A Life Wasted

They Got Me

I spent the night of December 4th at a Holiday Inn Express on the north side of Cincinnati, Ohio. The next morning, December 5, 2001, I drove to a Kinko's in a Cincinnati suburb to check a message board to see if anyone was trying to reach me. When I walked in the door, a seventeen-year-old girl, who clerked there part time recognized me from my wanted poster. She helped me get set up on a computer and didn't give away that she had recognized me, despite the fact that I was hyper-alert in how I watched for signs of being recognized. She was very good. After I was settled, she went into the back and called the 800 number on the United States Marshal's Most Wanted Poster. She was put on hold there, but refused to wait. She hung up and dialed 911. She told the local police who I was and that I was in her store. The dispatcher called a unit in the area and said, "Some girl from Kinko's called and said there's a wanted guy there. You should check it out."

I was arrested by a female officer who weighed about 100 pounds. She didn't know who I was so she never pulled her weapon. As hard as I had fought to escape and as far as I had run I gave up without a fight because I wasn't willing to fight a police officer.

As they figured out who they had more and more officers arrived. I was taken to the small community police station which was soon swarming with United States Marshals and FBI agents. For some reason they didn't trust the small jail to hold on to me so the Marshals kept a visual guard on me for the short time it took for them to assume custody and move me to the federal courthouse located in downtown Cincinnati. There I was kept in the Marshals' holding area.

All day long a steady stream of federal agents came back to my holding cell. Some just to look at me but others to say hello and ask if that was really me in this city or that on a certain day. It seemed there was a pool going on how many of their "confirmed" sightings were actually true. But mostly they came back to my holding cell to get an autograph. The Marshals wanted me to sign their Most Wanted Poster and the FBI wanted my signature on their FBI Ten Most Wanted Poster, as did the ATF agents want me to sign theirs. The agencies are all proud of their own group, but it was kind of funny how they all put more importance on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted poster. More than once a U.S. Marshal would ask me to sign my U.S. Marshals 15 Most Wanted Poster, then when no one was looking slide me an FBI Ten Most wanted and ask me to sign it with the caveat of, "Don't tell anyone."

It got old pretty quick, but they were all polite and nice so I gave out my signature. Most of the federal agents were helpful too. A great many of them offered to let me use their cell phone to call my family. Anyone who has ever been arrested will understand that this is unheard of. Yes, you can make phone calls from jail, but they are expensive and they are monitored. It is unheard of for a police officer to allow you to use his phone, but with a federal officer an impossibility. I understood this but accepted a few offers to call Mary and talk to my children. I later learned that this seemingly random offer to use each agent's phone in private was not random at all, but planned. They wanted to see who I would call. There was a big push to find out who had helped me so they handed me phones all day saying this is "in private" and with "don't tell anyone I let you do this." Every call was monitored and every number I called checked but there was no one else I wanted to talk to, so I only called home.

The first time I talked to Colt (10 years old) he said, "Dad, I can't believe they caught you. I didn't think you could be caught." I assured my son that I was catchable, but was flattered that he would think so highly of me. Colt then said, "Well, now that they have you maybe they can catch Bin Laden." He was referring to the most famous person I had shared the FBI Ten Most Wanted List with.

That night an FBI team flew in from Washington, DC to interrogate me. I admitted the things I did but made clear from the beginning that I wouldn't discuss anyone else. They agreed to these terms and to their credit didn't attempt to get me to talk about anyone else. At the end of the interview the FBI agent said that though I had given a reasonable explanation of how I sent the two waves of anthrax letters alone, he believed I had help. There was nothing else I could do to convince them, but I really did do it alone.

That night they moved me to Cincinnati's Hamilton County Jail, which is one of the largest jails in the country. They had moved all the inmates off the first floor where reception was handled and lined it with cops of every sort. It was like walking a gauntlet, only they weren't a hostile group, more curious. I felt like a captured animal on display. Even though this was late at night, the Hamilton County Sherriff was there as were all the brass for the Sherriff's Office and the Police Force. As were a great many federal agents.

While being paraded in handcuffs past this group of law enforcement officers, a female Sherriff's Deputy stepped in front of the group of Marshals escorting me, grabbed me by the shoulder and hugged me. She whispered in my ear, "God bless you for what you did." I really needed that. But then I went around the corner to be fingerprinted and at a point where the big shots couldn't see it, another female Sheriff's Deputy spit in my face and said, "You're going to rot in hell."

My hands were still cuffed to a chain around my waist so I couldn't even wipe the spit from my face. In a calm, even voice I said, "Swell." Most people don't have a strong opinion regarding the abortion issue, but I have learned that those who do either love or hate me. Those first few minutes in the Hamilton County jail turned out to be a harbinger of my future.