Original subtitles

-There has been a shooting at a school this morning.

A child has been shot.

-The gunman reportedly has left a message for police.

-Hello, this is a call from...

-Lee Malvo.

-...an inmate at the Virginia Department of Corrections,

Red Onion State Prison.

-41-year-old man, John Muhammad,

and a Jamaican-born teenager.

-Sniper team that terrorized the Washington metropolitan area.

-19-11 I have one down. There's blood all over.

I'm at the Mobil gas station...

- the most intense manhunts in American history.

-The serial killer hunting down random citizens.

-We have fear levels here that I think are higher

than they were after September 11th.

-Let me go! Let me go past!

-President Bush is talking about fighting Iraq,

and we have a war zone right here in his own country.

-Oh, oh, oh, man, oh, man.

-Dean was probably the brother I knew the best growing up

because of our proximity of age.

He was a very comfortable single man.

Yeah, Dean was definitely a favorite uncle,

because he spent time with the nieces and nephews.

He would gather them up in his car

and take them on an adventure.

5:00 in the morning, I got a knock on the door.

The D.C. sniper got Dean.

-It was the news authorities had feared but expected.

The sniper had shot his ninth victim,

the seventh murder in just over a week.

-Another random target in the suburbs of Washington D.C.

The victim, 53-year-old Dean Meyers

of Gathersberg, Maryland.

-The decorated Vietnam war veteran

was killed while pumping gas.

-Ballistics tests today showed the shot fired here last night

is consistent with the other sniper attacks.

-You know, when you get news like that, you think,

"Well, this just can't be true.

You know, there must be some mistake."

But people don't come and give you notice like that

not knowing.

This shows Dean in his uniform,

just as he was leaving for Vietnam.

He was not the fighting-man personality,

but he recognized his duty, and he did it.

He was designated as a sharp shooter

to do search-and-destroy missions on the Viet Cong.

When Dean was shot, he was helicoptered out.

And the army gave him a Purple Heart,

but when he came back, he wasn't a swaggering guy

that had killed so many Viet Cong.

He came back as still the soft, kind guy that he was.

He was just a random victim,

mowed down by someone who didn't even know him.

- 1, 2, 3. - 1.

- 1, 2, 3. - 2.

-I was in the Gulf War with sergeant John Williams,

who later on was known as John Muhammad.

We spent a whole bunch of time together in Iraq.

He was my assistant gunner.

I saw him as somebody that knew his stuff

when it came to military.

Always neat, boots polished, everything was done right.

He was always in good shape.

You know if you was to get in a fight with that guy,

you better end that fight there.

I can remember Sergeant Williams talking about racism,

minorities in the platoons,

and, uh, white man in positions of authority.

He was intimidating to people,

especially the white guys in the unit.

He didn't like white people all that much.

It went off between our bunks,

right out in the middle of the tent.

Nobody got seriously hurt,

but a lot of stuff got destroyed.

Sergeant Williams wound up being the one

that was under investigation.

They thought that he was

planning on killing our platoon sergeant.

They pulled him out of our unit right after that.

He was gone.

It was like Keyser Soze.

Like, poof.

He's gone.

-I don't know what happened,

but whatever happened changed him.

Prior to Desert Storm, we would talk about everything.

We would have discussions and laughing and talking.

So that was the man I was waiting for to come back.

But that's not what I got.

I got the controlling, quiet,

manipulative, constantly trying

to make it appear that I'm a basket case...

not smart,

can't do anything without him,

never amount to anything.

When we moved to Fort Ord, California, by the ocean...

-[Laughs]

-...he was a very involved parent.

-[Laughs] You're my little black princess!

-Go get him, Selena, go!

And little John was happy,

and Selena was just beginning to walk.

I got pregnant with Taaliba.

-Here comes the close-up.

Let me see them teeth.

-He would play with the children,

and I'd see the man before he went to Desert Storm.

-Got 'em.

-But soon as the children were not around,

the stranger came back.

-How I first encountered Sergeant John Williams...

He gave me the instructions on how to use this weapons system

without reference to a manual.

Drill sergeant standard.

He really understood this system.

And at the end of the instruction,

I thought to myself,

"The army needs more John Williams."

-John joined the nation of Islam.

-I'll be damned

if you will take Black America down.

-Free our people from this insidious force in power

that is misdirecting our lives.

-I was there in the training area,

talking to the company commander.

We overheard some soldiers laughing about Sergeant X.

So, I just said, "Who is Sergeant X?"

He goes, "Oh, that's Sergeant John Williams.

The soldiers in the company like to call him Sergeant X,

particularly the African American soldiers,

because he's always trying to recruit soldiers

to be black Muslims."

And I said, "Huh, well, I don't think there's anything wrong

with a solider deciding to be a black Muslim,

but I'm not so sure it's okay

to try to recruit people to be black Muslims.

Particularly during duty hours."

Several weeks later, I get a call.

It's the company commander.

He said, "Sir, we've got a problem with Sergeant X."

I said, "You mean Sergeant Williams."

And he said, "Yeah, whatever, but here's the deal.

He had an altercation with his platoon sergeant,

and the platoon sergeant claims that he is threatening

to kill him and his family,

me and my family,

and you and your family."

Suddenly, all that stony, cold, professionalism

turned completely upside-down.

This guy is capable of doing something really bad.

I think he's going to try to hurt us.

And I decided to court-martial him.

Whatever it takes to get him away from here.

But we were not perceived to have enough evidence,

and, uh, they chose to find him innocent.

-He just said, "The army's no place for a black man."

And he didn't elaborate on it, he didn't go any further.

He just made that statement and that was it.

You don't want to accept the racism,

and you don't want to live in a racist country,

but the facts are the facts.

You are in a racist country.

-The House voted yesterday to authorize President Bush

to use force against Iraq and the Senate followed suit

with a vote early this morning.

-All races will be destroyed.

-The state of terror

in the Washington D.C. area deepens tonight.

A motorist shot to death

with a single high-powered bullet

at a gas station in northern Virginia last night

was the latest victim of the serial sniper

who has killed six others in the last week.

-Police struggle with an investigation

that now spans four counties and the District of Columbia.

-You're starting to deal with millions and millions of people.

So, the targets of opportunity

have just increased thousands-fold.

There was this great fear of,

"It's out of control, it's going to be expanding,

we have no... no idea where it's going next."

So, you're just on this roller coaster the whole time.

-People, you know, are afraid to take the chance.

So basically, they're coming in, they're filling their cars,

and jumping right back in their car,

while the gas is filling up.

-I'm driving every day,

going around the belt, going through traffic.

and the thing that you always need is gas.

What are you doing to secure gas stations

that everybody has to use in this particular area?

He was able to get between man and his car.

And so, people were getting as close as they can,

to get out to get gas.

I'm a big guy, so I remember trying...

I said, "Look, this is not gonna work. He got me."

-You decided it would be safer to sit in the car?

-Oh, yeah.

Rather than be out there and be a perfect target.

-Some companies now taking extraordinary measures

to help customers feel safe,

including this canopy to shield people at the pumps from view.

-The most sacred thing a person can do is go to work

and go home to be with their family.

And the shooters were in between work and home.

And the gas pump became a stage for bloodshed.

-It was very, very much like a siege mentality.

People weren't over-exposing themselves.

They weren't going out to restaurants.

They weren't going to school functions.

Everyone is on pins and needles.

Everybody's frustrated.

Everybody's working with a lack of sleep.

And we're all just praying that we can close it

before the next shooting occurs.

-Ken was... He was larger than life,

and he touched so many people, so many lives.

Ken was a very caring person.

He was fun to be around, and he was also serious.

He loved his family, and he loved his people.

There are so many talented African Americans

in this country that manufacture goods

and provide services of excellence.

He wanted to make sure that black people would buy

from black people, and then hire black people

to help lift the economics of our race.

Ken was really on that mission,

and he was coming back from a very important deal.

They concluded their meeting,

and then when he was coming back,

he was told, "Hey, man, don't... Don't stop in that area

at any of those gas stations."

But, you know, he needed to refuel his vehicle.

And, um, that's... That's when it happened.

-This is my first time back since that day.

I was driving north on Interstate 95,

and I wanted to make sure I had enough gasoline

to get through the Washington, D.C. area,

uh, where all the shootings were occurring.

Saw the Exxon.

First thing I noticed at the Exxon was Mr. Bridges

and his bright-green sweater.

I went around the front of the vehicle

and, uh, as I was wiping the windshield,

my back was facing north, and I had this premonition.

-I looked across, I saw Mr. Bridges.

He moved his hands up to his chest.

He took two and a half steps, he said, "Ouch, ouch, ouch."

And he fell flat on his face.

The way he hit the ground,

I knew that he was most likely dead.

-The sniper has struck again.

And once again, an innocent victim

gunned down at a gas station.

-Ken Bridges left behind 6 children, a wife of 25 years,

and a vast network of friends and admirers.

-Ken was a loving husband, father of six children,

and an outstanding citizen of the Philadelphia community.

The Bridges family hopes that this killer is brought

to justice as quickly as possible.

I mean, he was a friend, and it hurt like my brother,

like we were kin.

-It's roadside America... Motels, restaurants, and murder

under the canopy of an Exxon gas station.

-8 dead now, 2 injured.

The suspect still on the loose, frustrating police.

Witnesses say they saw a van at the filling station

where the shot was fired.

-And we saw the white Astro van has, like, a ladder

on the top of it.

-A white van just pulled up now.

They will interview the driver and then one will eventually

go round the back and take a look at...

-At some point, we decided to release

a composite of a white van,

because it was the only piece of information,

and because no one had come forth to eliminate it.

-Hoping to jog the public's memory,

police released this composite image,

the white box truck described by witnesses to shootings.

-Authorities said the possibility

that a sniper and driver

are working together is gaining credence.

-I was over this guy's house, and we were watching it.

They said they're shooting as a tandem.

They got a spotter and they got a shooter,

and that's what they said.

And then I was like, "Okay, that's the kid,

and that's John."

-Experts say serial killers do, sometimes, work in tandem.

-And then later, I called my brother and I said,

"Man, you're not going to believe this,

but I really think I know who the sniper is."

And he was like, "Are you serious?"

And he was like, "You don't need to tell me.

You gotta call the police."

The next morning, I think, I called the FBI office.

They didn't call me back.

-Well, John and I separated September 1999.

I said, "You know what? I want a divorce."

He said, "What do you want a divorce for?"

I said, "Look.

You acting free, you may as well be free.

Go ahead and do whatever it is that you're doing

because I don't want to be a part of this anymore."

-He just had that "Mm" factor, okay?

I would almost call him a womanizer.

He liked the women.

I guess some of them threw themselves at him,

and he didn't throw 'em back, you know.

-I said, "Okay, I tell you what you do.

You come to the house, get your stuff.

Don't ever come back again because we're done.

We're done."

He became angry.

He would come in in the middle of the night.

I could hear the key going in the door to turn the lock

and walk through the house.

I would lay there with my eye open to a slither

to watch him come in, go from one side of the bed

to the other, lean over to listen to me breathe,

stand up and walk out the house.

He says, "You are not going to raise my children by yourself.

You have become my enemy.

And as my enemy, I will kill you."

I knew John.

I knew what he was capable of.

I knew if he turned on you what he could do.

I just had my children,

and I was in hiding, in Maryland.

-Mom!

-The killer's been quiet this weekend

for the longest stretch of time, three days with no new attacks.

-The authorities are hopeful that the quick dragnet

after last Friday's shooting

may have spooked the sniper into hiding.

-There is growing anxiety about whether,

and when, he'll strike again.

-Okay.

Oh, my God!

-Thing I remember about that night

was how deathly quiet it was in here.

-It was all lit up, almost like a stadium.

-I remember that. It was so bright.

Everything was bright for how quiet it was.

It... it was bright. - Right.

Car was parked right here.

Mrs. Franklin was laying down behind it with a cart.

Bullet came through here, struck her in the left side

of the head, just above her left eye.

Exited out this side of her head

and took off a huge portion of her skull.

-It was the most catastrophic injury I had ever seen.

-We found out it was Linda Franklin,

and that she worked for the FBI as an analyst,

and that was a game changer.

-This created that sense that, "Well, could this be targeted,

and could this be now a message to law enforcement,

that, uh, that... that all of... All of you are now at risk"?

You know, it's, like, bad enough to be on the roller coaster,

but then they just sped it up by 100 miles.

-It was obvious talking to co-workers

and people who knew her that she was an excellent worker,

a hard worker, intelligent.

Would do anything for anyone, a-a sweetie,

not a mean bone in her body.

You know, in all the years I was doing this,

this comes up frequently, like, "Why that person?"

-This wasn't just a typical crime scene that we'd handled,

you know, thousands of times before.

I mean, we'd had plenty of shootings to respond to

and homicides, and so we knew how to work 'em.

This was different.

And all of a sudden, I'm looking around and there's 200 people,

next to the crime-scene tape.

There was some additional information

that we were able to get from last night's case,

and I-I am confident that ultimately,

that information is going to lead us to an arrest.

-They have the most definite, promising,

concrete leads that they've had at any point

in this 2-week-old investigation...

An eyewitness who last night caught a glimpse of the killer,

his van, and the gun he may be using.

-There was a witness that had come forward.

A man named Matthew Dowdy.

Said that there was a cream-colored van.

And he said he saw

what appeared to be a Middle Eastern man

come out with a rifle and shoot.

-This was amazing information because prior to this,

nobody had seen who was doing the shooting.

So now, all of a sudden, we think, "Okay, this is...

We've now got a description of the shooter."

-It's evident authorities have found some of the most

useful witnesses since the sniper killing started.

-This whole area was on lockdown.

It was terrifying.

The profile is a white box truck,

but I'm looking for John, too.

-I'm in a heightened state of alert

because John knows how to track.

So, to me, it was just a matter of time before he found me.

And it was gonna be a head shot.

My co-worker picks me up for work.

She says, "You know, there's a dark-colored car

outside your cul-de-sac with two men in it.

I'm getting a funny feeling from that car."

We pass by the car.

The driver looks at us,

but the passenger had a newspaper,

and he held it up.

I called the police.

I said, "It's a dark-colored Caprice or Impala

with New Jersey plates.

Two African American males seated in the car."

They said, "Okay, we'll get somebody out there."

We just went on to work.

When I came back from work, the car was gone.

-The sniper remains at large.

-And the letter, it says,

"Your children are not safe anywhere at any time."

Subs extracted and de-HI'd by Peppe @ 2021