Serial Shooter Will Be Caught Soon, Ex-FBI Profiler Says

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The key characteristics from the serial shooter's latest attacks are changing, according to a former FBI profiler.

Those opportunities are opportunity and location, according to Clint Van Zandt, who now provides his expertise for MSNBC.

"(The shooter is) shooting from an overpass, where he has the ability to go left and to go right," Van Zandt told NewsChannel 4's Duarte Geraldino Monday. "He's not trapped on an interstate where he has to look for an exit."

The serial shooter's latest victim was driver Tony Hall. He was driving east on Interstate 70 when the 1988 Chevrolet Suburban he was driving was shot in the right front fender area.

Van Zandt said that the shooter is spreading the task force that is investigating the case thin, stretching them across three counties.

Saturday's shooting occurred 50 miles away from the Feb. 8 attacks in Fayette County, in which separate vehicles were shot at along I-71.

The shooter is refining his technique, Van Zandt said, but Hall said that the shooter probably took several shots at his vehicle before the bullet struck.

"There were multiple booms," Hall said. "(There was) at least one initial shot and maybe another shot. I don't know."

Nine of the attacks have been linked to the same weapon that killed Gail Knisley on Nov. 25. Van Zandt said that now there is a physical description of the shooter that he will be caught soon, if no other reason that so many people are looking and are poised to react.

"I was calling 911 before I'd actually spotted the hole," Hall (pictured, left) said.

The task force said witnesses saw a white male about 30 to 40 years who was of average height and weight. He had dark hair and a dark hat and wore dark sunglasses. They described his vehicle as a small to mid-size dark-colored sedan. The vehicle was possibly a Chevrolet Geo Metro, NewsChannel 4 reported.

A reward for information that leads to the arrest and indictment of the shooter or shooters responsible for Knisley's death stands at $60,000.

I don't know if he is the profiler on the DC case. I googled his name and nothing matched the DC sniper specifically, but you never know.

Here is a piece I found:

Clint Van Zandt

The Federal Bureau of Investigation's No. 1 Negotiator and Profiler (retired) is currently featured frequently as a consultant on Court TV.

Waco...Unabomber… Midwest Mailbox Bomber... it's Clint Van Zandt whom the nation's media has turned to for action and answers!

An Investigative Support & Threat Assessment Speaker Specializing in Behavioral & Forensic Analysis

Clint Van Zandt is a 25-year veteran Special Agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Prior to his retirement, he was a supervisor assigned to the FBI Academy where he worked with the bureau's internationally respected Behavioral Science (or Silence of the Lambs Unit.) Prior to this assignment, he was the FBI's Chief Hostage Negotiator and Negotiations Program Manager. In addition to training FBI Agents and U.S. and International police officers in negotiation techniques, he also co-managed the FBI's Major Case/Crisis Management Program.

While with the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit, he reviewed and interpreted the facts of major crimes in the United States and around the world. Such crimes included the assessment of threatening communications; personality assessments; violence in the workplace issues; terrorism matters; extortions; kidnappings; stalking cases; serial and mass murders; serial rapists; arsons; child molestations; executive protection issues; white collar crimes, and nuclear proliferation matters. While an FBI Agent, he coordinated liaison and psychological threat assessment matters with the U.S. Government's Nuclear Emergency Search Team (NEST) and for terrorist/criminally related chemical and biological incidents.

His most recent book, Dynamic Processes of Crisis Negotiation: Theory, Research and Practice (1997), was awarded the 1998 Best Book Award by The International Association for Conflict Management. He has published widely, with dozens of articles in the areas of criminal psychology, crisis management, and hostage negotiations, and was a member of many of the committees involved in researching and producing the Crime Classification Manual, the current criminal justice standard system for investigating and classifying violent crimes.

He lectures on threat assessment, terrorism, criminal psychology, and violence in the workplace before many diverse groups such as the U.S. Naval Academy, the American Psychological Association, the American Society for Industrial Security, and at a number of major U.S. and international institutes of higher education.

Clint Van Zandt has been the primary hostage negotiator and/or a consultant for numerous national and international kidnap, hostage, barricade and suicide situations, and has provided expert witness testimony in both state and federal court, and before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee.

He was the U.S. Government's chief hostage negotiator and negotiation coordinator during the 1987 siege at the Oakdale, La., Federal Correctional Facility; the 1987 siege at the Atlanta, Ga., Federal Prison; the 1991 prison riot at Talladega, Ala., and the fateful 1993 siege at the Branch Davidian Compound in Waco, Texas, as well as dozens of other similar situations. He has provided on-site coordination for the negotiation efforts that have brought about the release of U.S. citizens held by South American guerrillas in the jungle of that country, and oil company executives held by communist terrorists in the Philippines, as well coordinated the joint FBI/U.S. State Department efforts in many other international kidnapping matters.

Clint Van Zandt has been acknowledged as the team leader of the analytical team that identified the Unabomber, a national terrorist that eluded capture by the FBI for 18 years, resulting in the longest, most extensive, and most expensive criminal investigation in U.S. history to that date, and has been credited with correctly profiling Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh on the day of that fatal bombing.

Mr. Van Zandt has taught criminal justice and behavioral science oriented courses to the representatives of more than 50 international governments and has worked with both U.S. and international counter terrorism teams and other worldwide crisis management organizations.

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