We both turned. Rachel was standing between two parked cars behind me.
“Rachel, get him out now or bail him out later,” Metz said.
“Jack, come on,” she said.
She waved me to her. I looked back at the dead man on the ground and then turned and walked toward her. She moved between the two cars and up onto the sidewalk. I followed.
“Did you see the shooting?” I asked.
“I just saw him go down,” she said.
“He had a gun. That’s not—”
“I know. We’ll get answers but we have to back off and let them do their thing.”
“This is crazy. Twenty minutes ago, the guy was sitting there in the bar right across from us. Now he’s dead. I just realized, I’ve got to call Myron. I’ve got to tell him we have one more story to do.”
“Let’s just wait on that, Jack. Let them do their work and then let’s see what Metz says.”
“All right, all right.”
I raised my hands in surrender. And then I spoke without thinking about the content or consequences of what I said.
“I’m going to ask him about that day, too. Metz. See if he denies it was a setup.”
Rachel turned and looked at me. She didn’t say anything at first. She just slowly shook her head.
“You idiot,” she said. “You did it again.”
The Last Story
An Ohio man stalking an investigator on the Shrike serial killer case was cut down in a volley of FBI gunfire in Sherman Oaks last night when he drew a weapon and pointed it at agents who had cornered him, federal authorities said.
Robinson Felder, 35, of Dayton, was killed at 8:30 p.m. on Tyrone Avenue just north of the 101 Freeway. Agent Matthew Metz said Felder had been following Rachel Walling, a private investigator who had played a pivotal role three months ago in revealing the killing spree of a murder suspect known as the Shrike.
Metz said that evidence collected from Felder’s car indicated that he was involved in online groups that have idolized the Shrike in the months since his killing spree was revealed. Metz said the evidence, most of which was found on a laptop computer and Felder’s online history, excluded him from possibly being the Shrike himself.
FBI agents stopped Felder on the dead-end street and ordered him out of his car. Metz said Felder initially complied but then pulled a gun from his waistband once he had stepped out of his car. Metz said Felder pointed the weapon at agents, provoking fire from several of them. Felder was fatally wounded and died at the scene.
In addition to the weapon recovered at the scene, agents found what they called an abduction-and-torture kit in Felder’s car, Metz said. He described the kit as a duffel bag containing zip ties and duct tape as well as rope, a knife, pliers, and a small acetylene torch.
“We believe his intentions were to abduct and kill Ms. Walling,” Metz said.
The federal agent said the motive for the killing plan was Walling’s part in the Shrike case. Walling, a former FBI profiler, consulted with FairWarning on its investigation into the deaths of several women across the country who died at the hands of a killer who broke their necks in a brutal manner. The FairWarning investigation revealed that the women were targeted because of a specific DNA pattern they shared. All had submitted their DNA to GT23, a popular genetic-analytics provider. Their anonymized DNA was then sold in the secondary market to a genetic-research lab, which in turn provided it to the operators of a dark-web site that catered to men wishing to hurt and take sexual advantage of women.
The website has since been shuttered. The Shrike has not been identified or captured. In the weeks since the killing spree was revealed by FairWarning, he has become celebrated in online forums catering to the “incel” subculture. The male-dominated movement — named for a contraction of “involuntary celibate” — is characterized online by postings involving misogyny, feelings of entitlement to sex, and the endorsement of violence against women. Several physical attacks on women across the country have been ascribed by authorities to incels.
Metz said that a study of Felder’s social-media history revealed that in recent weeks he had made several posts on various incel forums praising and revering the Shrike and the violence he committed against women. He ended most of these posts with #theydeservedit, according to Metz.
“We have no doubt that this guy came out here to abduct Ms. Walling as some kind of homage to the Shrike,” Metz said. “We are lucky that she wasn’t hurt.”
Walling declined to comment. It was, in fact, Walling who saved her own life. In a Sherman Oaks restaurant, Walling
noticed Felder watching her and acting suspiciously. She contacted the FBI and a plan was quickly formulated to determine if Felder was stalking her. Under FBI surveillance Walling left the restaurant and drove to a predetermined spot on Tyrone Avenue.
Metz said that Felder followed them in his car and drove into an FBI vehicle trap. When he was told to step out of the car with his hands visible, he complied. But then for unknown reasons, he reached to his beltline and pulled free a .45 caliber pistol. He was fired upon when he raised the weapon into firing position.
“He gave us no choice,” said Metz, who was on the scene during the shooting but did not fire himself.
There were seven other agents on the scene and four of them fired at Felder. Metz said the shooting will be investigated by the bureau’s Office of Professional Responsibility and the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Metz, the assistant special agent in charge of the Los Angeles Field Office, said he was concerned Felder’s activities could inspire others in the incel community to act out in the same way. He said efforts are being made to safeguard Walling and others involved in the Shrike case.
Meantime, Metz acknowledged that efforts to identify the Shrike and bring about his arrest continue, but frustrations mount with each passing day.
“We are not going to be able to breathe easy until this guy is in custody,” he said. “We need to find him.”
Jack
43
We gathered at Sun Ray Studios on Cahuenga Boulevard to record the last episode of the podcast on the Shrike. The last, that is, until there was some sort of break in the case worthy of a new episode. I had gone through seventeen episodes. I had discussed the story from every conceivable angle and had interviewed every person associated with the case who was willing to go on the record and be taped. This even included an interview with Gwyneth Rice in her hospital room, her voice now an eerie electronic creation manifested from her laptop.
This last episode was a heavily promoted live discussion with as many of the players in the case as I could bring together. The studio had a round table in the recording room. It was Rachel Walling, Metz from the FBI, Detective Ruiz from the Anaheim Police Department, Myron Levin from FairWarning, and Hervé Gaspar, the lawyer who had represented Jessica Kelley, the victim in the William Orton case. I had never been able to figure out whether Ruiz or Gaspar had been my Deep Throat source. Both had denied it. But Gaspar had eagerly accepted the invitation to be part of the podcast, while Ruiz had to be cajoled. That tipped my guess toward Gaspar. He relished the secret part he had played in the case.
Lastly, we had Emily Atwater on the phone, calling in from her unknown spot in England and ready to answer questions as well.