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Sources: Sniper Fired From
30 Yards - FBI Wants Satellite Pics

By Chelsea Emery
10-16-2


A witness to the latest Washington-area sniper attack told authorities that he saw a man brandishing a weapon on his shoulder in the Monday night shooting, and it is believed the shot was fired from 30 yards away, sources said Wednesday.

The sniper's previous victims were all shot from a distance of several hundred yards, authorities have said.

The slaying Monday night of FBI employee Linda Franklin apparently was the closest the killer has come to being seen. Witnesses in the vicinity of Franklin's slaying and in another of the area killings saw an olive-skinned man in a white van, law enforcement sources said Tuesday.

Despite those witness accounts, police said Wednesday they were unable to develop a composite sketch of a suspect.

"There are a couple of people who believe they saw a man shoot. Unfortunately, distance and darkness and, perhaps, adrenaline, have made them unable to give us a clear composite that we can disseminate," said Capt. Nancy Demme of the Montgomery County, Maryland Police Department, which is leading the multijurisdictional investigation.

"There's so much disparity in their descriptions that there is no one description to put out," she said.

Police said Tuesday they were working with witnesses on another angle in the latest shooting.

"We received license plate information from several witnesses -- different information on different tags," said Fairfax County Police Chief Tom Manger. "We're following up on all that information. We are not ready to release any tag information about a suspect vehicle."

Franklin, 47, an FBI intelligence analyst from Arlington, Virginia, was slain outside a Home Depot in nearby Falls Church.

An official said Wednesday that investigators are looking at surveillance tapes from the Home Depot, outside security cameras at two nearby buildings, and tapes from police cruiser cameras. They are also reviewing Virginia Department of Transportation camera material.

The series of shootings began October 2 when the sniper missed his intended target. Since then, the sniper has killed nine people and wounded two others, including a 13-year-old boy. Each victim was shot with a single .223-caliber bullet.

In other developments, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Tuesday night approved an FBI request for use of military aircraft equipped with high-tech surveillance equipment in the search for the sniper.

The aircraft to be used are the RC-7 and the U-21.

The FBI asked satellite operators to turn over available images of the places where the shootings occurred. Investigators will use weather and intelligence pictures to look for a possible common denominator among the sites.

Maryland Gov. Parris Glendening said he would sign an executive order Wednesday temporarily banning outdoor recreational gunfire, including hunting, in metro Washington counties until the sniper incidents are over.

The order, which will affect Montgomery, Prince George's, Anne Arundel and Howard counties, came at the request of county officials who said police, already busy with the sniper investigation, are being swamped with calls about gunfire.

The police agency coordinating the manhunt released new composite graphics Tuesday of vehicles seen at the scene of Friday's fatal shooting at a gas station near Fredericksburg, Virginia -- a Ford Econoline van and white Chevrolet Astro, both with roof ladder racks.

"These are graphics. These are not exact photos," said Montgomery County Police Chief Charles Moose, who is spearheading the investigation. "We want to use this to jog people's memory."

Authorities urged citizens who know about such vehicles to call the investigation's toll-free number, and people who drive such vehicles and were near the scene of Friday's shooting were asked to contact authorities.

Moose said witnesses do not usually have photographic memories and often see things differently. But he did not rule out that more than one vehicle was involved.

"We don't want to speculate, but certainly it's not beyond any reality that the person or persons involved in this would have numerous vehicles that they could be using," Moose said.

The latest victim, Franklin, was slain by a single gunshot to the head on the ground level of a two-story parking garage outside the Home Depot after shopping with her husband. She was dead at the scene.

Police said ballistic evidence conclusively linked the shooting to the others.

The shooting made Fairfax County the sixth locale in and around Washington in which the sniper has struck. Other shootings took place in Montgomery and Prince George's counties in Maryland, in Spotsylvania and Prince William counties in Virginia, and in Washington.

Manger said investigators were looking for the origin of the shot in Monday's attack at the Seven Corners Center on U.S. Highway 50. He would not say whether it appeared the shot was fired from a distance, as has been the case with the other shootings.

A Michaels crafts store is in the same shopping center as the Home Depot. The sniper began his shooting spree October 2 at a Michaels in Aspen Hill, Maryland, but missed his intended target. The sniper wounded a woman at a Michaels two days later in Fredericksburg.

© Copyright Cable News Network LP, LLLP. All rights reserved. The information contained In this news report may not be published, broadcast or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of Cable News Network LP, LLLP.

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