“To pick up a gun and aim it at another human being, and to fire, it’s not a human thing to do,” he said. “It’s not nice. It’s gory, it’s bloody. It overcomes every human instinct. The only thing that would be worse, to me, would be to do nothing, and to allow abortions to continue.”
Then he did the unthinkable. He confessed to shooting Dr. Barnett Slepian.
“I did it and I’m admitting it,” he said. He described a version of events that became his new defense, and sparked a whole new controversy. He claimed he had been shooting to wound. “I never, ever intended for Dr. Slepian to die. The truth is not that I regret shooting him. I regret that he died. I aimed at his shoulder. The bullet took a crazy ricochet, and that’s what killed him. One of my goals was to keep Dr. Slepian alive, and I failed at that goal.”
He laid it out. Planned the shooting for more than a year, scouted locations, planned escape routes. Scouted six Buffalo-area abortion providers. Slepian’s house was ideal because it backed onto a wooded area. He had been in position, ready to shoot, on two earlier occasions but was not able to lock down on the target.
He described that night. He was in the woods watching the house, waiting for Slepian to appear. He showed in the kitchen, put something in the microwave oven, left the room. He took aim at the spot where he anticipated the doctor’s left shoulder would be when he came back. Although he was an “expert shot” the shooting had gone wrong. He fired only once because he saw Slepian fall. It saddened Kopp to learn he had died.
The reporters asked more questions. Barket encouraged Kopp to answer most of them, but on occasion cautioned him not to say anything. He wouldn’t talk about whether anyone had assisted him in any way. Would not explain why he buried the rifle and other evidence in the woods. And why had he done it at all? Kopp answered that one.
“Why do you think I used force against Dr. Slepian when he was within ten hours of taking the lives of 25 babies? The question answers itself.” The misconception people have about him, he said, was that he is a “peaceful man who would not harm anybody.”
They asked him how he felt about the comparison between his actions and those of the sniper who was terrorizing the Washington, D.C., area. The question angered him.
“Any reasonable person could see a distinction between me and the D.C. sniper. Why was Dr. Slepian shot? The obvious answer is to save children. If you did the same thing to protect a baby that was one day old, it would never be considered a crime.”
And what would Kopp do if he were acquitted and returned to the street?
“I would do something.”
Herbeck’s and Michel’s story was splashed across the front page of the Buffalo News. The morning it ran, Joe Marusak was alone at home, listening to the early news on the radio. The lead story was that James Charles Kopp had confessed. Marusak couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He had an inkling that Kopp wanted to make some kind of statement before the trial began. But he didn’t know what Kopp might say, or who he would say it to. He was shocked that he’d give an interview to reporters at this stage, period—and confess to boot. It was bizarre. Never seen anything like it. The case had completely changed, but Joe Marusak stayed focused, his mind leaping ahead to the new approach he’d have to take. He had already prepared an argument in case the defense took the position that James Kopp had shot, but not meant to kill, Slepian.
The blue-gray eyes saw the screaming headline in the Buffalo News: “KOPP CONFESSES.” Well. To a Catholic, confession means an act of a penitent disclosing his sinfulness before a priest in the hope of absolution. He didn’t appreciate the misuse of the word. Confession? Not quite!
His friends and supporters were shocked by the turn of events. Why did Jim Kopp admit to shooting Slepian, and now? He had repeatedly denied that he was guilty. Hadn’t he? Perhaps not. When he was in jail in France he told friends he was “innocent” and that he “didn’t do it.” Did he mean innocent of shooting Slepian, or innocent of killing him? He frequently played with semantics, played with words and their meaning. What was it that he had said to a throng of journalists when he was led from a French court to a waiting police van? “The question you should be asking is, ‘Who killed Dr. Slepian?’ That’s the only question you should be asking.” Who killed Dr. Slepian? Had he been telegraphing all along that, despite his denials, he had in fact shot the doctor, but had not meant to kill? Or that God had taken Bart Slepian’s life?
The big question was, “Why?” Why throw himself on his sword like that? Jim Kopp was many things, but unintelligent was not one of them. He knew he stood a shot at acquittal. So why confess? Kopp told the Buffalo News reporters it was because he was haunted by the living victims, Dr. Slepian’s wife, her sons, and also that he felt guilt over misleading his supporters all this time. He wanted to finally tell the truth—about what he did, and why he did it. That’s what he told the reporters, anyway. Ah, the media. Romanita.
Chapter 23 ~ Biblical Figures
Brooklyn, N.Y.
November 2002
A week after Jim Kopp’s carefully choreographed confession to the Buffalo News, Loretta Marra was escorted out of the Erie County Holding Center in Buffalo, and Dennis Malvasi taken from a federal facility. They were both transported to a prison in Brooklyn for trial. A new bail hearing was scheduled for the following week. Marra had high hopes that she might finally be released. She listened as Bruce Barket made his appeal to Judge Carol Amon for her release. She had been in jail for 19 months. Loretta teared up when Barket mentioned her two young sons.
The case had been assigned to an Eastern District prosecutor, but Western District prosecutor Kathleen Mehltretter appeared in court as well, at the request of the judge, to answer questions, given her background in the case.
“In your opinion,” Amon asked, “do Mr. Malvasi and Ms.
Marra pose a flight risk?”
“I believe they do, Your Honor,” replied Mehltretter. Anger surged through Loretta Marra when she heard Mehltretter speak. Loretta had been denied bail previously, wasn’t this latest denial expected? It was as though this time, she truly expected something different. Something had gone wrong. The judge agreed with Mehltretter. No bail. Marra snapped.
“You lying bitch,” she said.
Buffalo, N.Y.
Monday, March 3, 2003
People from all walks of life filed into the courtroom for jury selection in the trial of James Charles Kopp. The accused stood and smiled at the people who would decide his fate. In the wake of Kopp’s confession, District Attorney Frank Clark, Joe Marusak’s boss, said the strategy had not changed. It just meant there were fewer facts in dispute. They no longer had to prove Kopp pulled the trigger. They just needed to prove that he intended to kill in order to get a murder conviction.
Kopp was an admitted sniper, and that fact drew an even more radical stripe of supporter to attend the trial—those who felt that shooting Bart Slepian was justified. On the sidewalk outside the courthouse, four pro-life demonstrators handed out flyers. The flyers called for the jury to acquit “baby defender James Kopp.” One man spoke to reporters and said it was a case of justifiable homicide.
Nearly 200 potential jurors went through orientation and Nearly 200 potential jurors went through orientation and page questionnaire asked whether close friends or relatives had ever belonged to any group that advocated a certain viewpoint on abortion, and whether they had read the Buffalo News story in which Kopp admitted shooting Slepian. Judge Michael D’Amico cautioned them to be honest about their opinions. “The issue of abortion may be raised during the course of this trial… Whatever your view may be, it does not disqualify you from serving on this jury,” he told them.