Bus Driver’s Slaying Carries Mark of Sniper

ASPEN HILL, Md. -- A single gun blast killed a suburban Maryland bus driver Tuesday, signaling that the Washington-area sniper may have returned to his terror-stricken starting place, and police confirmed a dire new threat from the gunman to the region’s young.

Investigators continued a dialogue with the rifle-wielding killer even as they combed for evidence and tried to track him down. Urging the killer to stay in contact, Montgomery County Police Chief Charles A. Moose recited a menacing passage from a letter found last weekend near a restaurant in Ashland, Va., the site of one of the attacks.

“ ‘Your children are not safe anywhere at any time,’ ” Moose read.

The unspecified threat played a role in a spate of school closings in and around Richmond, Va., on Monday and Tuesday. Moose said he revealed the passage because of the “concerns of the community.”

Late in the day, the police chief emerged to read another missive to the gunman. In the cryptic exchange, Moose told the killer that police had “researched the options you stated” but found they were “not possible electronically.”

(The Washington Post reported that the letter listed half a dozen calls that had been “ignored” by operators at the task force command center. The letter writer claimed that “five people had to die” because “incompetent” workers had hung up repeatedly on him. The letter demanded $10 million, according to sources quoted by the Post and Associated Press.)

Police were awaiting the results of ballistic tests to see whether Tuesday’s shooting could be linked to the previous attacks, which have killed nine and wounded three over the last three weeks. But the killing bore the sniper’s distinctive signatures: a solitary gunshot, a forest hide-out, a stealthy escape through a massive police dragnet. No one reported seeing his face or his gun; no one reported seeing his getaway vehicle.

Ashen-faced investigators conceded the obvious during a news conference soon after Conrad E. Johnson, 35, was pronounced dead at Suburban Hospital in Bethesda. The sniper’s skill at stalking human prey, killing from a distance and eluding a massive manhunt has left the entire Washington region at risk.

“We have not been able to assure that anyone -- any age, any gender, any race -- about their safety with regards to this situation,” Moose said. The sniper, he added, displays “a clear willingness and ability to kill people” at “different times, different days and different locations.”

The attack came at dawn Tuesday, almost exquisitely timed and placed to maximize dread. Johnson was cut down inside his bus just before 6 a.m. as it idled halfway between the sites of two of the first assaults.

Within minutes, hundreds of county police and Maryland state troopers swarmed over highway ramps and clamped down on side streets all around Washington’s Beltway. Brandishing shotguns, pistols and rifles, they scanned the faces of male drivers and stopped scores of white vans -- the type of vehicle witnesses had seen at previous sites.

But the police were relying on sniper alerts more than a week old. After interviewing scores of neighbors on Tuesday, investigators had no new witness reports to radio to the roadblock officers, no fresh descriptions of an escape vehicle. The four-hour dragnet came up empty.

The failure to apprehend the killer has magnified pressure on law enforcement officials, who are trying to reassure the public even as they concede their inability to protect them.

“We’re doing everything in our power to keep people safe, collect evidence, use any strategy to get this person off the street and get this person indicted,” Moose said.

But he and other authorities were forced to wave off growing reports that the FBI and other federal agencies would take a more prominent role in the probe. Federal officials are researching gun-related statutes, one official said, but the homicide cases remain the responsibility of Maryland and Virginia police jurisdictions -- seven agencies so far.

“The circumstances have not changed,” said Gary M. Bald, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Baltimore office, who heads a team of federal agents. “This continues to be a joint investigation. It’s a situation where each of the agencies are bringing their expertise to these cases.”

Officials close to the investigation said federal officials already have had a primary role in decision making on police matters, but share that status with Montgomery County officials.

“We’ve got more than half of the homicides in this case, and that’s not something you just push aside,” one county official said.

The Times has also learned that the CIA offered to help out the FBI on the sniper case -- but that aid has so far been limited.

“They haven’t taken it up,” said one U.S. intelligence official. “The only assistance we’ve been asked for is some of our bomb-sniffing dogs.” The canine teams were “used by local authorities to look for cartridges” after a recent shooting in Falls Church, Va., not far from the CIA headquarters in Langley, Va. No spent cartridges were found.

The rifle-wielding killer struck before sunrise Tuesday, aiming at an easy target illuminated in the morning’s darkness. Johnson, a 10-year county employee and father of two, had just pulled his commuter bus up near a staging area where county buses start their day. Commuters were straggling to bus stops. Yellow school buses were out, too, rolling on their first runs.

The gunshot reverberated out from Northgate Park, a small wooded space near the bus staging area. Johnson, who stood near the open door of his bus, was struck in the abdomen.

Several hundred yards away, Juan Tilleria, 42, heard the booming sound while sipping coffee out on the second-floor balcony of his garden apartment. His cup clattered and he almost dropped a cigarette. The Chilean-born carpenter instantly recognized the noise.

“It was a rifle shot, I know this,” he said. And Tilleria guessed who cradled the gun. “It had to be him.” He retreated inside and turned on his television, waiting for confirmation.

At the next building over, Jessica Adenji, 17, was struggling with a balky book bag on the outside steps. She heard the boom and looked over toward the vaulting oaks in Northgate Park.

“It sounded like a bomb,” she recalled. But she could not imagine a blast in her sleepy neighborhood. She was almost to the street when a car screeched up. A teenager craned his head out.

“Didn’t you hear those gunshots?” the boy shouted. “Where do you think you’re going?”

Frightened, she raced back into her building.

The first report of gunfire came at a bad moment for Montgomery County police officers -- just as they were changing shifts. Police cruisers from the night shift were pulling in while day-shift officers were assembling for morning roll calls. When the first alert sounded, officers in the Wheaton station, a mile from the murder site, grabbed assault rifles and flak jackets.

“Let’s roll!” several yelled, struggling with bulletproof vests as they headed for their cars. “The whole station emptied,” said one officer, who drove in to see day-shift officers sprinting out the back door.

Police moved quickly, though there were reports that they were delayed by confusion at the first shooting report, uncertain whether there was a man down near Bel Pre Road or Grand Pre Road. But within minutes, they were spooling yellow crowd-control tape around the blood-pooled bus and the park beyond.

Trauma surgeons at Suburban Hospital were unable to revive Johnson. Friends in Oxon Hill, in neighboring Prince George’s County, were left devastated and angry.

“This is hitting hard. This not only strikes us as a community, but as a people, as a nation,” said Harold McClam.

But police had little to go on. Federal firearms experts scoured Northgate Park, but neighbors could provide no clue to the killer’s appearance or his escape vehicle.

Police cruisers sprawled across roads all morning, freezing traffic while officers looked in car windows, sometimes halting vehicles at gunpoint. Rifle-toting officers shut down almost every road leading out of the murder site, even standing guard on remote back streets.

But the killer slipped through their net and by noon he had again contacted task force investigators. Moose addressed the elusive gunman in public.

“We have received a communication and we will be responding soon,” he said.

Five hours later, Moose emerged again, this time offering a cryptic exchange that hinted of negotiations and a balky delivery. He talked of mail drops and toll-free numbers.

“These past several days, you have attempted to communicate with us,” Moose said. “We have researched the options you stated and found that it is not possible electronically to comply in the manner that you requested.”

But Moose said “we remain open and ready to talk to you about the options you have mentioned. It is important that we do this without anyone else getting hurt. Call us at the same number you used before to obtain the 800 number that you have requested. If you would feel more comfortable, a private post office box or another secure method can be provided.”

Then, for a moment, Moose dropped his guard. His head dropped and he squinted.

“You indicated that this is about more than violence,” he said. “We are waiting to hear from you.”

*

Times staff writers Bob Drogin and Josh Meyer contributed to this report.