shot as she opened her front door in Tacoma, Washington State, where Muhammad and Malvo were living at the time.
The assassins were friends with her family—and even posed for the now infamous picture together on their sofa.
But ex-Army marksman Muhammad, who changed his name from Williams because he converted to Islam, fell out with the Cooks when they befriended his ex-wife.
Claims of warnings about the pair to police BEFORE the killings started were piling up last night.
The Rev Al Archer, who runs the Lighthouse Mission Centre in Bellingham where the pair once lived, said he suspected the Gulf War veteran was a terrorist after September 11.
He said Muhammad distributed pro-Islam brochures, made anti-American slurs and also threatened to kill cops. He added: "If he'd been stopped at that time, a lot of people would be alive who are now dead."
Mr Archer revealed that Muhammad, who was existing on handouts, started travelling extensively by air. Harjeep Singh, who knew the snipers at a YMCA gym, said he was alarmed at their vow to go on a gun-rampage, targetting cops and fuel tankers.
Police and an FBI agent interviewed Mr Singh but no action was taken.
There were also chilling new revelations last night about how Malvo and Muhammad mocked police by repeatedly slipping through dragnets.
Their 1990 blue Chevrolet Caprice— a killing machine with holes in the boot to fire through—was first noted by police on October 3, just 24 hours after the first killing. But it was lost in the system while the entire hunt centred on a white van.
Meanwhile, Muhammad was stopped or spoken to by officers TEN times for various traffic offences.
During a spot-check on October 8, he was parked and asleep at the wheel. But cops failed to look in the boot, where they would have found the Bushmaster XM15 rifle.
The most chilling escape was last Monday when two illegal immigrants in a white van were held in a swoop as they used a phone booth being staked out by cops.
Muhammad and Malvo had given the number of the booth to detectives in a phone call. And just yards away, they were lurking in their blue Chevy, watching every move in the fiasco.
The car was even caught in the background on news footage—and still the jigsaw did not piece together.
Finally, police realised the car they were looking for. But Chief Charles Moose refused to reveal the number plate. It was only when one of his team leaked it that the pair were found one-and-a-half hours later.
Wow. I didn't know this. Despite what all the pros say about not having any preconceived ideas and "pursuing all available leads" I guess it's human nature that when you're looking for a white van, nothing else will do. This is amazing. Talk about hidden in plain sight.
This is one of the most puzzling of Moose's many puzzling actions in this case.
The print with INS was from when he was brought in on immigration charges.
All immigrants and/or visitors should be fingerprinted for cross checking.
It seems that Alabama didn't go far enough and never checked with INS. If the murder had been in the DC area, would it have been cross checked??
I'm soooo curious as to what is on the computer that they supposidly had in their car according to the lady cop that talked to these "normal looking" travelers.
No, part of each and every action-suspense-drama MOVIE script in the last 20 years. Hell, they even used ceilings and ventilation ducts in the old Mission Impossible TV series - and the first Star Wars.
Michael
OK y'all, am I missing something here? Traveling by air is EXPENSIVE. Common sense says to me that you ain't going to be doing much air travel if all you get is handouts, unless you got some rich sugar daddy or momma paying the bill. Who was bankrolling this guy?
Ted Bundy was caught once, but escaped in a similar fashion and went on to kill at least half a dozen more women before he was stopped for good.
I could understand perhaps not releasing the plate number to the public for that reason, but to not notice that that same car, with that same plate, kept appearing at roadblocks!?
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