Sniper_ The True Story Of Anti-Abortion Killer James Kopp Part 6

On July 17, at 2:49 p.m., Jim Kopp's black Chevy Cavalier entered Canada at the Queenston border crossing. Six days later the car returned to the United States at Niagara Falls.

"Abortion is the killing of potential life. It is not pretty. It is not easy. In a perfect world, it wouldn't be necessary." Dr. Bart Slepian had insisted on saying that part in his speech. His niece, Amanda Robb, had helped him craft the words for a presentation he made to a Buffalo group called Medical Students for Choice.

Why would Bart say those words to a pro-choice audience? He had to know pro-life activists would jump all over a quote like that, to ill.u.s.trate that even abortion providers like Dr. Barnett Slepian had moral issues with the procedure. But Bart, being Bart, was simply telling it as he saw it, and d.a.m.n the political optics. Quite obviously most terminated fetuses would otherwise live. But abortion was legal. Women requested them. OBs were needed to perform the surgery safely. Bart was an OB. And so he provided the service. He had a full-time private obstetrics and gynecology practice, where he provided prenatal and postnatal care. He also performed abortions at the GYN Womenservices clinic in downtown Buffalo. In one sense he was just doing his job, but Bart had become a visible player in the abortion wars in the area. Earlier in the year he was presented with a Choice Achievement Award at a rally in Buffalo marking the 25th anniversary of Roe v. Wade.

Bart was 52 years old and had made it, climbed the ladder, was a successful doctor, family man. His father, Philip, had died nine years earlier, but had lived to see the success Bart had battled to become. Bart lived with his wife Lynne, and their four sons, Andrew, 15, Brian, 13, Michael, 10, and Philip, 7, in a large house on Roxbury Park in Amherst. It was an upper-middle-cla.s.s neighborhood except for a couple of streets, like Roxbury, where the homes were palatial. Some in the area dubbed Bart's home "the Taj Mahal." It was a beautiful area, mature trees, lush lawns, parkland and sprawling backyards.

As for the storm of protest surrounding his professional life, Bart joked darkly about his fate, as was his custom. Other OBs who provided abortion services were wearing bulletproof vests on the advice of police. Bart? He cracked that it wasn't necessary, they'd probably just shoot him in the head anyway. But in fact Bart bought a vest, and got in the habit of watching his back, checking under his car for explosives.

Lynne bought him a parrot once; Bart said the bird would probably outlive him-and that they should teach the parrot how to say a eulogy. He joked that, at his funeral, friends should all come in separate cars, it would make for a longer procession that way. Typical Bart. But the jokes revealed more than just his predilection for black humor. Perhaps Bart could sense that he was on a collision course that was inevitable.

*** Wednesday, October 14, 1998 Eyes scan the White Pages of a phone book. Residential listing for D. Slepian, 93 Garden Parkway, Grand Island, New York. Phone ringing, 7:30 p.m. A woman named Ruth Slepian answers.

"h.e.l.lo?" she says.

"Is Dr. Slepian there, please?" asks a man's voice.

Doctor? Ruth has a husband named David. He is not a physician. Her father-in-law, also named Slepian, was a doctor. But he has pa.s.sed on.

"Dr. Slepian-is dead," she says.

Pause.

"Right. I don't think so," the man mumbles, the words barely audible.

He hangs up.

Prepare. Plan. Remove the vagaries of the moving target. Later, near the doctor's private practice, a vanity plate on the car. "SLEPIAN." Could shoot him right here, right now. Of course, that would mean shooting across the street, can't imagine that would be appreciated, he reflected. Hard surfaces, traffic, residences, businesses, plenty of chance for ricochets.

Sunday, October 18. A jogger, lanky, moving slowly, ungainly, through the leafy neighborhood, so slow that he was nearly

[image]Paradise Road, not far from the Slepian's home.

walking, up Paradise Road in Amherst. He wore gla.s.ses, had a reddish goatee. The next day, early morning, the jogger was in the same neighborhood, where two streets named Roxbury Park and Deer Run intersected.

"h.e.l.lo," said a woman pa.s.sing by him. The jogger said nothing. Friday, October 23, early morning, he shuffled through the neighborhood in his dark tracksuit. A landscaper working at a home made eye contact.

"h.e.l.lo," said the worker.

"Hi," replied the jogger, before slowly disappearing around the corner.

Later, a car pa.s.sed through the neighborhood. It was a black Chevy Cavalier. It glided through a boulevard stop sign. There was a police cruiser nearby. The Cavalier made a U-turn, left the area, slowly, deliberately, with the cruiser following at low speed. The cop turned away, let him go. A close call.

Kill? A thousand ways to kill someone, really, he reflected later. Blow up their car. Do a Rambo thing and empty a magazine into them. Run them over with a car. Put nicotine acid on their steering wheel.

Wounding, however, is tricky business.

The phone rang at Jim Fitzgerald's desk inside the FBI complex at Quantico, Virginia. It was early October. Fitzgerald, surrounded by stacks of papers in his office, picked up. It was the FBI's legal attache office in Ottawa. Fitzgerald had been with the bureau 13 years, grew up in Philadelphia. His official FBI t.i.tle was supervisory special agent with the Behavioral a.n.a.lysis Unit. One branch, of the unit was for training and education, the other, Fitzgerald's branch was operational. In popular culture, though, Jim Fitzgerald was simply a profiler. It was too s.e.xy a term for Hollywood and the media to resist. The psycho-thriller Silence of the Lambs-on which John Douglas, one of the original FBI profilers in the 1970s, served as technical consultant-ensured that. Some started to call a.n.a.lysts like Fitzgerald "the Silence of the Lambs boys."

The FBI called them "psychological profilers," as early as the 1970s, back when behavioral psychology was a relatively new tool for deconstructing criminal minds, either to identify suspects, predict violent acts, or break down suspects once they were arrested. The t.i.tles had changed, however. "Psychological profiler" left the door open to cagey defense lawyers attacking their credibility in court. "Are you, in fact, FBI Special Agent Smith, a trained psychologist? No? Then why are you called a 'psychological profiler'?" They became, instead, officially, "behavioral a.n.a.lysts." Jim Fitzgerald worked in Unit Number One with nine other agents.

His unit specialized in counterterrorism. The case of the abortion doctor sniper who targeted physicians in Vancouver, Ancaster, Winnipeg, and Rochester certainly qualified. The official on the phone from Ottawa briefed Fitzgerald on the latest information. He was told a profile of the sniper was being developed at the Ontario Provincial Police's behavioral unit. Fitzgerald had dealt with the Ontario unit before-they did good work and, in fact, the FBI had trained OPP a.n.a.lysts. He asked to see the profile that had been developed to date. The OPP profiler was Jim Van Allen. Upon receiving the report, Fitzgerald saw that Van Allen already had a good handle on the profile.

Sniper shoots at a doctor in each of 1994, 1995, and two in 1997. All of the shootings seem well planned, no weapon ever found. There was DNA recovered at the Ancaster shooting scene. All attacks came in early November. This was a ritual. Why at this time of the year? The sniper perhaps was motivated by both symbolism and tactics.

Symbolism: He is perhaps shooting doctors to make a statement, to avenge the death of aborted fetuses. May well see himself as a soldier in the cause. November 11 is Remembrance Day, Canada's day to honor its war dead. In the United States it's Veterans' Day. The timing packs religious symbolism as well. If the sniper is Catholic, that time of year is also notable for All Saints' Day, which falls on November 1, and All Souls' Day on November 2.

Tactics: In November the nights grow long and dark. Most of the leaves have fallen from trees, making surveillance of homes in wooded areas easier.

Jim Van Allen felt there was only one shooter, and that he was not a professional. The sniper was improving his technique with each hit but, paradoxically, had left evidence at each scene, been sloppy. Van Allen said the equipment used had been primitive, from the point of view of a trained marksman. The rifle was adequate, but it was the little things-the sniper wasn't using web belts to carry his gear, he was dropping cartridges, casings. The tape he used to secure the garbage can lids in Vancouver had been silver duct tape, which was highly visible. A pro would have used black or olive-colored military tape.

Jim Fitzgerald began developing his own take on the sniper. Behaviorally there is a clear difference between a long-range sniper and the killer who shoots at close range, brandis.h.i.+ng a .38 in an alleyway, or breaking down a door and pointing a shotgun at a victim. The close-up shooter has no issue with using violence, probably has anger-management problems. The shooter is physically secure enough to personally confront someone face-to-face, whether it's simply to tell them off or to pull a trigger. Little skill is required to shoot at close range. Target acquisition and kill zone are not relevant. The sniper mentality is much different. He lacks confrontational skills. He is more secretive, plans more, acquires lots of equipment, trains himself in weaponry and ballistics to guarantee success.

The FBI had plenty of background on close-up gun killers. That year, 1998, guns were used to murder 11,798 people in the United States. True sniper attacks, on the other hand, were rare. In 1997, there had been just four reported cases of sniper killings in the entire country. The motive of the abortion sniper seemed clear enough. Fitzgerald knew that in instances where a serial offender acts based on need or fantasy, motive is often a complicated question. This shooter, however, had a definite political-religious mission. But, even within the subgroup of moral zealots, this sniper was different. Other anti-abortion extremists who had shot doctors did so with little deliberation, and in broad daylight. This one did not intend to get caught. He was relatively intelligent. He was traveling great distances, spreading out his attacks. The sniper was probably American. If so, he was striking in Canada because he knew cross-border investigations were complicated, thought Fitzgerald.

Fitzgerald and Van Allen talked about the profile at length. One point was not included in the profile. It was one over which the two men disagreed: intent. Was the sniper shooting to kill or wound? Van Allen felt the sniper wanted to terrorize doctors. You do that by wounding them, leaving them crippled. He had certainly pulled it off so far. Fitzgerald disagreed. "You don't take all that time and effort, with all the factors that can go wrong, unless you are prepared to kill," he said. "You don't take those kinds of shots from that distance and not hope to kill someone."

"It's a dangerous game," countered Van Allen, "but if he was shooting to kill, he's even a worse shot than I give him credit for."

They agreed to keep that issue out of the profile. It wouldn't help police catch the sniper, and, if their opinions were leaked, it might just inflame the sniper, challenge him to execute better or stay long enough at the next scene to finish off his target. The profilers knew that the urgent issue for police was whether the shooter would strike again before or near Remembrance Day. On this the G-man and the OPP cop agreed. The sniper was going to hit again, and soon. Police should be on alert, and so should doctors who provide abortions in both countries.

On October 20, the joint Canada-U.S. police task force met in Winnipeg. They discussed the profile and other information and strategy. The implication of the profilers' a.n.a.lysis was clear. At the end of the meeting, Winnipeg detective Ron Oliver stood up and addressed the group. "We need to antic.i.p.ate," he said. "There must be a sense of urgency. There may be a shooting coming up."

A fax arrived at the clinic where Bart Slepian worked. It was from the FBI. Be extra cautious at this time of year, it warned. Whoever shot obstetricians in Canada and Rochester was still out there. Clinic manager Marilyn Buckham told Bart about it.

"Be careful," she said.

"I will," he replied. The exchange had become their regular sign-off whenever Bart left the clinic for the day.

"Thanks for coming," she chirped.

"Thanks for having me."

Amherst, N.Y.

Friday, October 23, 1998 9:45 p.m.

A man gripped a rifle in the woods behind Bart Slepian's home: A decidedly unpleasant thing, shooting someone. But it's not the act that answers the moral question, rather it is the desired result. Think about Dietrich Bonhoeffer: gave the n.a.z.i salute to Hitler every day as he held the door to the staff car. Made his skin crawl. Salute the devil. Hated to do it. But he did it, to keep his cover, allow him to continue smuggling Jews to safety. Amazing, to meet the daughter of one of those survivors. She lives in Syracuse. An extreme honor.

The clocks were to be turned back that weekend, the darkest time of the year. How many times had Jim Kopp waited out there, late night, early morning, antic.i.p.ating the shot that had not yet come?

Twenty-four hours a day abortionists are preparing to kill more kids. A form of serial murder. Slepian's been doing it for years. There is a stubbornness there that requires a strong response.

He focused the binoculars on the back window. Bart and Lynne had just pulled in the driveway, returning from synagogue, marking the anniversary of Bart's father's death. Through the front door. The boys were home. Into the clean white kitchen. The rear window shade pulled halfway down.

Keys rattle on the kitchen counter. Bart puts down his pager, his wallet. Opens the microwave door, places a bowl of soup inside. Sets the time. Walks out of the kitchen. Lynne stays, talking with Philip and Michael by the kitchen island. Andrew, the 15-year-old, lies on the couch in an adjoining room. Bart back in the kitchen. Ten feet away from Lynne and the boys. A popping sound. Bart feeling a blow to his back.

"I think I've been shot."

Lynne, incredulous. "Don't be ridiculous."

Bart falling to the floor, Lynne running to him, blood pooling on the white floor. Lynne screaming for her son to call 911. Brian dialing, Philip watching, stunned. Andrew on his knees, trying to staunch the flow of blood from both sides of his father with paper towels.

The bullet, having punctured the double-pane of the rear sunroom window and screen, had knifed through Bart, a cabinet, ricocheted off a wall between Lynne and the boys, past Andrew on the couch, hitting the marble fireplace mantel, fallen to rest on the hearth, spent.

Dispatch to Amherst police at 10:07: possible shots fired, 187 Roxbury. Police officer Ted Dinoto in the area, at the house at 10:10 p.m. Dinoto on his knees in the kitchen, ripping open Bart's s.h.i.+rt, seeing the hole in the left side of his back from the entrance wound, and at the right shoulder, the exit wound. Police and paramedics swarming to the street. Police search the neighborhood, the woods, finding nothing. The ambulance rushes Bart Slepian to Millard Fillmore Hospital. In the ER they declare him dead.

An FBI agent reported to the Slepian home that night. A federal crime had been committed. The sniper who murdered Dr. Barnett Slepian had joined America's most wanted list.

The phone rang early the next morning in the home of Dr. Rick Schwarz on Long Island, Bart's old friend from med school in Mexico. They hadn't seen each other for several years. The woman on the line was an old friend of Rick's.

"I'm sorry, Rick, but I can't remember-was Bart's last name Slepian?"

"Yes," Rick replied. Why?"

"I just heard on CNN he's been shot."

Shot? Wounded, thought Rick, obviously at some kind of protest. Bart. Maybe now the stubborn guy will back off. "Aw for chrissakes, that's-G.o.dd.a.m.nit, I told him to stay away from that stuff," Rick said. "Is he OK?"

"Rick, he's-dead."

At first the information did not register. Then, suddenly, a deluge of emotion, and Rick Schwarz came unglued. He cried, and phoned Lynne. "Lynne, it's Rick, please tell me what I'm hearing is not true."

Then Rick turned on CNN and saw the news for himself. On Sat.u.r.day, U.S. President Bill Clinton issued a statement. "I am outraged by the murder of Dr. Barnett Slepian in his home last night in Amherst, New York. The Department of Justice is working with state and local authorities to find the person or persons responsible and bring them to justice. While we do not have all the facts of this case, one thing is clear, this nation cannot tolerate violence directed at those providing a const.i.tutionally protected medical service ...

No matter where we stand on the issue of abortion, all Americans must stand together in condemning this tragic and brutal act. We must protect the safety and freedom of all our citizens. Hillary and I extend our thoughts and prayers to the family of Dr. Slepian." The Amherst police and FBI agents searched for clues, checked names of anti-abortion radicals against their known locations. Bart had no shortage of pro-life enemies. Some had been charged with hara.s.sing him. Jim Kopp was not one of those people. The gray-blue eyes looked up at the TV. He was on the road at a truck stop. The news was on. He had driven west from Amherst, into Pennsylvania, stayed overnight at a motel, then on to Cleveland. CNN was broadcasting the story over and over. The sound was turned off. Just visuals. Yellow police tape. Amherst police cruisers. Bart Slepian dead. Jim Kopp felt his body shrink, fear creeping through his bones. He left the diner and turned his car back east. He needed money. New Jersey was his next stop. ***

There were several hundred mourners at Bart's funeral. A letter was read from Bill and Hillary Clinton: "Bart Slepian lived to love and loved to live," it said. A few weeks later, the Clintons visited Buffalo, met with Lynne. For Bart's friends, the funeral was an awful thing-all the media attention, the surreal nature of his death. But the eulogy, read by Bart's niece, Amanda Robb, was inspired. A professional television writer, the funniest person in the family, she was eloquent, hit all the right notes. She recalled her uncle Bart back in the early seventies, the one who had the least to give to the family, and one who gave the most.

The autopsy took place early the next day, but the cause of Bart Slepian's death was no mystery. He bled to death. Erie County chief medical examiner Dr.Sung-ook Baik studied the entry and exit wounds, removed organs to examine the tissue for impact marks, traced the path the bullet traveled through the body. He recorded his findings: * Entrance of bullet hole, left side of the back, measuring three-quarters of an inch by one-half an inch.

* No evidence of gunpowder on the skin.

* Bullet penetrated left chest wall, left eighth rib, thoracic vertebral bone, spinal cord-severing approximately two inches of the cord-right lung, right fifth and sixth ribs.

* Bullet exited body from the posterior part of the right armpit, 12 inches from the top of the head.

At the scene, police used a ballistic alignment laser to trace the trajectory of the shot. The bullet had traveled 15 feet inside the house and 31 yards outside, from the wooded area to the sunroom window. A tree was identified as the likely shooting point used by the sniper to brace himself. At this scene, unlike the Canadian shootings, there were no spent cartridges found.

Within days the FBI's Jim Fitzgerald stood out in the darkened woods, seeing what the sniper saw. What had the sniper been thinking? The focus was on execution, making the kill, thought Fitzgerald. Acquire target, squeeze trigger. This shooting-at night from the rear of the home, with a well-planned escape route- followed the MO of the other shootings to date.

A news conference was held in Buffalo by local police and the FBI. Police hold news conferences in the early hours of an investigation for two reasons. One is to protect public safety-get the killer's name and face out there. Public safety wasn't at issue here. The sniper's profile suggested that, given his cautious manner, he would stay quiet for a long time, would not risk getting caught by striking again soon. The other reason for going public is for the police to solicit help. As a police officer spoke at the podium and the cameras rolled, in the background surveying the room was a man who could pa.s.s for a young Sidney Poitier. His name was Bernard Tolbert, FBI. He was in charge and knew they were up against it. They had nothing-nothing, until the phone call.

A woman named Joan Dorn heard the plea for help in the media regarding the murder of Dr. Barnett Slepian. She was a fitness buff and lived in Bart's neighborhood, over on Paradise Road. On Wednesday, October 14, she had risen before dawn, hit the pavement for a jog in the dark at 5:30 a.m. As she ran, she saw a car parked not far from her home.

Never seen it before. Dorn was a scientist, an epidemiologist. She taught at the University of Buffalo. Noticing things, little things, patterns, things not readily apparent to the naked eye, was what she did for a living. She knew her neighborhood well, what pieces did and did not belong. She noticed the strange car. Black Cavalier. Vermont plate. Didn't belong. Who parks their car on the street at five in the morning?

A man in a dark exercise suit got out, started stretching. In the morning gloom, in the bulky clothes, he looked big. He started to jog. The stranger's gait, it was all wrong, Dorn could tell. He wasn't a jogger, not a regular, anyway. He looked slow, plodding. And he was overdressed for the mild weather they were enjoying. And why drive your car somewhere to park and then run? She watched him jog out of sight, in the direction of Roxbury.

Instead of shaking her head at the incongruity of it all and resuming her day, Joan Dorn went home and opened her personal journal, where she kept notes on her runs, how she felt, distance traveled. "Wacky car," she wrote, and the plate number: BPE 216, Vermont. Then she showed her husband the note she had written. "Honey, if I don't come home tomorrow from jogging, check this out," she quipped.

Now she heard the request from police for anyone noticing anything unusual in the area. She picked up the phone. Later she would be applauded for providing a critical tip, journalists would come knocking on her door. Dorn didn't think she had done anything remarkable-you pay attention to your neighborhood. If anything, she was hard on herself. She should have acted sooner, reported the stranger to police on the morning of her jog. Maybe, she reflected, if she had said something sooner, Lynne Slepian would still have a husband, and her sons a father.

An investigator ran the plate number she provided. It was registered to James Charles Kopp, Box 379, Highgate Road, St. Albans, Vermont, and his driving privileges had previously been suspended. The plate matched with a black Chevy Cavalier. Vehicle Identification Number 1G1JE2111H7175930. Police gathered background on the owner: arrested at least two dozen times for anti-abortion protests in the United States; 5'10," 165 pounds, blue eyes, brown hair. Date of birth 8/2/54, place of birth-California.

An Autotrak search showed four suspended or expired driver's licenses for James Charles Kopp-from New York, Rhode Island, Wisconsin and California. A nationwide alert was put out for the Cavalier. And in Vermont, nine FBI agents showed up at the home of Anthony Kenny in Swanton. No sign of Kopp. Kenny was interviewed. Kopp had been using the Swanton address for some of his mail; he handed the agents two unopened pieces. They contained bank records for account # 644-0055964, belonging to to John C. Kopp d/b/a, JMJ Construction at PNC Bank. P.O. Box 158, Riverside, Connecticut.

"Where else does Kopp send his mail?" an agent asked Kenny. "He called me about a month ago and gave a new forwarding address."

"Which is?"

"Box 42, Whiting, New Jersey, 08759."

Chapter 12 ~ Are you James Kopp?.

Crestwood Village Retirement Community Whiting, N.J.

He was a pretty high-strung guy, Alex. He shared an apartment with easygoing Jim Gannon. Alex, who was not a pro-life activist, worked as a security guard. Anyone stepped onto Gannon's property, Alex heard alarms go off in his head. And so, that day when he was at the kitchen table and saw the red and blue lights flas.h.i.+ng through the window, he leapt to his feet. What's going on? A knock. Jim Gannon, sweet old man, cool as a cuc.u.mber, stayed at his seat. Alex, his heart pumping, was at the door. He opened it. And saw the barrel pointing at the middle of his chest. The Glock was out, the FBI agent on the porch staring into Alex's eyes. Uniformed police backed up the FBI outside, guns drawn.

"Sit down." The agent motioned to a chair. Alex obeyed. "Are you James C. Kopp?"

"No," Alex said.

Five agents entered the house, Gannon stood to meet them. "Come on in!" he said, gentle blue eyes twinkling. Alex was in shock, but Gannon was not frightened. Not much rattled him. Heck, he came from a large family, six boys, six girls, he was used to commotion; Mom used to invite strangers in off the street for tea all the time. That's how worried James Gannon was about the FBI showing up at his door.

He was told the FBI was investigating the shooting of a doctor in Amherst. Special Agent Daniel McKenna asked Gannon if he knew James Charles Kopp. Sure, sure, Gannon knew Jim. Stayed there sometimes. Gannon knew there was no way Jim could be involved, although it seemed a lot of folks were entertaining a different point of view. Lordy Pete, he thought. Lordy Pete! They were acting like Jim was a terrorist or something.

The FBI interview lasted more than two hours. Gannon told agents that he forwarded Kopp's nonbanking mail to one of two addresses: Ark Sales, P.O. Box 61, Ess.e.x Junction, Vermont 05452, or Nazareth Farms, 1073 Buck Hollow Road, Fairfax, Vermont 05454, Attn: Jen-Jen, as in Jennifer Rock.