A man reportedly was in police custody Monday after being surrounded at a Virginia gas station by a SWAT team working with the sniper task force. The development came after police had urged the person who left a message at a shooting scene Saturday to contact them.
POLICE SURROUNDED a white van at the Richmond, Va., gas station and detained a man sitting inside, NBC affiliate WWBT-TV reported. The van has a roof rack but does not fully match the descriptions of white utility vans issued by the sniper task force. The van at the gas station has windows all around, while the utility vans had no side windows.
Police had scheduled a news conference shortly. Late Sunday, Charles Moose, the sniper task force coordinator and police chief of Montgomery County, Md., read a statement that seemed to speak directly to the unknown party about the shooting Saturday at an Ashland, Va., restaurant called the Ponderosa Steakhouse.
“To the person who left us a message at the Ponderosa last night: You gave us a telephone number. We do want to talk to you. Call us at the number you provided. Thank you.” With that, Moose left the podium.
An investigator who read the lengthy message told NBC’s David Bloom that the contents indicate “this could be a very difficult time we are about to go through.”
Moose asked the media to carry the message clearly and often, but did not elaborate. It was not clear how or where the message was left.
Investigation sources told NBC News that investigators believe the letter came from the Washington area sniper, opening what may be a first round of communication.
The message was found in woods behind the Ponderosa, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported Monday, quoting law enforcement sources it did not name. The report also said police have found more than one tarot card during the investigation. Only one tarot card had been reported until now, having been found near the shooting of a student at a Bowie, Md., school.
News of the message came as authorities continued to comb the woods and parking lot behind the steakhouse, trying to find evidence that may link the shooting there to the sniper, who has taken nine lives and wounded two other people. Previously, the longest distance from Washington that the sniper had struck was Spotsylvania County, about 50 miles south of the nation’s capital. Ashland is about 85 miles south of Washington