“Who owns these boxes?” an agent asked Gannon.
“I don’t know,” was Gannon’s answer.
The contents were sealed and sent to the FBI office in Buffalo. Among the contents, an agent found a hand-drawn map. The map was dusted for prints. Also, on a torn piece of paper, the address 4990 Lebanon Road. The agent flipped the paper over, and saw on the other side a notation reading, “A to Z 883-9945.” The phone number was for the 615 area code, Old Hickory, a town near Nashville.
Soon after that, a man nattily dressed in a dark suit walked through the door of the A-Z Pawn Shop in Old Hickory. He stopped at the counter and looked at Patricia Osbourne, who was working the store that day.
“I’m John Eastes. I’m a special agent with the FBI’s field office in Nashville.” He asked to see Osbourne’s books. They went to the back of the store, and he began silently leafing through the pages.
“What are you looking for?” she asked. Eastes was the first agent to visit the store, but Osbourne would meet more in the weeks to come. They combed through the books, took materials away, brought them back. There had apparently been no gun purchase at the A-Z Pawn Shop by anyone named James C. Kopp.
Jersey City, N.J.
Thursday evening, November 12, 1998
FBI Special Agent Larry Wack learned from agents in Newark, New Jersey, of another address where Kopp had lived as late as the previous September under the alias Clyde Svenson. On the night of November 12, agents visited a three-storey, redbrick apartment on Communipaw Avenue in Jersey City. The agents moved to the back of the building, then up the stairs to a unit on the second floor, and knocked on the unfinished wooden door of number 346, the home of Seth Grodofsky. “Last time I saw Clyde was two weeks ago,” said Grodofsky.
“Where is he now?”
“I think he’s doing contracting work in New York.” The agents asked more questions. It seemed Clyde Svenson also
kept some belongings down by the docks along the Hudson River, down on Warren Street. The agents asked to search the apartment. Grodofsky refused. They would need a warrant. One of the agents left. The others stayed overnight, making sure no potential evidence was disturbed during the wait for a court to issue the warrant.
Meanwhile, more agents headed to Warren Street, on the water, Slip No. 7. They seized three sealed cardboard boxes belonging to Clyde Svenson. One contained a computer, monitor, printer, accessories. Another held a large vinyl travel bag containing a typewriter, book, lantern. Another box had books, computer disks, software guides. Among the loose papers was a Bell Atlantic phone bill and a New York Police Department traffic ticket for New York plate number BPE 216.
Warrant in hand, agents searched Grodofsky’s apartment the next afternoon. They found a padlocked maroon toolbox that had “Job Box” written on it. They cracked the lock. The box contained a hand plane, staple gun, electrical tape, heat gun and other tools. Agents also collected clothes, bedding, a plastic mug, church newsletters, duct tape, two small flashlights, a movie stub, a bottle of sauce, a photo of the Pope, travel brochures, a toothbrush and, in the bedroom, a bottle for holy water. Special Agent Barry Lee Bush looked in the closet. He stood on a chair to check the top shelf, spotted a notebook. He opened the book and saw a notation: “716 Barnet 834-6796, Amherst.” The notebook was sent to a lab for prints and analysis. The phone number was for Dr. Barnett Slepian’s office in Amherst, New York.
The same day, agents searched 1073 Buckhollow Road, Fairfax, Vermont, home of Grace R. Rock. They seized one Smith & Wesson handgun, two empty magazines, two boxes of cartridges.
On Thursday, November 19, agents visited Loretta Marra’s last-known address: 12 Indian Trail, West Milford, New Jersey. One of Loretta’s three brothers, Nicholas Marra, answered the door. “I haven’t seen Loretta. Not since the summertime,” he said.
“Is that unusual?”
“No. She’s like a vagabond, you know? No fixed address. I wouldn’t know how to get in touch with her if I tried. But we don’t talk much. Some of the family relationships are a little strained.” The agents interviewed another brother, Joseph. He said he didn’t get along well with his siblings—Loretta, Nick or Bill. “They have this fervent religious zeal on the abortion issue. Comes from my parents. They forced their opinions on the four kids. Loretta? No, haven’t been in touch with her in a long time.”
The FBI next located and interviewed Jennifer Rock, having tracked her license plate and studied her recent phone and banking records. Her calling card record indicated a call had been placed to 914-844-7355 on November 4 at 6:36 a.m. It was a pager number Kopp had given out to several people, including his sister Anne.
“Did you recently take a trip to Mexico, the agents asked?”
“Yes,” she said.
“When did you come back to the United States?”
“On November 4. At Laredo.”
Wrong answer. She couldn’t have crossed back from Mexico that day. Phone records placed her at work, an IBM office in Vermont, on November 4.
“Did James Kopp phone you within the last two weeks?”
She said nothing.
“What about the $7,000 withdrawal you made on November 5? What was that for?”
Rock’s stories did not add up. But from the phone records it was clear she had not been in touch with Kopp since Mexico. The was clear she had not been in touch with Kopp since Mexico. The 3716 immediately upon arriving home. After searching the records of a pager company called Smart Beep, agents learned the pager was for a John Rizzo. On November 20, an agent called the Rizzo pager. A woman picked up the page. She went to a phone booth to return the page to avoid having her call traced, using a prepaid phone card, and unwittingly spoke to an agent on the other end. The bureau had made contact with Loretta Marra—Rizzo was one of three false pager names she used—but the agents still did not know exactly where she was living.
It was December 18, 56 days after the murder of Dr. Bart Slepian. A man named John Caldararo, of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Transit Police, conducted his routine check of the long-term parking lot at the Newark International Airport. He noticed a black Chevy Cavalier with an expired Pennsylvania registration sticker. The car had one plate on it: New Jersey, RAJ 889. He noticed the window was ajar and keys still in the ignition. The long-term parking lot was a well-known place for people to ditch cars. He recorded the car’s VIN and ran a search on the number, 1G1JE2111H7175930. A notice came up on the computer screen. Amherst police and the FBI wanted that car. He got on the phone.
License plates change, but the VIN is the key. It was James Kopp’s car. He had switched the Vermont license plate on it, but it was his vehicle.
Special Agent Arthur Durrant visited the airport to examine the car. He pulled out his notebook and started writing. “One 1987 Chevy Cavalier, RS Model, black in color, 2 door, hatchback, red pinstripe on the front bumper, green PA Inspection Sticker dated 4/97.” The car was removed and taken to the first floor of the FBI garage at 910 Newark Avenue. Items recovered included: a Tasco binocular case on the floor in front of the passenger seat, a plastic Tops Markets grocery bag behind driver’s seat, samples of hairs and fibers vacuumed up from the interior and trunk, religious medallion and hanging ribbon and flower on the front dash, service sticker on inner windshield for Autospa of North Bergen, in center console three AAA batteries, keys, fuses, bulbs, small flashlight, drill, wire, bit, chalk, token; in rear hatch knotted cord and hardware, pack of auto fuses, religious card, pine needle in engine compartment.