20. Death Notice of Nurse Bridie Henry

Independent Star, 25 July
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"...DEATHS
Henry, Brigid ('Bridie'). Died tragically on 18 July. Greatly mourned by her father and mother, Tom and Eileen, bothers Mark and Jerry, sister Evelyn, her grandparents and her extended family. Removal to St Andrew's Church, Wilmington, DE, at 5 p.m. Burial after 10 a.m. Mass on Tuesday. Family flowers only please. Donations, if desired, to Georgetown University Hospital Children's Fund...".

19. Extract from later internal police e-mail

E-mail exchange between Captain Lyon Williams and DC Police Superintendent Gayle Edgeworth
.
24 July
.
"To: Gayle Edgeworth
From: Lyon Williams
Re: FW: Nurse Henry investigation
.

Gayle

.

Thanks for your e-mail. Yes I had seen the papers and it is probably best if I don't put in writing what I thought of their criticism about progress to date in the Nurse Henry case, especially as the papers do not know how close we are to making a real breakthrough.

Yesterday we received an anonymous tip-off from someone living in the Watergate Complex that she had seen our boy coming in and out of there a couple of times with a wife and child in tow. Unfortunately the Watergate's a pretty big place so it is going to take a while to track our boy down. However, we interviewed the security staff down there yesterday and a couple of them seem to think that they might have seen him also. I have two men down there trawling through security videos right now and another four officers doing door-to-door enquiries at every apartment and touching base with all the hotel staff. While I cannot guarantee that this will result in an arrest, my sense is that we are finally making progress after the usual lull that comes soon after the start of any investigation.

The FBI guys kindly did a run of all the CCTV footage from the rear of the Hoover Building and they are beginning to wonder whether our guy might be Irish. He certainly has the luck of the Irish. At the very moment he pulled up a delivery van pulled up alongside him completely blocking him from sight. So we have been looking at footage from premises around the area to see if we can get any sense of where he went. He most likely took a train from Metro Center, Navy Memorial or Federal Triangle. However, thanks to some contractor striking an electric cable with a digger yesterday, all the security cameras in the area were down around the time our boy made his way to the Metro. I have a couple of guys trawling through all the footage from the stations he might have gone through but that is over 30 stations at the height of rush-hour so I don't hold out much hope that they'll spot him anytime soon. So for now my money is on the Watergate.

As for the Manassas killing, the local police tell me that they do not have a lot to go on but what there is suggests that the papers have it right in this regard at least. Almost certainly it is our killer and almost certainly he has Wheen's magnum. However we are not "puzzled" as to what he might be up to, despite what the papers may claim. He is on the run, he needs money, and he will stop at nothing to get it. Chances are he is planning a hold-up. Our challenge is to nab him before he executes his plan. So a lot done - more than the papers give us credit for - but a lot more to do before we have our in killer in prison awaiting trial.

Regards

Lyon"

18. Extract from internal police e-mail

18. Extract from e-mail of DC Police Superintendent Gayle Edgeworth to Police Captain Lyon Williams
.
24 July
.
"Lyon

Have you seen today's papers? I know you guys are working flat out to find the Nurse Henry killer but the press, and the mayor, are screaming for a scalp and I would prefer it to be the killer's, not mine - or yours. Is there any chance of a real breakthrough in the near future that I could mention to the mayor so that he senses there's more progress in the case than the papers are claiming?

Regards

Gayle"

17. Breakthrough (of a sort) in Nurse Henry case

Independent Star, 24 July
.

"At about 8 p.m. last night two police officers doing their beat in downtown DC noticed a SUV parked on 10th Street, close by the J Edgar Hoover Building. It wasn't hard to miss. Freshly painted in a patriotic red, silver-white and blue it was crying out for attention.

As the area was otherwise deserted the two patrolmen were surpised that the SUV had been left parked where it was. Concerned that it might contain a car-bomb they radioed back the registration to headquarters and discovered that the car was a wanted vehicle belonging to a Mr Josh Wheen of Manassas, Virginia.

Mr Wheen, a full-time farmer and part-time licensed firearms dealer was shot dead outside his farmhouse two days ago. The murder weapon was a 44 Magnum that Wheen had recently advertised for sale, and the murderer was most likely someone who responded to the advertisement and decided that he'd kill the unfortunate Mr Wheen rather than shell out the asking-price.

So what's all this got to do with the Nurse Henry murder?

DC police have known for days that the man wanted in connection with Nurse Henry's death had been looking to buy a gun. Two days ago they were tipped off by Virginia state police that a man matching the suspect's description had been seen travelling in a bus from DC to Manassas. And where did the late Mr Wheen live? Manassas.

All this means that the man wanted in connection with the Nurse Henry murder, and now also in connection with the murder of Mr Wheen, has almost certainly driven back to DC in a SUV belonging to his latest victim and is out there somewhere on the streets of the nation's capital armed with the gun that he stole from Mr Wheen. But quite what he is planning next has the authorities puzzled.

Finding Mr Wheen's car was a limited breakthrough. It shows the man wanted in connection with Wheen's murder (and that of Nurse Henry) is back in town. So at least police know where to look for him. However, the real breakthrough will be when he's found and apprehended. Until then the public cannot rest easy and the police should not."

16. Extract from statement of Gladys McElroy

[24 July]

.

"...I have been a bus-driver with the Manassas Bus Company for the last 23 years. Since January of this year I have been driving the Manassas-DC-Manassas route.

Yesterday morning there were maybe 10 or 12 passengers on the 11 a.m. ride from DC to Manassas. Three of them I know by name. Mrs Flores, the schoolteacher; she was returning from a visit to her mother at the hospital where Nurse Henry was murdered. Miss Evans, the widow of the old police chief; she had stayed overnight in DC after seeing something fancy at the theatre. And Mr Jermyn, the postman; he has his own reasons for visiting DC. There were also a number of passengers whose names I don't know off the top of my head but who I would know to see. And of course there was the man who the police are interested in. He was wearing a crumpled linen suit, a bit like those suits that Matlock used to wear on TV and his hair looked like it had been dragged backwards through a bush. He handed me a $20 bill - the fare from DC to Manassas is $12 - and told me that I could keep the change. As it happens, I had to keep the change anyhow. The company operates an exact fares policy so customers either pay their $12 or else they pay more but in any event they don't get change. It was the way this man spoke that caught my attention most. He sounded like Little Lord Fauntleroy all grown up and certainly not the kind of person whom you'd expect to be catching the mid-morning bus from DC to Manassas. Even so, there was something about his accent that wasn't quite right. I emigrated from Jamaica to England before I came to the United States so I know what a genuine upper-class English accent sounds like and his wasn't the real deal. It was too much. More like a Hollywood impression of an Englishman's accent, rather than the real thing.

Anyhow, the man sat down a few rows back and in the mirror I could see him looking at me every now and then. Strange looks as if I had somehow offended him. I paid no attention to him. As a driver I'm well used to getting odd looks from odd customers. It goes with the turf.

When we got to Manassas the man came up to me and said he'd noticed a sign which said that we had CCTV on the bus and that if he'd known his privacy was going to be violated he wouldn't have travelled by bus. I told him that the signs had been put up by the bus company in the hope that it would stop young hoodlums writing graffiti on the bus but that the cameras had never been installed. When he heard this he slapped his thigh and said this was a "cracking" story. There was something about the way he spoke and looked which made me wonder whether he wasn't quite right in the head. But he seemed pleased not to have been caught on CCTV and headed off to do whatever he had to do in Manassas.

Later on when I finished my final run of the day and was doing a tidy-up of the bus I found a newspaper on the back seat and there, staring up at me from the front page, was the strange-looking man I had carried as a bus passenger earlier that day. The picture in the paper was a police drawing and didn't quite capture him right but I have no doubt that the man in the paper and the odd-ball passenger on my bus were the same person. I read the story in the paper, saw that the man was wanted for questioning and came to the police station straightaway...".

15. Manassas Man Murdered

[Virginian Farmers' Journal, 23 July]

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"Manassas Man Murdered

Manassas local, Josh Wheen (43) was gunned down yesterday only feet away from the front door of his farmhouse.

Mr Wheen's body was discovered by his wife when she returned home from morning coffee with friends in Woodbridge. The emergency services were immediately called and while waiting for them to come Mrs Wheen attempted unsuccssfully to resuscitate her husband. When the ambulance crew arrived a short time later there was nothing they could do to revive Mr Wheen.

Police quickly sealed off the family home and grounds for forensic examination. It is understood that no sign of a break-in was discovered and it is possible that Mr Wheen either knew his killer or, at least, was expecting the killer to call.

A search of the outhouses on the Wheen farm revealed that Mr Wheen's distinctive red, silver and blue SUV had been stolen, presumably by the killer. Readers may recall that this SUV was won by Mr Wheen at this month's Independence Day Cattle and Ploughing Fair in Manassas.

A state-wide alert was put out for the SUV shortly after mid-day yesterday and radio stations were also asked to broadcast the vehicle details. A couple of sightings were reported and while the vehicle and driver were not apprehended it seems likely that it was driven towards the DC metropolitan area.

A police search of the Wheen family home indicated that a 44 Magnum Colt Anaconda which Mr Wheen had advertised for sale was missing. Although, at the time of writing, the autopsy on Mr Wheen has yet to be concluded it is understood that Mr Wheen was shot at close range by someone holding a small arms weapon. Police are proceeding on the basis that the stolen 44 Magnum Anaconda was the weapon used.

This last fact gives the police a potentially useful line of enquiry. Mr Wheen had moonlighted as a licensed gun-trader in the last few years, buying and selling small-arms to gun-lovers to supplement his income, often advertising in this paper. One possibility being explored by the police is that Mr Wheen's killer called to the house looking to buy a gun and, when shown the 44 Magnum Anaconda, turned the weapon on Mr Wheen.

Another possibility being explored by police is that Mr Wheen's killing may in some way have been connected with a protracted boundary dispute that has involved a number of Manassas residents over the past few years. However, it is understood that investigators consider a rogue gun-buyer to be the most likely culprit behind Mr Wheen's murder.

One high-placed source within the police department who did not wish to be named indicated that officers are also considering whether there is a possible connection between Mr Wheen's murder and the dramatic daylight bludgeoning of Nurse Bridie Henry in Washington DC's Rock Creek Park last week.

Nurse Henry's brutal murder has featured prominently in the national media over the last few days. Less prominently reporte has been the alleged sighting at a gun-range in West Virginia of a man whom police want to speak with regarding Nurse Henry's murder.

Significantly, a Manassas bus-driver has apparently indicated to police that yesterday morning a passenger resembling the man police are looking for in connection with the Nurse Henry murder travelled in the driver's bus from DC to Manassas yesterday morning. The driver did not have an opportunity to report this to police until after her day-shift ended. So police had no chance to apprehend the man. However, this alleged sighting raises the possibility that Nurse Henry's killer came from DC with a view to acquiring a gun from Mr Wheen, killed Mr Wheen rather than buy the gun and then sped back to DC in Mr Wheen's SUV.

This is a dramatic sequence of events, if true. However, it does seem to fit a certain pattern in that whoever killed Nurse Henry also made his getaway in the victim's car.

Police have asked that the public keep a close eye out in any event for Mr Wheen's SUV in case the driver of that vehicle should return to Virginia. However. on no account should the driver be approached as he is likely armed and dangerous.

It is understood that Mr Wheen's funeral arrangements will be announced after the mandatory state autopsy on his body has been completed."

14. Iranian Prince Appointed to US Supreme Court

Daily Examiner, 24 July

.

"Iranian Prince Appointed to US Supreme Court

In a surprise decision the President last night nominated Professor Saeed Yarvali of Georgetown University to fill the Supreme Court seat of retiring Justice Corelli.

Professor Yarvali is related to the late Shah of Iran and, until the student revolution of 1979 led to the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Yarvali had a distant claim on that nation's throne. In the course of the revolution, Yarvali's father - a member of the Shah of Iran's feared secret police - was executed by revolutionaries. Soon after, the young Yarvali fled with his mother and brother to Switzerland. For a time they managed to maintain themselves there in the comfortable lifestyle that they had enjoyed back home in Iran. However, when Switzerland froze the Geneva bank accounts of certain members of the Shah's regime the suddenly penniless Yarvalis were forced to emigrate to the United States.

During a visit to America in 1966, Mrs Yarvali had spent a week at the luxurious Everglades Country Club and resort in up-market Hampton, Illinois. Soon after her arrival as an immigrant in the United States Mrs Yarvali (a onetime member of the Iranian Olympic tennis team) returned to the Everglades, this time as an in-house tennis coach. In the years that followed the Yarvali boys attended Hampton's elementary and high schools. From here hard graft and the occasional scholarship took the young Saeed to Yale and then to Harvard where he graduated first in class from the Law School. (His younger brother followed more closely in his mother's footsteps, taking a bronze medal in swimming at the Barcelona Olympics and subsequently becoming lead swimming coach at the Everglades).

After university, Yarvali did not immediately continue with his law career, spending two years instead as a volunteer with the United Nations in Palestine. Since that time Professor Yarvali has been critical of Israel's conduct in the Palestinian territories and a prominent member of an ongoing campaign to boycott Israeli universities pending a full and final resolution of ongoing Mid-East tensions.

Given the strength of the pro-Israeli lobby within Congress, Professor Yarvali's stance towards Israel is likely to become a key area of focus during his confirmation hearings and could conceivably stymie the nomination process. Questioned about this, one administration official closely involved in the selection process indicated that Professor Yarvali's views on a particular foreign policy issue were not germane to his suitability for the office of Supreme Court justice and claimed that it would be difficult to find many Iranian-American attorneys of Professor Yarvali's calibre whose views on the Palestinian issue would entirely accord with those of the pro-Israeli lobby.

While this may be true it rather begs the question why the President would apparently go out of his way to antagonise a powerful constituency that was partly responsible for his success in the Presidential election. The answer may lie in the math. While the President scored well in east and west-coast states he did less well in central and mid-western states. In this context the President's nomination of Professor Yarvali can be seen as something of a political master-stroke. Before his appointment to Georgetown University, Yarvali spent the better part of his life living and working in Illinois and Michigan and several times in last night's nomination speech the President emphasised those mid-western connections. This courting of the mid-west has to be worth something when the President goes grubbing for votes in key mid-western states in the next Presidential election.

Of course internationally the President's nomination of Yarvali also sends a strong political message. Since 9/11 this nation has been perceived by many in the Muslim world to have embarked upon a new Crusade. The President's nomination of a prominent Muslim-American signals that such logic is unduly simplistic, that the United States can be an enemy to Muslim terrorists, yet remain a land of opportunity for Muslim people. Professor Yarvali's nomination also sends a message to the American people that there is a community within our midst who contribute much and have much to contribute to our nation's continuing prosperity. In the near constant drum-beat to war that has sounded since the Twin Towers collapsed that is a message which has often been drowned out. It remains to be seen whether it is a message that the Ameerican electorate has any appetite to hear.

During his own lifetime, Professor Yarvali has made an impressive contribution to American society. During the later Clinton administration and the first George W Bush administration, Yarvali served as head of the Civil Rights Unit within the Department of Justice. Much of his workload during this time was concerned with the continuing struggle for full equality by African-Americans and Yarvali has forged strong links with this community which will likely stand him in good stead in the confirmation proceedings before the United States Senate.

Yarvali's urbane personality and his obvious talent as helmsman of the Civil Rights Unit led to his being retained in position by President George W Bush. The reasons for his unexpected departure mid-way through Bush's first term in office have never fully been explained and may yet become a point of focus during the Senate confirmation hearings. Yarvali's profile on the website of Georgetown University Law School suggests that he left only because he was offered the position of Professor of Constitutional Law and Theory at Georgetown. However, a Justice Department official who worked with Yarvali suggested last night that Yarvali's departure was prompted by discomfort with the Bush administration's policies towards the Muslim world and, in particular, its invasion of Iraq. If true, this could be the Achilles Heel in Yarvali's generally impressive resume. The American people and their representatives on Capitol Hill are a tolerant lot but that tolerance is unlikely to extend to a Supreme Court justice who is opposed to a war in which American soldiers are dying. Unswerving patriotism of a particular sort is generally considered a prerequisite to holding high federal office.

At Georgetown, Yarvali is reputed to be a popular faculty member among both staff and students. His courses are heavily over-subscribed, though attendees are warned to come prepared: the professor apparently does not suffer fools lightly and does not suffer the under-prepared at all. In his time since joining the Georgetown law faculty, Professor Yarvali has authored a seminal textbook on civil rights law. However, it is a law review article on "Muslim Rights in Christian America", published last year, that will perhaps excite the most attention at Yarvali's confirmation hearings, particularly among those eager for their own purposes to portray Yarvali as an extremist who should not be allowed to join the nation's foremost jurists.

If Yarvali's nomination is confirmed by the US Senate and the President for one must believe that he will be - Presidents tend not to nominate sure losers - it will be a tremendous personal achievement for Yarvali and a significant political milestone for all Iranian-Americans. To go from turmoil in Tehran to a seat in America's foremost temple of justice in a single lifetime is a remarkable accomplishment. For the President to nominate the first Muslim Supreme Court justice at a time when America is embroiled in difficulties with much of the Muslim world presents a challenge to those who contend that America is fundamentally anti-Islam or anything other than a land of equal and golden opportunity for all of its people, regardless of background."