Posted on 11/07/2002 3:42:05 PM PST by Shermy
PHOENIX — Tucson police traveled to Washington state Thursday to interview a friend of the two sniper suspects who says John Lee Malvo bragged about shooting two men on golf courses last spring.
Harjeet Singh's recollection of a conversation with Malvo may be the strongest link police have connecting the snipers attacks to the shooting death of a Tucson golfer.
The victim, Jerry R. Taylor, 60, was shot March 19 while practicing chip shots at the Fred Enke Golf Course in Tucson. Authorities said he was felled by a single shot to the chest fired at a distance.
Police are investigating the possible connection to the snipers because many elements of Taylor's slaying are similar to other random sniper killings and the two suspects were in Tucson when Taylor was gunned down.
Tucson Assistant Police Chief Robert Lehner said that Singh provided police with details of the shooting which were not released to the public. However, there were also some inconsistencies.
"Claims made by Singh are of obvious interest," Lehner said.
Singh told police that Malvo said he and Muhammad had shot two golfers, robbed them and buried their bodies.
Taylor was practicing alone in the chipping area of the course when he was shot, police said. His body was dragged about 50 feet into some bushes before other golfers found him.
Another Tucson man vacationing in Clearwater, Fla., was shot at the Glen Oaks Golf Course on May 18 but survived.
Albert Michalczyk, 72, of Oro Valley near Tucson, thought he was hit by a golf ball at first, then realized he had been shot when he saw blood gushing from his chest.
"It went in and out and was just a flesh wound," he said from his home on Thursday. "I'd like to know who did it but I'll never find out. To tell you the truth, I don't really want to relive it."
Michalczyk was with a group of people near the 5th hole when he was hit from a distance. Doctors told him he was probably hit with a .22 caliber slug. No bullet was ever found.
Lehner said the fact Michalczyk is from Tucson also appears to be a coincidence. Tucson police did contact Florida authorities in May because of the golf course connection, but as tenuous as the crimes were, no solid connection was evident.
"We were trying to it figure out," Lehner said. "They're just aren't that many people killed with rifles on golf courses."
Malvo's mother worked in Fort Myers, Fla., 130 miles from Clearwater, in 2001, and Malvo was reported as a runaway from Fort Myers a year before the golf course shooting, Lehner said.
Malvo, 17, and John Allen Muhammad, 41, arrived in Tucson on March 13 on a bus from Los Angeles. They were visiting Muhammad's sister, police said.
The sister has since moved to New Orleans and was interviewed over the weekend by the FBI, Tucson Police Chief Richard Mranda said. She told authorities that she put the pair up at a Tucson motel for three days then drove them back to the bus station on March 16.
She thought they left March 16, but they apparently stayed longer, leaving for Flagstaff on a March 25 bus, Miranda said. A manifest of passengers showed the two used the last name of Williams — Muhammad's given name — with different first names.
A letter believed left by the sniper demanding $10 million included the number of a credit card stolen from a Greyhound bus driver as she drove between Nogales and Flagstaff in March. Authorities told the driver her card had been used to buy gas in Tacoma, according to The Washington Post.
Federal authorities contacted Tucson police Friday, after the Montgomery County (Md.) Task Force learned Muhammad and Malvo had been there about the time Taylor was shot.
On Wednesday, police used explosive-sniffing dogs and searched the Tucson golf course shoulder to shoulder using a human grid system. All evidence in the case is being re-examined.
"It doesn't appear that the things we collected are connected to our crime" but they will be analyzed, said Lehner, who didn't specify what was found.
A friend of the Taylor family found an old shell casing in the area, but police concluded that the casing was too old to be linked. However, that casing now is being retested.
I doubt if this guy in FL would have been the second golfer Malvo shot, if he bragged to Singh about it in the spring. If I remember what I have read correctly, Singh had broken off his connection with the two by May.
Anyone hear any more about this??
They were there at least late last year...
Man Arrested In Sniper Case Attended School in Fort Myers (Pic of House)[Oct. 25 Naples Daily News]
The younger of two men arrested Thursday morning in connection with the Washington, D.C.-area sniper shootings is believed to have attended public school last year in south Fort Myers.John Lee Malvo, 17, was arrested at a rest stop in Frederick County, Md., and is one of two suspects in recent sniper attacks that have left 10 individuals dead and three wounded. Lee County school officials confirm that a teenager named Lee Boyd Malvo attended Cypress Lake High from Aug. 13 to Oct. 16, 2001, and authorities presume that individual is the same person arrested Thursday.
.....
Fremou said people would come in and out of the house last year, around September, [ - that's September 2001 - ] at all times of the night. However, Fremou said they weren't loud and she didn't necessarily suspect anything suspicious happening there. She did recall a semi-truck parked at the house sometime last year. ...
Video(s) of golf course attacks were found earlier this year. Here is a recent October 18 story:
U.S. senators warned of al Qaeda snipers on golf courses
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. senators were warned earlier this week that those who play golf may be targets of al Qaeda snipers on golf courses and were given tips on how to protect themselves, a U.S. Capitol Police spokeswoman said.
Police were notified about the potential threat to senators, said Marcia Krug, a Capitol Police spokeswoman. She would not say which agency notified the Capitol Police or when exactly they were told.
But she said her department, in turn, notified the sergeant-at-arms, who then notified the senators that al Qaeda snipers might be looming near golf courses, ready to pick them off.
The sergeant-at-arms, who is in charge of lawmakers' security, did suggest precautions the senators should take, Krug said. She would not elaborate.
The threat information was passed as a sniper, who has killed nine people and wounded two others in the Washington area, remains at large. Authorities investigating that case have said there is no evidence suggesting that a sniper working for a terrorist group is behind the shootings.
Meanwhile, FBI agents have been questioning an al Qaeda suspect being held in Belgium who bragged to his interrogators that he had witnessed al Qaeda training for snipers, European intelligence sources said Friday.
The FBI, one of many agencies involved in the Washington-area sniper shooting investigation, refused to confirm or deny it had sent agents to Brussels.
Nizar Trabelsi has been in custody since two days after the September 11 terror attacks in the United States, accused of plotting a suicide bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Paris. Trabelsi, who confessed to the plot in December, is interrogated regularly.
FBI investigators have interviewed Trabelsi within the last two or three days, the European intelligence sources told CNN. The sources said Trabelsi told investigators of a plan in which snipers would attack American senators on a golf course, and described how fighters were trained to shoot targets from up to 250 meters (820 feet) and shoot from the back of pickup trucks.
Belgian investigators reacted skeptically to any suggestion of a link with the D.C.-area shootings that began October 2, noting the suspect has had access to newspaper and TV accounts of the spree. In addition, they said, disinformation is a key al Qaeda tactic.
As a member of the north African Salafist terrorist group, affiliated with al Qaeda, Trabelsi embraces the doctrine of continuing the jihad struggle by deception of the enemy. Belgian investigators say his interrogations have been consistent with this doctrine.
Investigators have recently been questioning Guantanamo Bay detainees about snipers, but Trabelsi was not subject to this. Belgian sources tell CNN he volunteered the topic of his own accord.
Seems that al Quaida had been practicing killing people on golf courses. Dunno why, but the raging envy of the one-eyed mullah Omar - who had nothing to amuse himself with in the rocks and gravel pits of afghanistan beside a few goat-holes - may have had something to do with it. Of course, the same "mullah" also seems to have stopped his mental development at age three.
May 19
A 72-year-old man was shot in the chest Saturday while golfing with his family at the Glen Oaks Golf Course.Police said they did not know where the bullet came from, but it did not appear that Albert S. Michalczyk, had been targeted. No suspects had been identified late Saturday, said Clearwater police Lt. James Steffens.
Michalczyk was treated and released from Bayfront Medical Center in St. Petersburg.
After the shooting on the seventh hole, police sealed off the course and scoured the scene but found no physical evidence, Steffens said. He said the bullet may have passed completely through Michalczyk.
"We're trying to develop exactly where the victim was standing and confirm the angles, and there's just a lot of possibilities," Steffens said. "We think it was a shot fired nearby from the ground."
He said police were focusing on the west of the course for clues.
Officers canvassed the surrounding neighborhood into the evening hours Saturday but uncovered nothing that would lead to a suspect, Stefens said. No one with Michalczyk or nearby saw anything suspicious, he said.
The golf course, at 1345 Court St., was not crowded when the shooting happened, police said. It has a capacity for 160 golfers, and about 40 were playing Saturday when the shooting took place, said course co-founder Bill Hayes.
Hayes said Michalczyk is a tourist from Arizona who was golfing with his son, grandson and wife.
Steffens said there was no indication of trouble before the shooting and there had been no arguments involving Michalczyk.
The course will be closed today, Hayes said, and will probably remain closed until police find out what happened.
May 21
Authorities on Monday were still trying to determine how a 72- year-old Arizona man ended up with a gunshot wound in his chest during a round of golf Saturday.Police said they plan to continue canvassing the surrounding neighborhood for clues and will likely use an automatic telephone system to solicit information.
"We're probably going to do an autodial asking people what happened," said Wayne Shelor, Clearwater police spokesman. "We're also thinking about doing fliers that will be distributed in both English and Spanish."
Although investigators did not find the bullet, Shelor said Albert S. Michalczyk was probably shot Saturday with a small- caliber rifle while standing near the tee box of the seventh hole at the Glen Oaks Golf Course.
Mary Jay Johnson, who lives east of the seventh hole at 1355 Pine St., said she dialed 911 after a woman with whom Michalczyk was golfing ran screaming to her house.
"We were sitting in the house and one of my daughters said they heard screaming," Johnson said. "She said her husband was shot. By the time we got out there the man was sitting on the bench with a towel on his chest."
"I've lived here 38 years and we've never heard of anything like this," she added. "It's just sort of weird."
Despite the peculiar nature of the shooting, police said they do not believe Michalczyk was targeted.
"We know it was a small-caliber (gun) because there was just a little hole in him," Shelor said. "Something like a high-powered assault rifle would have made a grievous injury."
Shelor said the bullet may have passed completely through Michalczyk, who was taken to Bayfront Medical Center, where he was treated and released.
Michalczyk, who police said was staying in Safety Harbor, could not be reached for comment.
After the shooting, the golf course at 1345 Court St. was closed for the remainder of the weekend. It opened Monday to few players.
"(The shooting) didn't kill the man, but it sure killed the business," said Bill Hayes, co-founder of Glen Oaks. "Business is off course but that's not a big deal."
The par-3 course, which was also home to a branch of the Chi Chi Rodriguez Foundation's golf program since 1980, will probably open back up to youth golfers Wednesday. The program serves at-risk youths referred by the courts and puts them to work on the grounds.
"I'm more aggravated that we can't take the kids to a safe haven," Hayes said. "How do you explain that to a 5-year-old?"
I blame it all on his failure to Birdie that tough closing hole at Kabul Hills GCC.
You know how aggivating those long Par 4's can be.
Cheers,
knews hound
Note that the media can't make up its mind. .223 makes just a "small hole" in a golfer, but is "high caliber" to Beltway victims. We also find that it couldn't be a "high-powered assault rifle" because it didn't make a "grievous injury" - yet the XM-15 is described as exactly that.
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