WASHINGTON — Urging a fearful community to “keep the faith,” investigators indicated Sunday that they know more than they’re saying about the serial sniper who shot 10 people in 10 days.
“We don’t want to release anything that may cause the media or anyone to think they’re a suspect,” federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agent Mike Bouchard told reporters. “We don’t want them to fear they are going to be labeled as a suspect.”
“Please rest assured, when we have something we are confident media can help us with, we will use that,” echoed Montgomery County police Chief Charles Moose.
“It is a fine balance” in deciding what to tell the public without tipping off the killer, Moose explained at a morning briefing. “We want people to keep the faith.”
Moose and other investigators have refused to say whether they have eyewitness descriptions of the sniper or pictures from surveillance cameras that show him. Firing 10 bullets, the sniper left eight people dead and two wounded between Oct. 2 and Oct. 11, when the latest killing occurred.
Investigators are checking Pentagon files about soldiers who have been recently discharged and have had sniper training, Time Magazine is reporting in the issue to hit newsstands on Monday.
A Georgia man has also told the New York Post that police showed him a picture of a suspected sniper taken from a video surveillance tape at one of the shooting scenes.
Hobert Epps, 36, said he was questioned by police near the site of the latest killing — a gas station off an I-95 exit near Massaponax, Va. He said the investigators compared his face to the picture on
the tape.
“They thought I was the sniper,” Epps told the newspaper. He was later released.
Police know more than they will say about sniper
Daily Emerald
October 13, 2002
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