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Only the sniper knows why he or she chose the tarot "death" card to send a message to police.
A death card left at the scene of the eighth shooting--that of a 13-year-old boy in Prince George's County, Md., on Monday--reportedly bore the handwritten message, "Dear policeman, I am God."
No such card is known to have been found at earlier shootings in Maryland or Washington, or at Michaels Arts and Crafts on State Route 3, where a Spotsylvania County woman survived a shooting Friday.
For people who apply tarot cards to their own lives, the death card doesn't literally mean death, tarot readers said yesterday.
In a 78-card tarot deck, the death card is among 22 "major arcana" cards. Those cards symbolize all stages of life, said Jennifer Johnson, owner of Center for Inner Power Inc. in Fredericksburg.
Johnson does tarot readings as a small part of a business focusing on "body-mind-spirit issues," she said.
The card in question "represents the death of ideas or beliefs," Johnson said.
"It means a great change. For example, if you were to change careers, you could think of it as the death of the old career."
Still, the death card tends to frighten people who have readings done, and that may be why the shooter chose it to send a message.
"He's trying to find a symbol that's going to scare people," Johnson said. "When you think of death, a lot of our culture is fearful."
But the death card also has a rebirth connotation, she said. It symbolizes an ending, but also of a beginning.
Ralph Sarchie, a New York City police sergeant and coauthor of "Beware the Night: A New York City Cop Investigates the Supernatural," said the sniper's use of the death card could give profilers a clue to his or her motivations.
"I can see a connection between this death card and the fact that he believes he's God," Sarchie said.
"He could feel in his twistedness that he's purifying these people, and that's his mission."
Whether or not the sniper believes a generally accepted definition of the card--that it's about change, not death--is irrelevant, Sarchie said.
It's how that person applies it to his or her own situation that profiling experts must key in on.
The death card and written message might be the sniper's way of explaining why the shootings are happening, Sarchie said, but it's also a challenge to police.
"He's trying to establish his superiority to them," Sarchie said. "He's not going to stop until he is stopped."
Death is depicted in many different ways on tarot cards, said Rickey Hite of the Lexington, Ky.-based American Tarot Association. The group is dedicated to presenting the positive aspects of tarot and differentiating tarot reading from fortunetelling.
Some death cards emphasize the gruesome, with skeletons, swords and skulls, Hite said. Others are hopeful, showing growing flowers or babies as symbols of change and regeneration.
Police aren't saying what images were depicted on the card the sniper left.
"Obviously, whoever it is picked it because it's dramatic," Hite said.
"It may have a personal meaning to him. But most likely this guy doesn't know anything about the tarot--he just picked up the card."