Steve Quayle News Alerts

October 10, 2002

MANASSAS, Va. — The murder of a man at a Virginia gas station is "consistent with" the shootings of eight other people in the last week, a top police official said Thursday afternoon.

The similarities increase the likelihood that the serial sniper terrorizing the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area has killed his seventh victim.

Prince William Police Chief Charlie Deane said an autopsy showed the 53-year-old victim died Wednesday night of a single gunshot wound to the upper part of his body.

Deane said investigators haven't made a definite link to the other shootings, but "overall, things seem to be consistent at this point."

Police throughout the region were pulling over white minivans, hoping one might turn out to be a vehicle spotted leaving the scene of Wednesday night's murder.

Dean Harold Meyers, a civil engineer from Gaithersburg, Md., was gunned down at the gas station moments after filling his tank, becoming the seventh person in the area to die in an apparently random shooting since last Wednesday night. Two others have been wounded.

Two men were seen in a white van shortly after the sniper slayings began eight days ago in the Washington suburbs. The vehicle described by witnesses to Wednesday's shooting was similar -- a white "panel truck."

"It's a minivan but instead of windows around the side, it's solid. We don't know about windows in the back," Sgt. Kim Chinn, a Prince William County police spokeswoman, said Thursday. The vehicle was described as looking like a Dodge Caravan, she said.

She stressed that the Virginia killing had not been definitely linked to the eight earlier sniper shootings in Maryland, Washington and Virginia.

Manassas is approximately 30 miles west of the nation's capital and about 40 miles southwest of Bowie, Md., the site of Monday's shooting in which a 13-year-old boy was critically wounded outside a school.

"The assurance we can give the community is we are working as hard as we can," Chinn said.

Maryland investigators went to the scene of Wednesday's killing because of similarities with the previous shootings, and Virginia police were sharing information with them.

Asked if the shooting appeared linked to the serial sniper, Montgomery County Police Chief Charles Moose said: "We are certainly working the case with that in mind."

Investigators say the sniper, or snipers, fired from a distance with a high-powered hunting or military-style rifle. All the earlier victims had been felled by a single bullet; authorities wouldn't comment Thursday on whether the Manassas victim also was killed that way.

Officials announced they had set up a single tip line for people wanting to report information. That number is 1-888-324-9800.

The schoolboy wounded in Bowie on Monday remained in critical but stable condition at Children's Hospital in Washington on Thursday.

A relative, Wayne Curtis, called the boy "a fighter" and said his family is hoping for a full recovery.

Curtis described the boy's recovery as "a marathon, not a sprint," and said relatives are confident the boy will reach "the finish line."

A woman wounded in Fredericksburg, Va., last week was released from the hospital Tuesday.

A tarot card with the words "Dear policeman, I am God" was found near a .223-caliber shell casing outside the school in Bowie, a source familiar with the investigation said on the condition of anonymity.

Moose wouldn't comment Wednesday when asked about the tarot card, and angrily suggested unapproved information had been leaked.

"I need to make sure I don't do anything to hinder our ability to bring this person or these people into custody," Moose said.

The "I am God" message left on the tarot card called the Death card was first reported by WUSA-TV and then by The Washington Post. Police sources told the newspaper the items were found 150 yards from the school in a wooded area on matted grass, suggesting the gunman had lain in wait.

The Post on Thursday reported that the tarot card also contained a handwritten request from the sniper that it not be revealed to the media. Some detectives had hoped that if they honored the request, the sniper might communicate with investigators again, the newspaper quoted sources as saying.

Tarot cards, used mainly for fortunetelling, are believed to have been introduced into western Europe by Gypsies in the 15th century. Many tarot enthusiasts say the Death card usually does not connote physical death, but instead portrays a symbolic change or transformation.

Crime experts, while noting that the link between the card and the sniper remained unconfirmed, recalled other serial killers who left "calling cards."

One of the most notorious was David Berkowitz, who killed six people in New York in 1976-77. He wrote a letter to newspaper columnist Jimmy Breslin and left a note addressed to a police detective that said: "I am a monster. I am the 'Son of Sam."'

Robert K. Ressler, a former FBI profiler, interviewed Berkowitz after his arrest.

"He said this was a stimulating thing for him to see the letters in the paper," Ressler said. "Even though he's the only one who knows, notoriety becomes very satisfying to an inadequate loser. It's a way of imposing power and control over society."

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,65299,00.html