by Gary Noesner
These are all standard tactics of hostage negotiation: to minimize the consequences the perpetrator will face once the siege is over, and to assure him that he won’t be hurt if he surrenders. The other essential part of the message is that harming someone will only make matters worse. Even so, there are times when playing it by the book won’t get the job done, and when a more experienced negotiator might be more willing to improvise. This would prove to be one of those times.
It was after one in the morning when the phone rang on the nightstand next to my bed in my home in Fairfax, Virginia. I heard a voice telling me that it was FBI headquarters, calling to tell me about what was going on in Sperryville and asking me to report to the command post there as soon as possible to assist with negotiations and eventually take over direct communication with Charlie. As the negotiation coordinator for the Washington Field Office, I’d been involved with previous such incidents and I knew the drill.
While I would have preferred this call at a more convenient hour, I felt the usual charge of excitement that comes with responding to cases of this kind. I quickly jumped out of bed, threw on my clothes, and told my wife, Carol, that I would call her when I could. This was my job, like it or not. I had just come back from an assignment overseas and my FBI car—my “G-ride”—was still parked at the office, which meant that I would have to take the family station wagon. As I got in the car and backed out of the driveway, the absolute calm of the quiet suburban street once again reminded me how different my life was from that of my neighbors.
The trip would normally take about ninety minutes, driving out of Fairfax through Warrenton. My family and I had been to Sperryville the previous year to pick apples, so I knew the way. There was almost no traffic at this time of night, and, not having my light and siren, I edged over the speed limit cautiously and made it in about an hour. When I reached the command post at the fire station in town I was given directions to the farmhouse a little ways up the road. I was told to speak to the Assistant Special Agent in Charge (ASAC), Virgil Young.
I showed my identification to the trooper on the scene, parked near the armored truck serving as the forward command post, and approached the small group of men standing out in the cold. It was 2:30 a.m. I shook hands with Special Agent Young and also met Wayne Waddell, whose welcome consisted of tossing me a bulletproof vest.
The two agents quickly brought me up to speed. When you first come into a situation you want all the information you can get. The agents you are relieving mostly want to go home, so sometimes you have to push a bit to tease out the facts. As I listened to them, I could barely see their faces, but I could tell from his weary voice that Wayne was especially tired. He and his team had been out all day searching when their late-afternoon decision to check out one last house had hit the jackpot. He told me that he and his team had stood down a couple of hours earlier, and that Gray Hill and the group from the Washington Field Office SWAT team were now on shift inside the house. I had worked and trained with this team and knew them well. My job was going to be to relieve Gray right away, although he would stay on as my backup negotiator, or coach, until a replacement arrived. Before I left home I’d called another experienced negotiator, Steve Romano; he and Agent Bill Wang would join me shortly.
Wayne Waddell led me toward the farmhouse, which was about a hundred yards off the road at the end of a long, straight driveway edged with tall junipers and shrubs, though in the dark of night I couldn’t see it or much of anything else. I was feeling somewhat optimistic because the situation appeared to be stable: Charlie had abducted Cheryl and little Charlie more than a week ago, and he had not yet killed her. The standoff itself had gone on for hours now, and again, Charlie had not gone over the edge. My best guess was that if I could keep him calm until daylight, we might be able to get him to surrender.
When we reached the farmhouse we went around to the back, climbed the two or three steps onto the porch, and entered the kitchen door. All the lights were turned off, so Wayne used his flashlight to guide us. I followed close behind as we made our way into the family room.
In the flashlight’s beam I caught glimpses of photographs on the walls, books on the shelves, and the carpets, drapes, and other furnishings that made this a nice, cozy place for a weekend getaway. But right now it wasn’t cozy at all. It was actually colder inside than it had been out on the lawn, and I could see my breath condensing in the air as I spoke. I wished I had brought along a heavier coat and gloves. At least I had the Kevlar vest for a bit of insulation.
The SWAT team was clustered near the door where the family room opened onto the entryway at the foot of the stairs. They looked particularly ghoulish in the flashlight beam, each wearing a dark uniform, bulletproof vest, and Kevlar helmet, and each armed with a 9 mm MP5 submachine gun. With them was Barry Subelsky, my squad partner and a guy with whom I’d spent all too many hours in scenes just like this, who greeted me with the respect to which I’d become accustomed: “Now look what the cat dragged in.”
I wondered, not for the first time, why these guys seemed to enjoy SWAT duty, which usually involved being cold, wet, and hungry, not to mention spending a good deal of time in the direct line of fire. Negotiators usually had a warmer, drier place to work from, a ready supply of coffee, and less likelihood of being shot. The telephone was our usual mode of contact with the perpetrator, and one of the truisms of the profession is that no negotiator has ever been killed over the telephone. Unfortunately, tonight I would not be on the phone. Charlie and his carbine were right upstairs, just a few feet away.
Standing with the SWAT team, just beyond the door, was Gray Hill, the negotiator I would be relieving. Wayne took him by the arm and tugged him back into the family room to introduce us.
Gray and I shook hands, and then he leaned forward as he gave me the update, speaking in low, confidential tones.
“Very quiet for the last hour or so,” he told me. “Charlie hasn’t been saying very much, though I’ve tried to keep him engaged. Overall, tense but calm.”
“Seems like a good sign,” I said. “The man’s calmed down. No new threats and no one’s been hurt. So maybe he’ll come to his senses.”
“Then again,” Gray said, “he did blow out the lights the minute we turned them on.” We glanced at each other. “Charlie definitely has an edge to him.”
Gray told me about the clothes in the dryer that Charlie had requested. He told me that he had said no, and asked me what I thought.
“Well,” I said, “the usual deal is quid pro quo. We give the perpetrator something tangible only in exchange for releasing a hostage. But Charlie isn’t holding Cheryl and little Charlie with a clear goal in mind. When a subject doesn’t want or need anything from us, the only real tool we have is to show him some respect. So I think it would be a good idea to give him the clothes. If we can create a relationship of trust, we have a better chance of influencing his behavior.”
Among negotiators, this process of trust building is called the “behavioral change stairway.” You listen to show interest, then respond empathetically, which leads to rapport building, which then leads to influence. But influence does not accrue automatically. We can suggest alternatives to violence, but we must first earn the right to be of influence.
Would Charlie see us bringing him the clothes from the dryer as a sign of weakness on our part? I didn’t think so. I believed that the gesture, without any preconditions, would make us appear less threatening. By appearing more willing to help, we would appear more worthy of respect in his eyes.
Gray went down to the basement and brought back up the bag of clothes. “You come, too,” he suggested. “I’ll introduce you to Charlie.”
“I think it’s better if I give him the clothes,” I said. As the new negotiator, I needed to demonstrate that I was here to help. “It’ll build trust,” I said. Wayne nodded.
It was almost 4:00 a.m. when Gray introduced me to Charlie. Standing at the bottom of the stairs, I began with a simple hello
.
Silence.
I tried again. “Hello, my name is Gary and I’m here to help,” I said, before adding, “Can you hear me?”
“Yeah. I hear you.”
“Good. That’s good, Charlie. You know, we really mean you and your family no harm.” I used the word family very deliberately, in an effort to remind Charlie what Cheryl and the boy meant to him. I repeated the standard lines that he had already heard from Wayne and Gray. It is not only what you say that counts, but how you say it. Being sincere and genuine are powerful tools to gain influence. “We don’t want to see anyone get hurt, you know. This is just a domestic dispute. If you’ll just put down your weapon and come downstairs, I guarantee you that no harm will come to you.”
I waited, and then in the darkness I heard a single word. “No.”
I didn’t expect him to give up so easily. I just wanted to keep reinforcing the thought that a peaceful ending was still possible.
It stood to reason that Charlie would be exhausted. Also hungry. “Charlie,” I said, “you need anything? Anything I can do for you?”
As I anticipated, he asked if I could get their clothes from downstairs.
“Sure, Charlie,” I said. “I can do that for you.”
I had the bag of clothes at my side, but I waited a bit, as if we were just then going down to the dryer. After a while I said, “Charlie, I’ve got the bag. You want me to throw it up to the top of the stairs?” He told me to go ahead.
I threw the bag and it dropped onto the landing. A moment later Cheryl Hart darted into view, wrapped in a blanket, looking terrified. She glanced at me for a split second, then grabbed the bag and disappeared.
“It’s cold in here,” I said to Charlie. “I didn’t want you or your family to be uncomfortable.”
I waited again.
“You need anything else?”
“I’m good,” he said. Then a moment later he added, “Little Charlie’s sleeping … so if you guys could keep it down …”
“Sure,” I said.
I wanted to comply with his request. On the other hand, keeping big Charlie awake might encourage him to surrender sooner rather than later. But exhaustion can also make people more impulsive and unpredictable.
I waited about forty-five minutes before I reestablished contact.
“Everything okay, Charlie?”
“Yeah.”
He sounded half asleep. Most likely he hadn’t had any real rest since this whole thing began. “Got some good news for you,” I said. By this time we had an army field telephone wired up from the forward command post to the house. I had just heard back from Max Thiel, the FBI agent in New England who was interviewing people back in Trumbull, Connecticut, for us. “Your boss won’t lose the bail money he posted for you.” Charlie had been charged earlier with failure to appear in court. “Your boss sounds like a good guy. He says he’s holding your job for you.” Again the message was, You have a future.
But there was no response from Charlie, so I left him alone with his thoughts.
I rubbed my hands together and killed time by talking with the SWAT guys. The weather was always a good topic. It just wasn’t supposed to be this cold in April. But I also took the time to ask various members of the team how they sized up the situation. It brought them more into the process, but I also genuinely wanted to know what they had to say. Everyone seemed to think that what we had was as good as it was going to get, at least for now. Early that morning the WFO SWAT team had been relieved by members of the FBI’s elite Hostage Rescue Team (HRT). Each FBI office has a SWAT team, but HRT was the FBI’s full-time domestic counterterrorism and tactical response unit, stationed at the FBI academy. Just before daybreak, I felt it was time to begin to ramp it up a bit.
“Charlie! Good morning. Hope you got some rest.”
He muttered something unintelligible, so I went on. “I hope we’ve made it clear that we don’t want to hurt you, Charlie.” I then reminded him that our agents had not responded when he fired shots at the lightbulb. We had given him the clothes he had asked for, and, before I arrived, we had even provided some food. I later learned that Charlie told Cheryl he was going to kill her after that breakfast. I restated our position that this was simply a domestic dispute between him and Cheryl, once again downplaying the seriousness of the kidnapping. There was no reason for anyone to get hurt. No serious crime had been committed, I said, although that did not mean that we could just walk away.
No response from Charlie. I knew that he could hear me, but I had no sense that I was having any effect.
For the next two hours I continued this kind of running commentary. In the negotiation business we call this a “one-way dialogue,” where the goal is to address concerns that may not have been articulated, and answer questions that haven’t been asked. I suspected that Charlie could see the logic in what I was saying, but people who are cornered often fall into a kind of paralysis, so no decision becomes the de facto decision.
Fully awake now, Charlie yelled out, “Just get the fuck out of here and leave us alone!”
This sudden shift caused me concern. Again, exhaustion could be taking its toll, adding a wild card to his already erratic behavior of late.
I asked him if he was considering harming himself. I knew that there was plenty of evidence that bringing up the issue of suicide was not going to plant the thought. And if he was really thinking of considering suicide, I needed to know so I could focus my efforts on suicide intervention.
“I’m not going to kill myself,” Charlie said. His voice became more intense. “You’re going to have to kill me.”
“We’re not going to do that,” I said. “There’s no reason to do that.”
His voice continued to rise in intensity. He was now angry. “I’ll give you a reason. You’re going to have to kill me after I kill Cheryl.”
My heart sank. I had hoped his prior threats against Cheryl were simply intended to keep the police at bay. But his increasingly angry tone, and the fact that it came after several hours in which we’d demonstrated that we didn’t want to hurt him, gave me great concern. Charlie continued to work himself up into a frenzy.
“Right now I’m sitting on a chair with Cheryl on the floor beside me,” he said. “I have the gun against her head and I am about to pull the fucking trigger!”
His voice went up several decibels as he enunciated those last syllables, which were punctuated with what sounded like a choking noise from Cheryl. The two HRT agents closest to me moved in, actually nudging me out of the way as they readied themselves to make an emergency assault. If Charlie fired, they would charge up the stairs to try to save the little boy. I couldn’t figure out what had gone wrong. Things had seemed stable just moments before, and now they were slipping out of control. I needed to buy some time.
“Don’t do it, Charlie,” I blurted out. This wasn’t inspired or subtle, but I had to say something. I couldn’t just wait for the sound of the gun. “Don’t kill Cheryl. Don’t kill her in front of your son.”
Charlie started shouting again, calling Cheryl a no-good whore. His voice grew louder and angrier as he spewed out a litany of complaints. She had cheated on him. She had done this, she had done that. Each outburst and accusation seemed to make him more agitated.
The HRT operators were locked and ready. It looked like this was going to be it for Cheryl. The only question remaining was whether we could get to the boy before Charlie killed him as well.
But then Charlie stopped yelling. There was silence for a moment, and then I heard him whispering, “Charlie, come sit in Daddy’s lap.”
It’s hard to explain the experience of that moment. I was absolutely convinced that the next sound I would hear was the gun going off and Cheryl being killed. But for the moment I was out of ideas. I desperately tried to conjure something to stop him.
“Charlie, if you really love your son, you won’t do this. A boy should not see his mother being killed.”
“He’ll be okay,” h
e said. “I was raised without a mother. My son can get by without a mother.” In truth, Charlie’s mother had died only a few years earlier of stomach cancer.
I took another tack. “You don’t want to see your son hurt, do you?”
“The only way he’s gonna be hurt is if you come up here after I kill Cheryl.”
“Talk to me instead of hurting her,” I said.
“I’m going to shoot her in one minute.”
Then I heard him whisper to Cheryl, “I’m going to blow your fucking head off.”
“Charlie, is there anything, anything at all, that I can do to keep you from doing this?”
“Can’t you get us out of here?” Cheryl yelled. She was more desperate than I was—her life was on the line—and her fear had produced an inspired response. Charlie had narrowed his vision to the dynamic going on within this house. Cheryl’s question suddenly widened it again. Charlie followed up immediately.
“Yeah,” Charlie said. “We want to get to that helicopter outside.”
Suddenly it appeared that we might have a chance after all. At least this was a demand that could be bargained for, another way of stalling for time.
I signaled for the HRT operators to step back from the stairs to give me a little room. “Charlie,” I said, “this is the first time you’ve mentioned wanting to leave the house. You know, this is something I could work on. I don’t have the authority myself, but I could get on the phone and talk to my boss to get his approval.”
I waited, knowing that the next time Charlie spiraled out of control, it would probably mean the end for Cheryl.
“I’m going to speak with my boss, Charlie. Can I have your promise that you won’t hurt Cheryl while I’m talking to him?”