October 24, 9:30 a.m. About six hours after the suspects had been removed from the Caprice, detectives from Montgomery County, along with their evidence techs and the ATF, arrived in the rest area with the signed search-and-seizure warrant. They got busy sorting their equipment and gloving up so as not to contaminate any evidence.
It was then that I finally had the chance to really look at the Caprice. It was an older model, dark blue with faded paint. It really wasn’t a lot different from my unmarked cruiser, except that this one was modified for violence and evil. The doors were still open, just as the TANGO teams had left them. The interior was covered in trash, including fast food wrappers and cups; these two had been living out of the car. As I circled it, I noticed that what was left of the windows had been darkened with cheap window film. I also noticed what appeared to be a small hole cut out of the trim area just above the license plate and below the trunk lid. There was something stuffed in the hole. No rifle was visible inside the car.
We were hoping to find one in the car, and we suspected it would be in the trunk. We knew we had the right guys. Still, there was considerable apprehension waiting to see what was in that car. One tech, armed with a 35-mm camera, was taking what would end up being hundreds of pictures of the area, including where the car was parked and the surroundings. He then focused on the car itself, taking photo after photo of the exterior and what could be seen of the interior from outside. These pictures would eventually be used as evidence in the upcoming trials.
Once the techs had photographed everything, it was time to enter the car. A more detailed forensic examination would later be made when the Caprice was removed and taken to an indoor facility and out of the weather, but we had to make an initial examination while it was at the scene. I was standing by the driver’s side door with Captain McAndrew, another detective, and a couple of cops. We were nothing more than spectators at this point. The tech made a cursory scan of the front seat and the back seat, removing and bagging several items, including a laptop.
Then the evidence tech pulled down the back seat, revealing a clear pass-through to the trunk. Behind the back seat in a recessed area, there it was—a Bushmaster .223-caliber assault rifle.
It was a surreal moment, staring at the very weapon that, presumably, had been used for all the shootings. After three weeks of intense investigation and searching, I couldn’t help feeling taken aback by how the rifle just popped into view when the back seat was pulled down. So easily, in direct contrast to how hard we had worked to find it.
Multiple pictures were taken before the weapon was touched by the evidence tech. As he took the rifle from the car, he pulled back the receiver to make sure there were no rounds in the chamber. One round came tumbling out.
I was mesmerized. The small brass shell spun in the air and landed on the pavement, making a tinkling sound as it hit and rolled under the car. Whose name would have been on that bullet? Had we not reached these guys in time, who might have died?
It is amazing how events we are not even aware of can change our life forever. Somewhere out there, someone is obliviously alive today because we caught these guys before they could shoot again. As it turned out, this was the only bullet the snipers had left. Had we not stopped them, they would have used it, no question. Then the only thing stopping them would have been lack of ammunition. Could they have gotten more? Stores in three states had pulled their .223 ammo off the shelves, at least until this was over. So the snipers were, quite literally, down to their last bullet.
Over the next hour or so, the evidence guys went over the car, collecting various items and evidence that would later be used successfully in the trials of Muhammad and Malvo. As I watched the techs uncover more evidence in the car, it became clear that this Caprice had been a mobile office, so to speak, for the shooters. The back seat gave them access to both the hidden rifle and the car’s trunk, without their ever having to get out of the car. The windows had been tinted to make it impossible for the casual observer to peer inside. The small circular hole cut just under the trunk lid allowed a shooter lying in the trunk to put the muzzle of the rifle through the hole without being seen. When the hole wasn’t in use, they filled it with an old glove.
Maybe for extra camouflage, the snipers had spray-painted the underside of the trunk lid blue. When they opened it slightly, it would have blended in with the rest of the car. When they were in shooting position, the trunk lid would have been open; the shooter, lying in a prone position, could control how wide it was open using a piece of electrical wire hooked to the latch. This ensured enough space for the rifle’s EOTech holographic weapon sight to fit through the trunk opening. Unlike the stock or iron sights that would have come standard with the rife, this higher-end sight featured an optic sighting system that allowed the shooter to fire accurately in low lighting situations. The rifle had been fitted to kill. The trunk needed to be open just two inches to give the sight line the snipers needed. The sound or report of the fired rifle would have been absorbed by the trunk and interior of the Caprice. Once the shot had been taken, the shooter would pull the trunk lid shut, withdraw the rifle barrel, shove the glove in the hole, and the driver could leave the area quickly and quietly without ever stepping outside the car. Cover, concealment, and mobility—the car had been carefully planned out and prepared.
Plus, the old car was ordinary. There was nothing special about it that would stick out or cause anybody to really take notice, and it easily blended into traffic. A lot of thought had gone into turning this run-of-the-mill car into a snipers’ nest for cold-blooded killers. Every detail was considered, right down to spray painting the inside of the trunk lid blue so anyone who happened to look in their direction wouldn’t notice that the trunk was slightly open. This also explained why they were reluctant to abandon this car for something else during their three-week killing spree.
They planned each kill, and they killed based upon their plan. This wasn’t about a desperate man seeking revenge against an ex-wife over child custody, as had been portrayed. Maybe that was what set Muhammad off, but this much planning and premeditation suggested terrorism—the desire to kill.
When the evidence guys finished their initial search, the car was loaded onto a car hauler and taken to a police lab in Montgomery County, where it could be more carefully searched for forensic evidence. Taking no chances, we removed the car under heavy police escort, with an officer riding with the hauler operator, and several police cars in front and behind, including me in car 662 bringing up the rear.
We were escorted back to Montgomery County by news helicopters filming the entire entourage, as well as news trucks with photographers hanging out the windows trying to get pictures of the Caprice. As the adrenaline was wearing off, I felt heavy exhaustion beginning to take hold. I had forgotten how tired I had been when this whole thing started—fifteen hours ago. I had been thirty hours without sleep, and now that we were in the wrap-up stage, it was catching up with me. But there was still work to do.
We headed east on Interstate 70 and made the southward turn onto Interstate 270 toward Montgomery County. Since I was heading back to the joint operations center, I broke off from the motorcade. As I passed the car hauler, I took one last look at the sniper car that had eluded us for the past three weeks.
At the JOC, I gave a quick debrief to both the command staff and my intelligence group and partners, those people I had spent the past three weeks working with. There were smiles, handshakes, and slaps on the back. I was relieved, but I didn’t feel all that happy. I couldn’t stop thinking about the victims and their families—fourteen people who had been shot, ten of whom had been killed. Yes, catching the snipers was a victory in the sense that they would never kill again. But it never should have gotten that far in the first place.
I addressed the group. “Every member of this group and every member of this task force deserves as much, if not more, credit than I do. Each and every one of you was part of a team, and it took the entire team to solve this, to track these killers down. I just happened to be a guy trying to get home who wound up being the incident commander. But it’s all of you who helped make this happen.”
An hour later, after I had been thoroughly debriefed, Captain McAndrew sought me out. “We need to go over to the ATF lab,” he said. “They’re getting ready to test fire the Bushmaster. And I’ll drive. You look like shit.”
“And I probably look a whole lot better than I feel,” I said.
At the lab, we were escorted to an area that contained several firearms examiners. Lying on a table was the snipers’ rifle. A chill went down my spine; here was the gun that had killed ten and seriously injured four more. One of the lab guys explained all the nomenclature of the weapon. We stepped away from the table and into a room where we could watch through a glass window as the rifle was loaded and fired into a block of gel-like material. That would allow the team to capture the bullet so it could be examined and matched to bullets recovered from the victims. Even though I knew the weapon was going to be fired, and even though we were separated from the lab and had ear protection, the report of the rifle still made me jump. The last time it had been fired, a bus driver had lost his life.
I had been around firearms all my life, starting at around seven years old when my dad taught me how to shoot a little .22-caliber Crickett rifle. I have never seen anything inherently evil about guns. They were nothing more than tools to be used for hunting, target shooting, and gun sporting events such as trap shooting and skeet. For me, guns had accounted for hundreds of hours of good times hunting with my dad, my grandfather, and my brother. It had never crossed my mind to use a firearm against a human being. When I became a trooper, my firearm was a tool, just like a hammer is to a carpenter. No gun is evil unless it’s used in the hands of an evil human being. The same can be said about a knife or an auto that is being driven by a drunk driver.
But the report of that .223-caliber Bushmaster assault rifle as it was being test fired was chilling to me.
The bullet was removed from the gel. It took less than fifteen minutes for the expert to make a preliminary match of that bullet to others that were in evidence from the killings. There was no doubt this was the rifle that had been used by the snipers to shoot these people.
We left the lab and went back to the JOC. I walked straight to car 662 and headed home for the first time in days. I’m not sure how I made it there, I was that exhausted. I pulled up in front of the house, then picked up the radio and called Frederick Barrack.
“Frederick, this is car 662. I’m 10–42.” Out of service. Home.
October 24, 4:42 p.m. The sun was beginning to set. In the house, Jean was waiting for me. My teenage daughter came bounding down the steps. “Dad, did you hear? They caught the snipers! We’ll have our game tomorrow night! Will you be there to watch me cheer?”
It was time for me to put the Beretta back in the gun safe, hang that state police Stetson on a hook by the coatrack, and turn from Lieutenant Reichenbaugh, Maryland State Police, operations commander, Criminal Intelligence Division, to just the most important title there is—Dad. I looked into those blue eyes and couldn’t help but think about those ten people who no longer could do what I was doing. I smiled at my daughter. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”