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Sheriff recalls terror and intensity of case

November 8, 2009 12:36 am

BY DICK HAMMERSTROM

Spotsylvania Sheriff Howard Smith remembers the day his county became part of the Beltway Sniper case.

On Oct. 4, 2002, an unseasonably warm day in the 80s, he was notified of a shooting outside Michaels craft store at the Spotsylvania Mall.

Deputies wanted him there because the media was expected soon.

"I thought it was some sort of domestic shooting," Smith said. He was vaguely aware of news reports of a series of shooting in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, but didn't pay much attention to them because, "I never thought it would come down here."

Caroline Seawell, a 43-year-old mother of three, was shot and wounded about 2:30 p.m. as she returned to her minivan in the parking lot. No assailants were seen.

Crime scene investigators dug a bullet slug from her car.

That evening, investigators from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms found it matched those found in the six fatal shootings in Washington and Montgomery County.

Seawell became the seventh victim--and first survivor--of the snipers.

A MASSIVE INVESTIGATION

Less than two months earlier, Smith had disbanded the Lisk-Silva Task Force, a coalition of local, state and federal investigators that for nearly six years had worked to find the killer of three teenage girls from Spotsylvania.

They set up offices at the former hospital building on Fall Hill Avenue. The phone lines and computers were still connected.

"We went right back in there," Smith said. "The same people we already knew each other. It went so smoothly."

Smith, now in his second term as Spotsylvania sheriff, also became part of the law enforcement group that appeared on TV news regularly with Montgomery County, Md., Police Chief Charles Moose, the lead spokesman for the sniper task force.

Before the shooting ended, 10 people in Virginia, Maryland and D.C. would die and three would be wounded by the shooters.

They were finally captured Oct. 24, 2002, while sleeping in a rest area in Maryland.

Lee Boyd Malvo, a juvenile at the time, will spend the rest of his life in prison.

John Allen Muhammad faces execution by lethal injection Tuesday in the state prison in Greensville.

He has appealed that sentence to the U.S. Supreme Court, which has not said whether it will hear the case.

A STATE OF PANIC

Smith said he has not kept up with the various appeals Muhammad has filed but has keen recollections of the 20 days of terror and violence the snipers brought to the area.

"The county was in such a state of panic," he said. "People were afraid to gas up their cars. Some even offered to pay deputies to fill up their cars."

Four of the shootings occurred at gas pumps, including a second shooting in Spotsylvania.

Kenneth Bridges, 53, of Philadelphia, was killed while pumping gas at an Exxon station on U.S. 1 near Massaponax.

As the shootings increased, so did the intensity of the investigation.

"We had conference calls every morning," Smith said, and strategies, plans and intelligence reports were shared.

Spotsylvania canceled all vacations and days off for deputies. Officers took positions at all 25 schools in the county.

Plans were made should more shootings occur.

For example, when Bridges was killed on U.S. 1, officers quickly began shutting down all north and southbound lanes on Interstate 95 and setting up checkpoints.

At that time, the task force was still interested in a white van thought to be involved and asked for help in locating it.

The shooters actually were using a beat-up faded blue Chevy.

"We discussed for about two hours whether to release that," Smith said about the white van. "We weren't 100 percent positive about it."

But there had been reports of white vans near shootings, so the task force decided to put the information out.

Smith said the public was quick to respond to the police efforts.

"We were offered food, meals, anything you can think of," Smith said.

"The schools were sending us cards and posters, and the students were writing to us 'Thank you, Police.'"

LESSONS LEARNED

Smith said that after any such crisis, an agency gets a chance to reflect on its performance and what it learned from it.

"All police learned from Columbine, even though it was not here," he said.

There were lessons learned from the Lisk-Silva investigation, an intense, long-term search for a serial killer.

And the lessons from the Beltway Sniper cases were many, including dealing with the massive news coverage that included reporters from other continents.

"The biggest lesson is that we are not immune from anything here," he said. "We have to be prepared."