David Reichenbaugh - In Pursuit: The Hunt for the Beltway Snipers

David Reichenbaugh with Lori Widmer

ForeEdge

THE HUNT FOR THE BELTWAY SNIPERS

ForeEdge

An imprint of University Press of New England

www.upne.com

2018 David Charles Reichenbaugh

All rights reserved

For permission to reproduce any of the material in this book, contact Permissions, University Press of New England, One Court Street, Suite 250, Lebanon NH 03766; or visit www.upne.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Reichenbaugh, David, author. | Widmer, Lori, author.

Title: In pursuit : the hunt for the Beltway snipers / David Reichenbaugh, with Lori Widmer.

Description: Lebanon, NH : ForeEdge, [2018] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018023846 (print) | LCCN 2018025440 (ebook) | ISBN 9781512603262 (epub, pdf, & mobi) | ISBN 9781512603255 (pbk.)

Subjects: LCSH: Muhammad, John Allen, 19602009. | Malvo, Lee Boyd, 1985 | Serial murdersWashington Metropolitan AreaCase studies. | Criminal snipersWashington Metropolitan AreaCase studies. | Serial murder investigationWashington Suburban AreaCase studies.

Classification: LCC HV6534.W3 (ebook) | LCC HV6534.W3 R45 2018 (print) | DDC 364.152/320975dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018023846

The greater the loyalty of a group toward the group, the greater is the motivation among the members to achieve the goals of the group, and the greater the probability that the group will achieve its goals.

Rensis Likert

PROLOGUE

Tuesday, October 22, 2002. We now knew their names. After three weeks, ten killings, and four injuries, more than a dozen of us were sitting in our makeshift command center looking at the faces of the two people who had done so much killing.

In front of me on the computer screen was a photo of Lee Malvo. Christ, he was just a kidseventeen years old. A Jamaican immigrant kid. Could this really be a mastermind of one of the worst shooting rampages this country had ever seen? Could this kid really have pulled the trigger on so many people?

He and his mentor, John Allen Muhammad, had terrorized the Beltway area of Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia in one of the most bizarre crime sprees evertargeting random people, shooting to kill, and holding the tristate area hostage for twenty days now. For eighteen of those days, we at the Sniper Murder Task Force (SNIPMUR) had pored over thousands of tips, phone calls, and minimal evidence trying to track down one thing, anything, that would help us identify the perpetrators. Now we had names.

For three weeks, federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies had been working together to stop the rampage. We were exhausted; we had been at it around the clock, taking breaks only when ordered to, and chasing dead ends for way too long. We had searched in vain for a white van, which witnesses claimed to have seen at several of the crime scenes. And time wasnt on our sidethe victim totals were rising, and every day that these killers stayed on the streets meant more victims.

Not that there were many people still on the streets. Throughout the area, residents were in hiding. They hid behind their cars while pumping gas. Restaurants shades were drawn, and their parking lots were nearly empty. Grocery stores, shops, and otherwise busy streets looked abandoned. Schools were in lockdown during school hours, and heavily armed troopers, officers, and SWAT teams patrolled the perimeters. Playgrounds were empty, activities were canceled. Life had come to a standstill as residents held their collective breath.

But now we had names. With those names, the details were falling into place. No more white van; the vehicle was now identified as a blue Chevrolet Caprice. Inside the joint operations center for SNIPMUR, the excitement was palpable.

As Tuesday turned into Wednesday, I was ordered to go home and get some sleep. I left the joint operations centerthe JOC, as we called itand headed home after 1 a.m. Then back to the JOC by 5:30 a.m. Once again, I spent most of the day with the team reviewing what we knew and strategizing our next moves. Little did we know that our luck was about to change. At 10:30 that night, I was sent home to rest. Then my police radio crackled and came alive. It was Sergeant Bob Hundertmark.

Car 662, we just received a cell phone call from a citizen in the westbound rest area on I-70. The caller advised that there is a Caprice in the rest area parking lot, and then repeated the tag that we had put out over the air.

They say that fighter pilots train for years honing a combat skill set that they may never get a chance to useand if they do, it may all be over in less than a minute. I was about to put to the test every skill I had learned in my twenty-two-year career as a law enforcement officer: courage, tenacity, control, command. Everything I did, everything my team was about to do, had to be executed with precision. Failure meant troopers could die and more residents would be at risk.

We couldnt fail. We had no choice.

On September 11, 2001, law enforcement changedagain. On that catastrophic day, I was serving as the detective sergeant at the Maryland State Polices Frederick Barrack, which is located near Catoctin Mountain approximately forty miles north of Washington, D.C., straight up Interstate 270. This is close to the site of Camp David, the presidential retreat, which is on top of the mountain. Beneath it is another semisecret government facility, officially named Site R. Insiders call it the underground Pentagon.

We stood in the radio room watching TV news reports, dumbfounded by what we were seeing. I called my wife, who was working the emergency room at Frederick Memorial Hospital, to see if the kids had gone to school that day. Were under attack, I said. Are you seeing the same thing I am? I told her I didnt know when I would be home. We quickly threw together a loose plan to take care of our family.

Suddenly, the red phone rang. Everyone stopped moving and stared at it. The red light blinked incessantly. This phone rang every Friday at 3 p.m., a test. Never any day but Friday. Today was a Tuesday. The phone, a direct line between our barrack and Camp David, was to ring only in the event that the presidents retreat was under attack or in danger of being attacked.

Camp David was protected by well-armed, highly trained Marines. Our role, once that phone rang, was to provide cannon fodder by manning the outer perimeter or checkpoints. I dont recall who answered that day, but the orders came down: Site R was being fully activated, and our federal government was being moved to various locations. Also, there was talk that much of the population of the District of Columbia was preparing to flee Washington. We were about to receive something like a half-million people running north right into our laps.

There is nothing like the realization that your planning and practice, or lack thereof, is about to bite you in the ass when the real crisis starts. Someone grabbed a three-ring binder from a shelf in the communications room. Inside that binder were detailed plans outlining our entire response effort from that minute forward. These plans had been discussedevery once in a whilebut the truth is, we were ill prepared, understaffed, and would quickly become overwhelmed. So we did what we always do in dicey momentsreverted to our long-held, unofficial state police motto: One riot, one trooperput your Stetson on. In other words, never show the public that youre scared or unsure. Stand tall and get the job done.