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

by Jon Wells

  Loretta noted that “BMTM” would be best if it was just a phone call from Jim to her apartment. No talking, though, just ring the phone. The call would be the signal that he had not been detected, that he was safe, and they could go and get him. The email continued:

  New RMC program is fine with me. I see several weighty advantages, both tactical and moral.Only drawback is the hideous emotional stress it will visit upon you. I think it will be incalculably more difficult in that sense than RSQA. Assuming, however, that you’re at peace about it, the advantages are immense. In the RSQA type world there were two possible outcomes (not counting complete failure). One happened only once, we’ll call that outcome number two, and the more common outcome is number one. Number one was always the desired one. I have with regret more bitter than you can imagine, come to hold that it is immoral to seek number one, that one has no right not to go for number two, if one is doing RSQA type stuff. There are now enough examples to form statistics, and the statistical rate of recidivism is just too high to justify pursuing number one, in my opinion. Now, this is a bummer. I mean to say, who wants to run around and set a goal like two over, and over? UEWW. RMC solves all that nicely. The recidivism rate is guaranteed zero which is of paramount importance, if the finality of number two is avoided, leaving options for happy endings all around.

  When Jim Kopp sorted through his thoughts, he decided to reply, but on paper, by hand. He wrote a letter that he planned to send by regular mail:

  “The descendents are the only ones in this blankety-blank town who will give me sacraments, knowing my background (good). But when the subject comes up they spend all their time trying to convince me I should never do it again (bad). And then in Passant they harp on the value of hidden penance to solve the world’s ills, (good) to the exclusion of Ronald Reagan in principle (bad). This is all beaucoup frustrating to me, but it’s also something of a moot point, since my efforts to get new papers have ground almost to a complete halt because I know not why. Is it due to a psychological lack of confidence on my part, a closet desire to retire, or because the papers are truly impossible to get? Some days I wake up and I want to go be a monk. Other reasons, but then I remember I can’t go anywhere. Also, to get new real papers is a risk beyond the status quo where I exist (uneasily) on the black gray market (with no record of any sort).

  Through all of this, the threat of what you said before we parted company last haunts me. The thing about retirement. I know I’ve asked before, but could I ask you your thoughts on this? It was the retirement thing you said. I clearly see I am force-retired from any run of the mill effort in the cause so dear to us, but do you also mean permanent retirement from R-squared? Because if so, I might as well go be a monk. The only thing that sticks in my craw about that is that it would require foreswearing R-2 in principle, and in perpetuity. That strikes me as a moral impossibility, wouldn’t you agree? Let’s assume it is, for a moment. Practically this leaves me in a sort of limbo where I am prevented anything like a monastery, but also practically prevented any return to the field. Now, limbo I can deal with one day at a time, etc., but from time to time I begin to hope or wonder, will I ever return to the field? I guess my situation resembles that of an aging movie star who has lost his looks, but has a hard time imagining picking up a new trade. I don’t know the answer, but I’m sure your thoughts about retirement fit in somewhere. I hope to send hard copy as soon as possible, please don’t despair, meanwhile, notwithstanding computer situation, you’d enjoy reading all the drafts there.”

  * * *

  FBI Field Office

  Buffalo, N.Y.

  Tuesday, February 20, 2001

  FBI agent Joel Mercer examined the phone numbers relayed to him by Michael Osborn. At least one of the numbers was in Ireland. Mercer contacted the FBI’s legal attaché closest to Ireland, based in London, England. The London office put a call through to Dublin and the Garda SÌoch·na, Extradition Section. The translation of the Gaelic title is “Guardians of the Peace.” Extradition works in great secrecy, dealing as it does with foreign governments on sensitive matters. The Gardai agreed to work with the FBI to track down James C. Kopp, if indeed he was still in the country.

  An Irish agent examined the phone numbers provided by the FBI. One of the numbers—0874106124—was for a cell phone registered to a Sean O’Briain. Detectives began asking questions around Dublin, showing photos of James Kopp. As the Gardai worked the streets, names started coming, rumors, then contacts, people who knew of a man named Sean O’Briain who fit Kopp’s description. They learned that Sean O’Briain was an alias for Timothy Guttler. Word was that Guttler stayed at the Ivelagh Hostel. The Gardai paid a visit to Kevin Byrne, the manager. Timothy? He collected his mail. Went to work. Quiet man. Said hello now and again. That’s it. He’s gone now.

  Chapter 17 ~ Partial Success

  New York City

  Thursday, March 1, 2001

  The special agent left the FBI office in lower Manhattan, drove down Broadway, left on Chambers Street, past the New York City County Courthouse and the municipal building with the grand archway and golden statue of justice on top. Right on Center Street, quick left to cross the Brooklyn Bridge over the East River, the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center just off to the right and behind the car. Osborne headed up Brooklyn Bridge Boulevard, left on Atlantic Avenue, the low-rise buildings, subway cars emerging from belowground to raised tracks, rattling loudly. Finally, Chestnut Street. Surveillance.

  Later, an agent watched as Loretta Marra and Dennis Malvasi left their apartment. All clear. The agent entered the building, opened the door to apartment 2D, went inside, quickly planted the bug, and left. Earlier that same day, Eastern District judge Nina Gershon had signed an order authorizing the FBI to install a listening device. The bugs in the automobiles had so far turned up useful information, but not Kopp’s latest location or any hint of what his plans were. Osborn wanted ears in the apartment. The agents kept odd hours, sat on watch all through the night.

  That evening, Loretta and Dennis talked about what they would say to other pro-lifers when trying to get assistance for Jim upon his return from Europe. “We should say, ‘Jim is looking for work again, and he’s willing to teach, train others.’”

  Osborn listened. Kopp was planning to come back, and soon. And Marra and Malvasi planned to help him, and enlist others as well. The next day, Friday, New Jersey District judge Dennis M. Cavanaugh signed an order for another bug, this time for a red Ford Windstar and hotel rooms 1401 and 1402 at the Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City. Saturday morning, Loretta logged on to a computer, opened her Yahoo! mail account, and typed in the user name.

  Subject: all set

  On Monday, she left a new message in the draft folder.

  Subject: Thumb twiddling

  She logged off the email and later surfed for information about weather conditions in Montreal. At 11 a.m. she opened the email again. “We have to get Jim’s money,” she told her husband.

  “Why am I getting money for you?” Dennis said. “I’m the one who’s going to meet him.”

  “True. You’re gonna meet Jim. Jim told me to give $1,000… for Amy. I’ll take care of that, and leave Jim a note about it.” Amy was Amy Boissonneault. Their pro-life friend had been diagnosed with breast cancer. Loretta phoned her brother, Nick, said she might come visit. When she got off the phone she told Dennis that he needed to keep checking the computer for new email while she was away. On Thursday, March 8, at 7:55 a.m., she left a new draft message in the folder.

  Subject: Partial success

  At 7:57 a.m. she left another.

  Subject: Getting worried

  What’s going on, anyhow? Haven’t heard from you in ages. Please let me know how you are.

  Loretta left the apartment to visit a man named Richard Bruno. She had a letter to show him from Jim, and also a request. Bruno owned a chimney company and had employed Kopp for a time before he had gone missing. Bruno did not believe that Jim could ever
hurt anyone—he was a prayerful, peaceful man. A holy man. Loretta explained that Jim had directed her to give money to Bruno, so that he in turn could give the cash to Amy. Jim wanted Amy to use it for alternative breast cancer treatments.

  Later, Loretta talked to Dennis about plans to visit Nick on Saturday. Dennis would need to check the email account before leaving the apartment and joining her. “OK,” Dennis said, “now, if he’s coming to town then forget going there—if he’s gonna be here tomorrow or Saturday, forget going there, right?”

  “We’ll have to talk,” she said.

  “Why don’t we just take a cab and go hook up with him and bring him here.”

  “If he’s coming to town.” Michael Osborn listened to the recording. It was clearly a reference to James Kopp. He might be planning a return trip to the United States. But it also appeared likely that Marra and Malvasi would be out of the apartment on Saturday. That would be the time to move. Osborn had already applied for and received a “sneak and peek” search warrant. On Saturday, agents entered 2D, searched, photographed letters and documents. They found several false IDs for Loretta, including an Arizona driver’s license.

  In a new letter from Kopp, he had asked Loretta to obtain the birth certificate of a dead child that he could use for false ID. He also wrote that he had moved to another job to earn more money, and a manuscript he was chipping away at was coming along. And he raised the possibility of entering the United States perhaps through Buffalo or Niagara Falls, posing as a tourist. The agents carefully replaced the letter and other items and left. Where was Kopp, exactly? The letter did not say. And when exactly was he planning to return?

  On Tuesday, March 6, Dennis picked up the phone in the apartment. Loretta was on the other end.

  “Anything?” she said.

  “No. There’s been no messages. It’s been ten days now.”

  “I’m worried.”

  “Don’t worry, we’ve gone longer than ten days without contact in the past.”

  * * *

  Dublin, Ireland

  March 13

  The cramped newsroom of the Irish Mirror tabloid pulsed with the energy of an afternoon deadline crunch. The paper had a small staff, maybe just four reporters. Phones ringing, ties loosening, epithets bouncing off the walls. News editor Mick McNiff’s cell phone rang. The call display showed the number for his contact with the Gardai. He’d take that one.

  “Yah. McNiff.” Gardai headquarters was a few blocks up the street from the Mirror by sprawling Phoenix Park. McNiff listened to his contact and scribbled on his pad. The tip he was getting was big. Terrific story. A bonafide scoop. Seems the Gardai were working with the FBI to catch an American abortion doctor killer. The man, James Charles Kopp, had been living among Dubliners, even working at a hospital on Hume Street. Should the Mirror go with the story? The contact said nothing about holding it. Even if he had, it wouldn’t have mattered. The Mirror didn’t hold news. It broke news. That’s what it would do this time.

  McNiff passed the tip to a reporter. This was going front page. The next day, Wednesday, March 14, the Mirror published a story inside that said the FBI was flying in agents from America to work with the Gardai to catch the Yank James Kopp. On page one, it splashed as its main story a photo and headline pumping an exclusive interview with Muhammad Ali. American cultural icons like Ali always sold well at the newsstand. So did pieces like the second story, about the axing of an Irish TV program by the BBC. But over in the left corner was a photo of a man with a gaunt face and ragged beard. Kopp. The headline read:

  Exclusive Doctor ‘killer’ hunted

  Mick McNiff rarely regretted a bold news decision, but he felt the heat on this one. He got a call from an official with the Gardai who wasn’t happy about it. “Couldn’t you have waited just a day or two?” he said. Why had someone called McNiff with the tip in the first place? Was it possible that the police source was strongly opposed to abortion, and had leaked on purpose to give the American a fighting chance to escape Ireland?

  Bernie Tolbert, the FBI’s supervisor in the case, never heard anything to suggest that a member of the Gardai was trying to tip off Kopp. But he also knew anything was possible. As for McNiff, he mostly lamented one thing—that they hadn’t splashed Kopp as the main story and art. Muhammad Ali was not the big story. It was Kopp! But then, when he first got the tip he had no idea how big it would all get—that within days, reporters from Fox News and CBS would visit their humble newsroom chasing the story.

  The Irish Mirror coverage may have alerted Kopp.

  The Gardai were close, but their target disappeared. The Mirror’s coverage may have been the cold hard knock that rousted Jim Kopp from whatever complacency had set in while living in Dublin. “Well,” cracked one of the Mirror’s editors, “at least we know we have one reader.”

  * * *

  It’s a lovely journey by car south from Dublin along the coast. Emerald-green fields rolling towards rounded mountains and the Irish Sea, chimney smoke from tiny old homes lingering as a gray haze above the rooftops. Church spires mark each small town, Dalkey, Killiney, Bray, Greystones, Newcastle, Wicklow.

  Jim Kopp had little time to reflect on the beauty of the countryside. He was leaving in a hurry. But where to now? The Gardai, FBI would expect him to fly out of Dublin. Or take a fast Seacat ferry from Dublin or Dun Laoghaire to Britain—once he crossed it would be a short trip to Holyhead in Wales, where he could hop on a train. But the train would mean many stops, opportunities for the police to find him. Better to leapfrog the U.K. altogether. Misdirection. Hitler had thought the allies would invade Europe at Calais. He had been fooled—the target was Normandy. Misdirection. Jim Kopp’s target was not England. It was France.

  There are two ports along the southern Irish coast where you can take a ferry directly to France, across the Celtic Sea and the English Channel. The port at a town called Rosslare is closest to Dublin. The main road leads down to a rocky beach and the passenger ferry terminal. One of the ferries that serves Rosslare is called the Normandy.

  The vessel, which is large enough to carry shipping containers, tractor trailers and dozens of cars, has two dining rooms for passengers, a games area, a bar and small movie theater. Early evening, the horn sounds on board, engines rumble, water churns as the ferry lumbers out of port, ropes of white foam roll in to the shore. Looking back at the Irish coast, sun setting, the sky a tapestry of pale blue and orange and navy, and darkness out at sea.

  The captain’s voice comes over a loudspeaker. “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. We’re anticipating light northerly winds. Shouldn’t be too bad, perhaps just a moderate chop. A relatively calm voyage.”

  In the Celtic Sea, a “moderate chop” makes the vessel roll, dip, pitch. Keeping balance in the cabin showers is an athletic endeavor, even in relatively calm seas. In rough water, passengers can barely stand, stomachs turn and people retch. Items in the gift shop fall off the shelves.

  The ferry has no phone service, televisions or Internet hookups—just small radios in each room with two channels bringing in classical music. On a clear night, six hours into the voyage the lights that dot the Welsh shoreline come into view. In your bunk you can feel the roll of the sea underneath, your body moving with each swell, tips of waves and spray hitting cabin windows with a hard smack. Roll, pitch, roll. Up on deck outside, a biting wind whips across the mist-soaked deck, slaps faces like a cold glove. It is peaceful, too, the engines humming evenly, water pounding the hull rhythmically, aqua and white foam churns and fizzes. Roll, pitch, roll. The ferry rounded Land’s End, crossed the western edge of the English Channel, passed the Channel Islands. Daylight returned.

  Around midday, 20 hours after the voyage began, the coast of France came into view. Jim Kopp was about to land not far from the D-day beaches. He believed that most people associated Second World War heroism with the D-day landings and it grated on him because his dad had served in the Pacific—the underappreciated theater. The ferry pulled pa
st the long breakwater and into dock at Cherbourg. A bit farther east along the coast rose the steep cliffs at Pointe du Hoc, where American Rangers pulled off their audacious landings more than 50 years ago. Jim Kopp had arrived.

  * * *

  New York City

  March 14, 2001

  Special Agent Michael Osborn heard the news from the FBI field office in Buffalo, via the London branch. They had a bead on Kopp in Dublin, but lost him. The bureau was feeling the heat. They seemed so close. Loretta Marra remained the key. If for some reason Kopp ceased his contact with Marra he might drop off their radar completely. Osborn knew the email communications between the pair was key. They needed to act quickly. He needed to break into their shared account.

  On March 14, Western New York District judge William M. Skretny approved a request from the FBI to “intercept electronic communications made to or through the Yahoo! account with the user ID of aheaume, registered under the name heaume, alyssa.” The warrant also allowed the FBI to use “trap-and-trace” technology on the account—akin to tapping a phone line. All Internet servers have an Internet service provider or ISP address, a 32-bit designation written as numbers separated by periods. By tracing the origin of the ISP address used by Kopp—an Internet café, for example—the FBI could scan all material being sent from that address and isolate and read Kopp’s messages. With the ISP address, they might be able to trace the file to a specific business using that server. But first they needed to search the Yahoo! account.

  In Santa Clara, in the heart of Silicon Valley, FBI agents arrived at a collection of eight low-rise buildings in a nondescript commercial strip mall—the global headquarters of Yahoo!. They served the warrant and cracked the aheaume account. The emails saved in the draft folder had not been deleted. Back in New York, Osborn was soon analyzing the messages, in particular those written a month earlier, on February 17. He read and reread the code Kopp and Marra used. “DV”; “Ronald Reagans”; “on margins”; “Jackie area”: what did it all mean? Jim Kopp would always remain certain there were code words the Edgars never figured out. But Osborn’s people cracked most of them. “DV” appeared frequently in his correspondence. He loved to throw around Latin. DV is the acronym for Deo volente: God willing.