Sniper: The True Story of Anti-Abortion Killer James Kopp

by Jon Wells

  It was a case rife with politics, religion, ends and means, “justifiable homicide,” the kind of case where those being pursued, and their allies, saw the FBI as jackbooted assassins with uberfeminists Hillary Clinton and Janet Reno pushing the buttons. Abortion. Murder. Pro-life. Pro-choice. Osborn could not let himself dwell upon the politics, it was peripheral to the task. He had his orders.

  Mike Osborn was pursuing a couple of people who were friends of James Charles Kopp, the wanted killer of an abortion doctor. That was his focus. He allowed himself to think about the night Dr. Slepian was killed, his kids beside him in the kitchen, the blood. That’s the crime. You couldn’t imagine Michael Osborn lying awake at night debating whether the shooter of an obstetrician was more worthy of FBI pursuit than the killer of a plastic surgeon. Enforce the law. It’s all in the FBI oath.

  His team was watching and recording somewhere close to the building at 385 Chestnut Street in Brooklyn on Tuesday, October 5. Agents working surveillance included Osborn, Robert Conrad, Joan Machiono. They saw a man who looked like Dennis Malvasi walk into the building. Two weeks later they watched a blue Mazda park in front of the building. They ran the plate: car registered to a Joyce Maier, driver’s license obtained in that name, January 1999. The address given by the woman is not 385 Chestnut, but an American Mail Depot box. Agents obtained paperwork for the license and vehicle. They lifted fingerprints from the forms she’d filled out. The prints matched those of Loretta Marra.

  * * *

  Brooklyn, N.Y.

  Friday, November 5, 1999

  TV Reporter (off camera): What do you think is going through his mind when he looks through that telescope at the doctor? FBI behavioral expert: Target acquisition. Pull trigger, take in breath, pull trigger, kill.

  Reporter: So he’s not thinking anti-abortion thoughts? FBI expert: No. He is focused solely on his mission, his covert military mission, as I’m sure he describes it to himself, and that is to acquire target and kill.

  Host: I’m Mike Wallace. These stories tonight on 60 Minutes II.

  The videotape of the program continued. Loretta Marra and Dennis Malvasi watched, along with a man Dennis had known years before, and with whom he had recently become reacquainted. The 60 Minutes episode had first aired two months earlier. The segment was called “The Fugitive.” It was about a man wanted by the FBI named James Kopp, “believed to be a lone sniper assassin who picks off abortion doctors one by one.”

  (Images of flowers and mourners from Bart Slepian’s funeral. FBI wanted poster for Kopp.)

  Reporter: The FBI discovered that Jim Kopp was one of the busiest anti-abortion activists in the country, a legend within the movement.

  (Cut to Jim’s stepmother, Lynn Kopp)

  Lynn Kopp: The children had some very strong disciplinary action against them.

  Reporter: Like what?

  Lynn Kopp: Beatings. And one of his daughters told me that Chuck had—had been very cruel to his wife.

  Reporter: How do you think this impacted the kids, Jim in particular?

  Lynn Kopp: They would be very protective of their mother, and there would be a lot of resentment towards their father. (Cut to Dr. Garson Romalis in Vancouver recalling the morning of his near-mortal wounding in 1994.)

  At that moment Loretta Marra spoke up.

  “He could have killed him if he wanted to,” she said. Malvasi’s old friend listened carefully, memorizing her words.

  The agents would want him to remember them precisely. “So what did Marra say, exactly?”

  The man considered the question. He tried to remember. “He could have killed him if he wanted to.”

  Did Loretta Marra mean James Kopp? That Kopp could have killed Romalis if he had wished to? Or was she using a generic “he,” as in “the sniper?” First he was sure she had meant Kopp. Then he wasn’t.

  Malvasi’s “old friend,” was now a paid informant of the FBI. Code name CS1. The FBI had recruited him some months earlier. There was a second informant, CS2, working other people in the pro-life movement. As for CS1, his first task was helping to locate Marra and Malvasi. Now he was in regular contact with Dennis and Loretta and was being paid for solid information. He would engage the couple in conversation, work it around to Kopp. So far, Kopp’s location had not been revealed. If Loretta knew where he was, she was still cautious talking about it.

  Hopefully Loretta would loosen up, tell the informant where Kopp was, or better yet, try to contact him. But at this point it was not wise for the FBI to simply haul her in for questioning. If the FBI knew one thing about Loretta Marra, it was that she would not be intimidated and would never give up a fellow pro-life soldier. She felt that suffering was what being a true Catholic was all about, suffering for the truth, for a higher good. She would happily put out her hands for cuffing, her lips sealed to protect Jim from the government. He was innocent, after all.

  * * *

  Dublin, Ireland

  Winter 1999

  Dublin is a city that seems ready to burst at the seams, cars crowded on narrow streets, sidewalks and footbridges crossing the River Liffey with crowds pinched like sand passing through an hourglass. “It feels,” says a cabbie, “like half the fookin’ country lives in the capital.” It is a good place to blend in, to vanish, to be no one. Jim Kopp was in Dublin, in a tough part of town, among others who had no money and were also perhaps running from their past.

  At a hostel he found a savior when he looked into the kind, pale, wrinkled face of an elderly Irishman named Francis. “Yes, yes, come in, come in,” Francis would tell all visitors, his eyes as warm as a fireplace, his hands thick and soft. He was a retired furniture maker—retired, but still a joyful Catholic working towards a greater goal: delivering his soul to the Lord. He managed the Morningstar men’s hostel, named after the star of Jesus, run by the Legion of Mary. The hostel didn’t force religion on its guests but was Christian in approach, held services in the chapel. There was a picture and quotes from Saint Thérese d’Lisieux on the wall—one of Jim Kopp’s favorite saints, as it happened. Francis believed he had

  Francis welcomed Jim Kopp—“Timothy”—into his hostel.

  been sent to the hostel by God. He was 77 years old, his Irish lilt gentle when he spoke, barely above a whisper. But he was still spry enough to bound up the stairs two at a time. In the 400-year-old building, row upon row of cots lined the communal sleeping areas, the walls a faded yellow, not the grandest setting, but definitely an improvement from the street. At Morningstar, for two pounds a day, you could live your life in a respectable manner.

  One day, a tall, thin man, glasses, half beard, showed up needing help. As always, Francis was there.

  “What’s your name, son?” he asked in his hushed voice.

  “Timothy,” came the reply.

  Francis took the tired hand in his, and Timmy’s life was saved. A nice man, Francis thought. Prayerful. But Timmy’s life wasn’t perfect, he made mistakes, as all who came to the hostel had done. Francis listened to Timothy’s story. A real shame about his family, back in the United States, who apparently no longer accepted him, who had cast him out for being different. Francis felt for him. Timmy had his beliefs, others held them in disdain, so he escaped from the torment, hid from it. The others might come looking for him. It was important that he remain hidden at least for a while. Timmy said his family lived in New Orleans. He had lots of stories. One day, Timmy didn’t show up for mass as he always did. He was gone, just like that, unannounced. Strange for him to leave so suddenly.

  “Good luck to you, my son,” Francis thought. “May the Lord look over you. And may your parents one day find you. Whatever happened, they must be so worried.”

  Chapter 15 ~ Tim Guttler

  Hamilton, Ontario

  Monday, January 24, 2000

  The Canadian arm of the international joint sniper task force held a press conference—with spokesman Keith McCaskill from Winnipeg, Hamilton police chief Ken Robertson, and Dennis McGil
lis from the Ontario Provincial Police. There was an announcement. The OPP had officially issued an arrest warrant for James Charles Kopp in the attempted murder of Ancaster’s Dr. Hugh Short in 1995. No charges were announced in the attacks on Dr. Jack Fainman in 1997 or Dr. Garson Romalis in 1994. McCaskill added that the investigation would continue across the country, but refused to point the finger at Kopp in connection to the Winnipeg and Vancouver attacks. “We certainly know that Mr. Kopp may be a key to the investigations in Winnipeg and Vancouver,” McCaskill said, describing Kopp as “a person the police want to interview.”

  Hamilton Police Chief Ken Robertson addresses media.

  What was going on? It had been seven months since the Erie County grand jury had indicted Kopp for Dr. Slepian’s murder. Why had the OPP waited to file its charge? There was no new evidence, no break in the case. Investigators in Vancouver, Hamilton and Winnipeg had done all they could.

  They had even pursued a possible link between Kopp and a fundamentalist Catholic sect called St. Pius X, which catered to Kopp’s known preference for attending mass in the traditional Latin. There were St. Pius X churches in Vancouver, Winnipeg and St. Catharines—a city 40 minutes east of Ancaster. A story making the rounds in the Winnipeg congregation had Kopp attending Our Lady of the Rosary. It was even suggested that he had helped organize the mass, but no one could confirm it.

  Hamilton police had scoured the woods behind Dr. Hugh Short’s home several times looking for the weapon. They returned and searched again after the rifle was discovered behind Slepian’s house, three years after the Ancaster shooting—but found nothing. Hamilton police had found the hair fibers in the ski hat at the scene, and developed DNA from it, but could not confirm whose DNA it was. The decision to finally issue an arrest warrant for Kopp seemed more of an attempt to rekindle media interest and encourage tips. Chief Robertson would only say to gathered media that Hamilton police had reviewed the evidence with the OPP, discussed the case with Hamilton’s crown attorney, and decided to issue the arrest warrant.

  The effectiveness of the task force had been called into question. In Winnipeg, McCaskill had publicly defended their work. He suggested FBI had caught a big break when Joan Dorn had called the police with Kopp’s license-plate number in Amherst—it “was not exceptional police work,” he was quoted saying in the Winnipeg Free Press. But the reality, despite the big announcement, pointed out columnist Susan Clairmont in the Hamilton Spectator, was that little was happening in the Canadian sniper hunt. At the same time the arrest warrant was issued, two of the three OPP officers who had been working with the task force were given new assignments. “We’re not going to have these guys traveling the country searching for him,” said one OPP official.

  The Slepian murder had altered the nature of the Canadian investigation, the FBI had the resources—not to mention direction from the White House—to lead the effort to catch him. The Canadian police were primarily on the sidelines, the evidence they had gathered a reference for the American investigation. But for all that the FBI had learned about Kopp, for all the searches and forensic evidence and surveillance, 15 months after Bart Slepian was killed, they still had no clue where he was.

  * * *

  Dublin, Ireland

  Spring 2000

  The slender man with thick glasses and bleached hair moved among the crowd on Grafton Street. He loved Grafton, the redbrick street reserved for pedestrians. Shoppers, tourists, professionals, lawyers dressed in black robes taking a break from the nearby courthouse, schoolgirls at lunch, teenage boys on guitar singing John Lennon’s “Come Together” to earn loose change.

  Jim Kopp loved to blend in and walk the street, up and down, taking in every detail, thoughts swirling in his head. He worked on the local accent, but was still far from being good enough to fool a native Dubliner. He loved languages, the dialects running within each. He considered his spoken French, for example, to have a Caribbean lilt to it. No, he reflected, he would not speak Irish until he got it down perfect. Do not abuse the language, he mused, it would offend the people. Ireland was the right place for him to be, this country where God’s law still transcended man’s law—they hadn’t legalized baby killing here.

  He ducked into Bewleys, his favorite coffee shop off Grafton, climbed the wooden stairs to the second level and the James Joyce room, named for the city’s favorite son. Jim Kopp had been on the run from the FBI for 17 months. Yet he frequented a place like Bewleys, which was a popular meeting place in the city. It was hardly the kind of dark corner where a fugitive would be expected to lurk. Despite his professed rejection of material things, Jim gravitated towards the trendy. Bewleys had energy, felt so alive. Had he not come this far? Was God not with him? The FBI tentacles were everywhere, he knew, but they had not found him. As he climbed the stairs, Jim could see the quotations stenciled onto the peach-colored walls, written in Gaelic, the language the Irish tried to preserve.

  Is friotal aindéthe, Is bri na nadana. (I am the true word of the hidden gods, I am a word of poetry.)

  Mise an ghaois/ Mise an deal bhadoir/ Mise gaoth ar muir. (I am the wisdom of the mind/ I am the conjuring sage/ I am the wind over the sea.)

  Nurse a coffee, chat with a few of the regulars who knew him as Timothy, people like Peter, who was sacristan at a nearby church. And there was Terry, who had cerebral palsy and was in a wheelchair. Everyone on the street knew Terry.

  St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin

  Timothy rose, left his friends, walked to the end of Grafton. There is a war monument there—like a miniature Arc de Triomphe, it occurred to him—listing the death casualties for the South African War at the turn of the 20th century. He could read the scroll: Third Battalion: L. Murphy. Murphy. His grandmother’s maiden name. He walked under the arch into St. Stephen’s Green. A pond, fountains, lush green grass, palm trees—not an uncommon sight in Ireland—rows of tall elms. He thought of the place as a Garden of Eden. Do not linger long. Yellow reflective jackets. The Gardai—Irish police, on foot patrol.

  Jim Kopp loved the city but hated his life, the anguish of running, the fear. Exhilaration one moment, despondency the next. Such extremes. Having left the Morningstar hostel, he now lived at the Ivelagh Hostel on Bride Road, in the Christ Church area of Dublin. It was an old part of town crowded with apartments, row houses, markets. He lived on the top floor of the hostel, room 191, in a cramped dorm-style room with an armoire, some shelves, a bed, and barely enough room to turn around. From his window he could see the courtyard of a vocational school, and beyond that the spires of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. On the main floor there was a kitchenette where tenants made toast and snacks, a common room, dining area, everything painted pistachio green. Compared to Morningstar, this was high living. He lived under the name Tim Guttler, came and went as he pleased, said hello to the manager, staffers. He worked odd jobs, earned about 74 Irish pounds weekly. Kevin Byrne managed the place, a burly man with gray hair and ruddy face who guarded the privacy of his tenants like a bulldog.

  Jim Kopp was by now an expert at obtaining false identities. The names of the dead were perfect. He’d visit a cemetery, find the name of someone who would have been close to his own age. On July 4, 2000, he obtained a temporary driver’s license in the name of Sean O’Briain, date of birth January 2, 1960. He put together a new résumé and submitted it to an employment agency.

  * * *

  Jim Kopp made a good Catholic effort to mortify temptation, but drinking did not rank as high on his list of sins to resist as others, especially in Dublin. His weakness was Bulmers cider. Pubs are Dublin’s heart, places independent of time where the Irish take their worries out for the night and dance all over them. At pubs like O’Shea’s, walls shake from people clapping and stomping to

  Jim Kopp attended the church through the gate pictured at right, on a narrow Dublin street.

  the sounds of Celtic Storm, the smoky room filled with faces that glow from the drink, heat, and uninhibited perfection of the evening. Y
oung men and women, elderly, couples, singles, all joining as though part of a single body, feeding off the energy of one another. The mood peaks, incongruously, when the band launches into American standards like Kenny Rogers’s “The Gambler,” and John Denver’s “Country Roads,” hitting the chorus hard: “Take me home, country roads, to the place, I BE-LONG!”

  True to form, Jim also spent time in the trendy, cobblestoned Temple Bar area, where tourists and students flock. There was a sports bar boasting 100 TV screens he visited to watch American football, see if his hometown San Francisco 49ers were playing. (Did he mention that he had a connection—apologies if he sounds like a name-dropper, he hates doing that— with Joe Montana, the Niners legend? Not a direct connection, mind you, but he knew someone who knew Montana quite well. And he had once met Mark Bavaro, too, the former New York Giants tight end—a big pro-lifer.) He hung with his Irish friends, had a few drinks, perhaps more than a few drinks, walked the streets with them late at night, feeling like a regular guy at times. But could he feel anything for long? The friends who knew him as Timothy had no idea who he really was. Did Jim even know the answer to that question? He had been on the run for 20 months.

  Early one morning, the pubs closed, the streets barren. He moved alone, briskly but cautiously, down the street, pulled his jacket pockets inside out. It was a trick he had learned to deter pickpockets, show them he had nothing to interest them, which was in fact pretty much true. With all his experience, Jim liked to think there wasn’t a city in the world he couldn’t walk through in the middle of the night. But then, he had never been wanted for murder before.