Sniper_ The True Story Of Anti-Abortion Killer James Kopp Part 7

"Can I take Mr. Kopp's items?" asked Agent McKenna.

"Go right ahead." Agents gave him receipts for the items. They asked for permission to search the attic.

"Go right ahead," Gannon said. He had nothing to hide, and neither, he was certain, did Jim Kopp.

Four agents went upstairs and returned with a blue knapsack containing a toothbrush, envelopes addressed to Kopp c/o a post office box under the name "Before Dawn." The agents questioned Gannon again. What was "Before Dawn?" Jim produced the newsletter, Gannon explained, which was aimed at seeking donations for the Pro-life cause. The post office box was Gannon's mailing address, he collected donations and deposited them in an account at Sovereign Bank, gave copies of bank statements to a woman named Elizabeth Lewis, who lived in the same retirement community.

Betty had a powder-white, crinkled face, silver hair and kind eyes. She had been arrested with Kopp at a protest in Atlanta back in 1988. She was shocked to see all the police. Oh dear. The agents came into her house and looked up in her attic. "Jim was very pleasant, he just came and went," she said. "A drifter, really. Didn't talk much. He spent a lot of time on the porch, mostly reading, working on the computer. And walking, a great walker. He would be up at six, before dawn, and go walking."

When Betty heard that Jim Kopp was a suspect in the shooting of Dr. Barnett Slepian, she didn't believe it. Jim had once told her that he was as concerned for the spiritual welfare of the abortionists as he was for the babies. She believed him. Such a soft-spoken, nice man. Jim slept in the corner room and spent most of his time on the couch, on the computer, job hunting.

The FBI did not make James Charles Kopp's name public immediately. They intended to keep Kopp in the dark, wherever he was, while they gathered information, found more friends of his who wouldn't see them coming. On Sunday, October 26, three days after Bart's murder, the Bureau collected 13 videotapes of protests outside the downtown Buffalo clinic where Dr. Slepian worked.

On November 4, Amherst police continued their search in the woods behind the home. An officer found trace bits of hair and fibers on the bark of the tree the sniper had leaned against. The hair might produce a DNA profile-but that meant nothing without a match to compare it with. There was no DNA profile for James Kopp on file. But the prospect was there, at least, for Amherst police to compare their DNA sample with the one Hamilton police had retrieved three years earlier from the ski mask discovered in Dr. Hugh Short's driveway. If the two samples matched, they could make the case that the sniper was the same person in both attacks-even though the owner of the DNA profiles would still be unknown.

That same day, the FBI went public. FBI special agent Bernie Tolbert stood at the lectern at the press conference and announced there was a federal material witness warrant for apprehending James Charles Kopp. Joel Mercer, a young red-haired FBI agent, was doing the legwork, co-ordinating searches and other aspects of the investigation. He had only been with the bureau for a year; this case was a big step up. His superiors felt he could handle it. The supervisor of the investigation, and the more visible presence, was Tolbert, 55 years old, charismatic.

Bernie Tolbert had been on the job the morning after the shooting, looking over the crime scene. He lived only minutes away from the Slepians. The shooting got to him. He stood in the Slepians' den, saw the photos of Bart, Lynne and the boys. He had a couple of young boys himself. Bart's sons had just lost their father. So tragic. He took Lynne aside. "We'll find whoever did this, I promise you that, Lynne," he vowed. "Hey, this is my neighborhood, my town. We will find him."

"I'd just like 15 minutes alone with him," Lynne said.

Tolbert had been a star athlete in high school and university. He held high jump and triple jump records but then knee injuries slowed him down. He became a social worker. Then one day he met an aggressive recruiter from the FBI. There weren't a lot of black men in the bureau back in the mid-seventies. Most blacks only came in contact with the FBI when agents arrived to arrest someone in the neighborhood. Bernie was dubious, but he applied.

[image]Bernie Tolbert, FBI He was rejected. The examiner said the knee injuries disqualified the 30-year-old. He predicted Bernie would be in a wheelchair at 50.

That did it. Now Bernie wanted in. He wrote a letter to the top, to the director: "I will see any doctor, any time, at my own expense. I will pit myself against any agent." The bureau gave him another chance. This time, he made it. In the 22 years since, Tolbert had worked out of offices in New York, Philadelphia and Was.h.i.+ngton. Now he was posted back in Buffalo and standing before the TV cameras, the national media, backed by a huge Justice Department logo. He was acutely aware that the case was attracting enormous attention. It was his biggest show ever. He held up a photo of Kopp.

"This is a picture of the individual we are looking for," he said. "We have no idea where he is. We're looking everywhere for him. "He appears to be committed to the anti-abortion movement. The problem is, I don't think you can kill someone to show your commitment."

The photo Tolbert held became the public, iconic, "most wanted" image of James Charles Kopp. The ill-trimmed goatee, the short unkempt hair, the glower he directed at the camera. He looked like a killer. Some of Jim Kopp's supporters were so struck by how different he looked, they believed the photo was a fake. But it was a mug shot from his most recent arrest, in New Jersey, on January 23, 1997. The photo did, in fact, look far different from the way Kopp appeared in person. It was as though he had affected the look on purpose, scowling, changing his look, to distort his constantly s.h.i.+fting ident.i.ty.

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On one level, Bernie Tolbert could try to think of the Slepian murder as just another case. A federal law had been broken, so the FBI was automatically involved. But he also knew there was special interest in this show that went as high as the White House. Tolbert soon found himself in conference calls with Was.h.i.+ngton, talking directly to Attorney General Janet Reno-who herself frequently talked to President Clinton about the case and about anti-abortion violence in general.

Shortly after Tolbert's announcement that James Kopp was wanted as a material witness, a $500,000 reward was offered by the Justice Department for information. The police and FBI were careful not to publicly call Kopp a suspect. They did, however, tell reporters they believed he might hold the key to the investigation.

Tolbert cursed the zeal with which reporters chased the story. Reporters didn't have to play by the same rules as agents, could talk to anyone they pleased without regard for the legalities or nuances of criminal investigation. There were times FBI agents showed up at the home of someone connected to Kopp to find journalists already there. Reporters were all over the place in Vermont. Agents were losing the element of surprise and the media attention was helping Kopp.

On the other hand, the FBI counted on media coverage to spread images of Kopp's face to encourage public tips. One of those tips came from Daniel Lenard, a Buffalo high school teacher. He told police he had seen a jogger on October 18, five days before the murder, hunched over and running slowly along a road near Dr. Slepian's house. Saw him for maybe 10, 15 seconds. He had gla.s.ses and a reddish goatee, wore a black hooded sweats.h.i.+rt and black biker shorts. Ruddy complexion. p.r.o.nounced jawline. Looked stressed. And he held his hands up as though he were training for a boxing match, strange compared to other joggers you'd see around there, hardly the picture of health or fitness. Lenard later met with a detective who placed a page of head shots in front of him. There were photos of six men who had brownish-red beards or goatees. The photos were numbered 1 to 6.

"Do you recognize any of them?" the detective asked.

"Yes. Number four. That's him. No question that's the jogger, and the same guy I saw on TV. "

It was a photo of James Charles Kopp. Later, FBI special agent Joel Mercer visited the home of another witness who claimed to have seen the mysterious jogger. "His beard was about the color of your hair," the witness told the redheaded Mercer. He showed the witness the same photo array that had been placed before Lenard. The witness paused.

"There-number four," he said. Kopp. Later, a third witness signed his initials beside photo number four as well.

The search in the woods behind the Slepians' house continued. On November 5, a police officer noticed a sliver of plastic sticking from the ground. It was a buried garbage bag. Contents they found inside included a green baseball cap with the inscriptions "New York" and "NY," a silver men's wrist.w.a.tch, an empty rifle ammunition box, binoculars, two green earplugs, black f.a.n.n.y pack, flashlight, protective gun m.u.f.fler earm.u.f.fs and two plastic shopping bags. Amherst police sent the evidence to the FBI's Was.h.i.+ngton lab. One latent fingerprint was eventually lifted from the evidence-but the print did not match prints on file from Kopp's criminal records. The bag was a good find, suggesting the level of planning used by the sniper. But the key piece was still missing-the weapon.

Members of the joint U.S.Canadian police task force on the five sniper attacks continued to share information and discuss strategy. A joint management meeting was held in Hamilton. Senior Hamilton police officials discussed the investigation with task force members from the FBI, RCMP, and Winnipeg and Vancouver police forces. Amherst police chief John Askey burst into the meeting, angry. The chief had learned there had been an RCMP officer in Amherst, conducting surveillance, in the days before the murder of Bart Slepian. How could the RCMP have not told him about the suspect they were tailing? "You're following the guy, and you let him shoot one of my citizens!" he charged.

RCMP officials at the meeting said there had in fact been an agent in the Buffalo area, but it was for surveillance concerning a matter unrelated to the doctor shootings. And no one knew Kopp was a suspect prior to the shooting, so how could they be following him at the time? One man dead, three seriously injured, another barely escaping injury, and the sniper still at large. Pressure was mounting on all of the law enforcement agencies.

Phone ringing, before dawn, Wednesday morning, November 4. Jennifer Rock picks up.

"Jen. I'm in trouble. Can you call me back?"

Jennifer Rock had an office job with IBM in Vermont. She had known Jim Kopp for several years, met him through protests several years before when she was in her early twenties, he had once stayed at her parents' home. Rock's Vermont address had been one of several to which Kopp had his mail sent, she had deposited money in banks for him. She phoned him back at 6:30 a.m.

"Close the account, bring the money and meet me," Jim told her.

The next day, Rock left home. She told her parents she'd be in New York for a while. Looking for some work, visiting friends. She arrived at a mall in White Plains, New York. She had the money and a false West Virginia driver's license she had made at Jim's request. She tried to look inconspicuous, browse for shoes. She stopped at the newsstand and saw the headline: "James Charles Kopp Wanted by the FBI as a Material Witness." She saw the murky photo of Jim's grimacing face. Where did they get that photo? Didn't look like him at all. The FBI had obviously pointed the finger at him. But he could never have shot someone. She spotted her friend.

"Jim, your face is everywhere. You have to get out of here."

They got in her car and headed for Newark, New Jersey. (Jim had changed plates again on his car, but he knew he could no longer use the wanted black Cavalier anywhere in the country.) He should get on a plane and leave the country, now, he said, until his name could be cleared. No, argued Jennifer. Had he seen the papers, the news on TV? His face was everywhere. Not to Newark airport. They should drive, in her car, south.

The FBI hit the places where Kopp had been, retracing his steps, interviewing people he had stayed with, even questioning a mailman who confirmed he had delivered mail to a "Jack Crotty," one of Kopp's aliases. They searched a Laurel Avenue residence in Newark, Delaware, and seized computer disks containing eight Texas driver's licenses under various names. They searched room 148 at the Travel Inn, 8920 Gulf Freeway, Houston, Texas, and seized a telephone book. On Thursday, November 6, agents visited TV station WOWK in Huntington, West Virginia. Kopp had once been arrested at a protest outside a clinic in nearby Charleston. The station provided video from coverage of the scene. He was on the tape. For the FBI, finding contacts of Kopp's was not the problem. He had fleeting pro-life acquaintances all over the country, people like Gannon, Betty, Anthony Kenny. But these were not the type of contacts who held the key to catching him, they knew nothing of his movements. It seemed as if he had no intimate friends, no trusted allies he would turn to at a time like this. Even his sister didn't know much about him. It was as if James Kopp had planned it that way: "One cannot be betrayed if one has no people." ***

From his office in Quantico, Virginia, FBI profiler James Fitzgerald advised agents in the field on what kinds of questions to ask James Kopp's friends and family, about his background, personal history. Ask the right questions, in the right order. Did he change his appearance much over the years? What about his relations.h.i.+ps?

Fitzgerald studied the information coming in. The subject knew many people, had traveled the country, and the world, extensively. His emerging a.n.a.lysis suggested James Charles Kopp was a conflicted individual. He was well educated, holding a master's degree, but had held mostly menial jobs. He was deeply religious-yet apparently a killer. Kopp clearly belonged to an extreme wing of the anti-abortion movement. But even within that wing he was a bit of a loner, marched to his own drummer, did his own thing. Nonviolent, his friends said, but Fitzgerald sensed an escalation in Kopp's thinking about how he should combat abortion. The profiler believed that Kopp had been the one who pulled the trigger in all three of the Canadian attacks, in addition to the Rochester shooting, and the Slepian murder.

Question: Would Kopp try again?

Surely not, thought Fitzgerald, now that he was a wanted man, now that his cover was blown. He would try to disappear. It would be too risky to try again in the foreseeable future. Kopp fitted the sniper mentality: calculating, careful, nonconfrontational. He would not attack again, not unless he was motivated to simply taunt the FBI. And that was highly unlikely. He was too smart for that, his mission too strictly defined.

Among the first people agents interviewed was Jim's stepmother, Lynn Kopp, in Texas. She talked about the family: Chuck Kopp, ex-Marine, disciplinarian; Nancy Kopp, devout mother; the twin brother; three sisters, two of whom had died young. Jim's past relations.h.i.+ps? There was Jenny, the girlfriend at UC Santa Cruz. At least, that's what Lynn had heard. She had never met Jenny, had never seen Jim with any girl, actually. From what she heard, the relations.h.i.+p with Jenny didn't last long, and Jim went berserk when he learned she'd had an abortion.

Fitzgerald examined the interview transcripts. Interesting. Kopp had been extremely close to his mother. And over the years, on the road, protesting, he had had strong a.s.sociations with women. Yet he never married, and there was no evidence of a long-term relations.h.i.+p with a female. Most of the relations.h.i.+ps, if not all, appeared to have been platonic. Women were the key to James Kopp's future, Fitzgerald was convinced that if he were to communicate with anyone while on the run, either for shelter or to resume his sniper campaign, it would definitely be a woman, somewhere.

There was a list of activists who had joined Kopp at protests in Vermont. An FBI agent had t.i.tled one doc.u.ment, "Vermont Rescuers-February 21, 1990 to May 9, 1990," and included addresses. There were several women on the list. Agents had already located a few of them. But there was one who had not yet been found. Her name was Loretta Marra. Agents had discovered, among Kopp's possessions in James Gannon's attic, a magazine with abortion clinic bomber Dennis Malvasi's mailing address on it. Malvasi was known by the authorities to be married to Loretta. She had been photographed under surveillance at Malvasi's Brooklyn apartment back in October 1997. But she had since fallen off the radar. Perhaps Kopp would try to contact her.

Chapter 13 ~ On the Lam.

After leaving New Jersey, Jennifer Rock and Jim Kopp drove for more than 30 hours, taking turns at the wheel, sleeping in the car. Jim altered his appearance on the road, bleached his hair blond to match the photo on the fake West Virginia driver's license. There were long stretches where Jim said nothing at all to her. "The government has done this," she said. "Set you up."

Jim nodded and said nothing.

"I'll never be able to see my family again," he finally said. It is 1,986 miles from Newark to the Mexican border at Laredo, Texas. They crossed the border, parked near an airport. The thin blond man got out of the car and disappeared. On November 8, Rock drove back into the United States and headed north. When she returned to New York she dialed a pager number belonging to a "John Rizzo."

The next day, FBI special agent Walter Steffens Jr. searched a lot in a truck stop campground in Kent County, Delaware. The lot belonged to a man named Javier Hernandez, who had bought it from James Kopp. Kopp had owned the property for three years, but his name did not appear on the deed. The land included a trailer and camper top. Steffens talked to neighbors who said they recalled Kopp living in the trailer about a year and a half before. He searched the camper and found a priority mail envelope containing an updated resume for Kopp, detailing his work history through April 1993. And he found a permit in the name of Dwight Hanson for use of the Elkneck Shooting Range, located about an hour's drive away. There were four newsletters from another shooting range nearby, the Delmarva Sportsman a.s.sociation, addressed to Kevin James Gavin at a Maryland post office box. Steffens visited the post office box and found another shooting range permit. Back at the FBI lab, the doc.u.ments were dusted for fingerprints. The prints on the papers matched each other. They also matched fingerprints on file for James Charles Kopp.

That same day, agents searched the house at 1073 Buck Hollow Road, Fairfax, Vermont. It was a house belonging to a relative of Jennifer Rock. On Wednesday, November 11, agents again searched James Gannon's home in Whiting, New Jersey. They seized four boxes containing papers, maps, computer disks, books, notebooks, an address book. There was an envelope addressed to Jack Crotty, c/o Doris and Scott, Pittsburgh.

"Who owns these boxes?" an agent asked Gannon.

"I don't know," was Gannon's answer.

The contents were sealed and sent to the FBI office in Buffalo. Among the contents, an agent found a hand-drawn map. The map was dusted for prints. Also, on a torn piece of paper, the address 4990 Lebanon Road. The agent flipped the paper over, and saw on the other side a notation reading, "A to Z 883-9945." The phone number was for the 615 area code, Old Hickory, a town near Nashville.

Soon after that, a man nattily dressed in a dark suit walked through the door of the A-Z p.a.w.n Shop in Old Hickory. He stopped at the counter and looked at Patricia Osbourne, who was working the store that day.

"I'm John Eastes. I'm a special agent with the FBI's field office in Nashville." He asked to see Osbourne's books. They went to the back of the store, and he began silently leafing through the pages.

"What are you looking for?" she asked. Eastes was the first agent to visit the store, but Osbourne would meet more in the weeks to come. They combed through the books, took materials away, brought them back. There had apparently been no gun purchase at the A-Z p.a.w.n Shop by anyone named James C. Kopp.

Jersey City, N.J.

Thursday evening, November 12, 1998 FBI Special Agent Larry Wack learned from agents in Newark, New Jersey, of another address where Kopp had lived as late as the previous September under the alias Clyde Svenson. On the night of November 12, agents visited a three-storey, redbrick apartment on Communipaw Avenue in Jersey City. The agents moved to the back of the building, then up the stairs to a unit on the second floor, and knocked on the unfinished wooden door of number 346, the home of Seth Grodofsky. "Last time I saw Clyde was two weeks ago," said Grodofsky.

"Where is he now?"

"I think he's doing contracting work in New York." The agents asked more questions. It seemed Clyde Svenson also kept some belongings down by the docks along the Hudson River, down on Warren Street. The agents asked to search the apartment. Grodofsky refused. They would need a warrant. One of the agents left. The others stayed overnight, making sure no potential evidence was disturbed during the wait for a court to issue the warrant.

Meanwhile, more agents headed to Warren Street, on the water, Slip No. 7. They seized three sealed cardboard boxes belonging to Clyde Svenson. One contained a computer, monitor, printer, accessories. Another held a large vinyl travel bag containing a typewriter, book, lantern. Another box had books, computer disks, software guides. Among the loose papers was a Bell Atlantic phone bill and a New York Police Department traffic ticket for New York plate number BPE 216.

Warrant in hand, agents searched Grodofsky's apartment the next afternoon. They found a padlocked maroon toolbox that had "Job Box" written on it. They cracked the lock. The box contained a hand plane, staple gun, electrical tape, heat gun and other tools. Agents also collected clothes, bedding, a plastic mug, church newsletters, duct tape, two small flashlights, a movie stub, a bottle of sauce, a photo of the Pope, travel brochures, a toothbrush and, in the bedroom, a bottle for holy water. Special Agent Barry Lee Bush looked in the closet. He stood on a chair to check the top shelf, spotted a notebook. He opened the book and saw a notation: "716 Barnet 834-6796, Amherst." The notebook was sent to a lab for prints and a.n.a.lysis. The phone number was for Dr. Barnett Slepian's office in Amherst, New York.

The same day, agents searched 1073 Buckhollow Road, Fairfax, Vermont, home of Grace R. Rock. They seized one Smith & Wesson handgun, two empty magazines, two boxes of cartridges.

On Thursday, November 19, agents visited Loretta Marra's last-known address: 12 Indian Trail, West Milford, New Jersey. One of Loretta's three brothers, Nicholas Marra, answered the door. "I haven't seen Loretta. Not since the summertime," he said.

"Is that unusual?"

"No. She's like a vagabond, you know? No fixed address. I wouldn't know how to get in touch with her if I tried. But we don't talk much. Some of the family relations.h.i.+ps are a little strained." The agents interviewed another brother, Joseph. He said he didn't get along well with his siblings-Loretta, Nick or Bill. "They have this fervent religious zeal on the abortion issue. Comes from my parents. They forced their opinions on the four kids. Loretta? No, haven't been in touch with her in a long time."

The FBI next located and interviewed Jennifer Rock, having tracked her license plate and studied her recent phone and banking records. Her calling card record indicated a call had been placed to 914-844-7355 on November 4 at 6:36 a.m. It was a pager number Kopp had given out to several people, including his sister Anne.

"Did you recently take a trip to Mexico, the agents asked?"

"Yes," she said.

"When did you come back to the United States?"

"On November 4. At Laredo."

Wrong answer. She couldn't have crossed back from Mexico that day. Phone records placed her at work, an IBM office in Vermont, on November 4.

"Did James Kopp phone you within the last two weeks?"

She said nothing.

"What about the $7,000 withdrawal you made on November 5? What was that for?"

Rock's stories did not add up. But from the phone records it was clear she had not been in touch with Kopp since Mexico. The was clear she had not been in touch with Kopp since Mexico. The 3716 immediately upon arriving home. After searching the records of a pager company called Smart Beep, agents learned the pager was for a John Rizzo. On November 20, an agent called the Rizzo pager. A woman picked up the page. She went to a phone booth to return the page to avoid having her call traced, using a prepaid phone card, and unwittingly spoke to an agent on the other end. The bureau had made contact with Loretta Marra-Rizzo was one of three false pager names she used-but the agents still did not know exactly where she was living.

It was December 18, 56 days after the murder of Dr. Bart Slepian. A man named John Caldararo, of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Transit Police, conducted his routine check of the long-term parking lot at the Newark International Airport. He noticed a black Chevy Cavalier with an expired Pennsylvania registration sticker. The car had one plate on it: New Jersey, RAJ 889. He noticed the window was ajar and keys still in the ignition. The long-term parking lot was a well-known place for people to ditch cars. He recorded the car's VIN and ran a search on the number, 1G1JE2111H7175930. A notice came up on the computer screen. Amherst police and the FBI wanted that car. He got on the phone.

License plates change, but the VIN is the key. It was James Kopp's car. He had switched the Vermont license plate on it, but it was his vehicle.

[image]FBI Special Agent Bernie Tolbert holds up photos of Kopp's car.

Special Agent Arthur Durrant visited the airport to examine the car. He pulled out his notebook and started writing. "One 1987 Chevy Cavalier, RS Model, black in color, 2 door, hatchback, red pinstripe on the front b.u.mper, green PA Inspection Sticker dated 4/97." The car was removed and taken to the first floor of the FBI garage at 910 Newark Avenue. Items recovered included: a Tas...o...b..nocular case on the floor in front of the pa.s.senger seat, a plastic Tops Markets grocery bag behind driver's seat, samples of hairs and fibers vacuumed up from the interior and trunk, religious medallion and hanging ribbon and flower on the front dash, service sticker on inner winds.h.i.+eld for Autospa of North Bergen, in center console three AAA batteries, keys, fuses, bulbs, small flashlight, drill, wire, bit, chalk, token; in rear hatch knotted cord and hardware, pack of auto fuses, religious card, pine needle in engine compartment.

The jet descended over, London, the Thames River snaking through the city below. Jim Kopp had been to England several times before, primed for battle in the abortion wars. This time, he was invisible. Had to be. Indeed, he might not be staying long. Not at all. The flight touched down at Heathrow Airport. He deboarded. The connecting flight was later in the day, to Australia. Jim loved Australia. Even though he came from roots that were, he maintained, of Austrian and Irish origin, and even though he respected Canada, he identified most with the Australians. That country had the national experience that most closely resembled the American, he felt. One-time colony, a frontier mentality, fierce fighters in wartime. He sat in the airport. Something didn't feel right, though. Nothing had ever felt right since he had started running. His senses were on fire. Trust no one. The man with the $500,000 bounty on his head, the man on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List, got up and left the airport. There would be no trip to Australia. Not today.

He thought of this time on the lam as "sleeping," as though he wasn't conscious, or was dreaming. The next several weeks were a blur. He was living hand-to-mouth, barely surviving, finding odd jobs in exchange for food and permission to sleep in a closet somewhere. On the run before long he lost 30 pounds, grew a beard, shaved it off, grew it, repeat, changing his appearance as frequently as possible. He wasn't just feeling the heat from the FBI. In his mind's eye, Scotland Yard was on his case, British intelligence, Interpol, city police-they were all looking for him. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, the FBI would connect the dots, they would stomp on every person he had ever known or loved back home, he thought. That much was a no-brainer. And so they would come looking for him. But they wouldn't find him. He had to move again.

New York City December, 1998 Loretta Marra was now 35 years old, had a young son and was pregnant with a second child. She was underground. Where might she finally show her face? On December 12, her father, William Marra, was driving home to Connecticut from Birmingham, Alabama. He had spent the past two months teaching seminarians. He stopped at a friend's home in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia. After dinner he left. On Route 81 he suffered a heart attack, managed to pull over, was taken to hospital. A family friend called a priest who arrived just in time to give him last rites. The FBI learned of his death. Would Loretta surface to attend the funeral of her beloved father? Agents were among the mourners, or hidden nearby, at the service. Loretta did not attend.

On January 28, a woman named Joyce Maier took her driver's license exam in New York. The real Joyce Maier was a 31-yearold mentally disabled woman who had been unable to work for years. She was also a niece of Dennis Malvasi. The woman with dark hair and pale green eyes who pa.s.sed the driver's exam was Loretta Marra. Malvasi had given Joyce's ID to Loretta. He also got his wife an ID in the name of Rosemarie Howard, who was deceased. a.s.suming the ident.i.ty of a dead person was an easy way to get a driver's license. It was a trick that Jim Kopp himself had used many times. Officials rarely checked ID against death certificates.

Marra registered a 1988 Mazda using Joyce Maier's social security number. She listed her address as 4809 Avenue North, in Brooklyn, Apt. 148. In fact it was not a residence; 148 was a mailbox number at an American Mail Depot. In February, Marra opened a new bank account at CFS Bank in the name of Joyce Maier. She was proving to be an elusive target for the FBI. Her husband, on the other hand, had always been on the FBI's radar-he was still on probation. Agents interviewed Malvasi's probation officer, trying to determine if he was still with Marra. The probation officer told the FBI that he had recently seen a baby seat in Malvasi's Acura. The officer had also visited Malvasi at his home at 2468 Lynden Avenue, and was told through the door by a woman who remained hidden that Dennis was not home. Agents interviewed an employer of Malvasi named Anthony Castellano. He was not enthusiastic about speaking to the FBI. Castellano said that Malvasi kept company with a woman, but Castellano only knew her as "Rose." An agent pulled out a photograph.

"Is this her?"

Castellano looked at the photo of Loretta Marra. He paused.

"Yes."

Malvasi was ordered to appear before a grand jury in Buffalo in connection with the search for Kopp. He testified on February 10, 1999.

"Do you know James Charles Kopp?"

"I have never met him," said Malvasi.

"Do you know Loretta Marra?"