20. Death Notice of Nurse Bridie Henry

Independent Star, 25 July
.
"...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]

.

"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."

13. Autopsy Report on Nurse Brigid Henry

[24 July]

.

"...Ms Brigid Henry (the "Deceased") was admitted to Georgetown University Hospital on the afternoon of 18 July. She had suffered heavy injuries to the face. These had macerated the bone structure on the left side of her face to such an extent that the Deceased was not immediately recognised by the nurse who admitted her or the surgical team who operated on her, all of whom had worked with the Deceased.

The Deceased was found to have suffered severe brain damage as a result of the massive contusions to her skull. These contusions were initially attributed to a fall that the Deceased was alleged to have suffered at her house or in a public park. On closer examination it is difficult to see how any fall could have occasioned the injuries that the Deceased sustained. These injuries were confined to the face and any fall that occasioned such injuries could reasonably be expected to have caused additional bodily injury. However, there was no injury of any nature to the Deceased's body apart from some bruising of the right wrist and the left knee.

The nature of the injuries to the Deceased's face and the absence of any other injury apart from limited bruising of the right wrist and the left knee suggest that the Deceased was beaten around the face with a blunt weapon while lying on her back. The bruising on her right wrist and left leg suggest that her attacker held down her two hands with the hand that was not wielding the instrument which struck her - probably the left hand - and that he held down her two legs by kneeling heavily on the left leg (the right leg being trapped underneath).

I have been asked to comment expressly on whether the other injuries suffered are consistent with the accused being held down in a car whilst simultaneously being battered about the face with a hammer. It is my professional opinion that they are.

The autopsy examination reveals severe cranial, cerebral and arterial damage that occasioned massive internal bleeding and would have resulted in the Deceased being reduced to a severely vegetative state had she survived.

The report of the operating surgeon reveals that despite every effort being made to halt this bleeding and to resuscitate the Deceased she died at 2.15 p.m. It is my professional opinion that this was the near inevitable result of the injuries that the Deceased had suffered and that, if she recovered consciousness, she would have suffered continuous and irreversible brain damage that would have rendered it impossible for her to enjoy any semblance of "normal" life. That the Deceased survived as long as she did after her admission to hospital is perhaps best ascribed to her own fighting-spirit and also to the quality of the surgical team who operated on her.

.

Cause of Death: Cerebral haemorrhage.

Proximate cause of death: Assault with a blunt weapon, consistent with hammer injuries.

Any other injury noted: Limited. Bruising of the right wrist. Marked bruising of the left leg (immediately below the knee joint) consistent with some form of restraint.

Blood tests: Clear.

Any other comment: The Deceased was in the very early stages of pregnancy (2-3 weeks)."

11. Extract from statement of Louis Babcock

[23 July]

"...I am an ambulance driver at Georgetown University Hospital.

On 18 July I was returning to the hospital after bringing an elderly patient to her home on the Waterfront. As usual there was a tailback at Washington Circle. I joined the queue of traffic and waited for it to start moving. I was listening to the usual chatter on the ambulance radio when I noticed that there was a woman bleeding in the car beside me. I got out of the ambulance and cautiously approached the car. The man driving the car was clearly in distress. He rolled down the window and asked if I could help him get to the hospital. He had a foreign accent when he spoke, I think an English accent. He sounded educated and when I noticed a Georgetown University Hospital Parking permit on the windscreen of the car I assumed that he must be a doctor. It occurred to me that it was a little odd that I hadn't seen him around the hospital previously but I assumed that he must be new. He told me that the woman in the car had been working at home when she fell and injured herself. The woman herself tried to speak once or twice but she was drifting in and out of consciousness and I couldn't make any sense of what she said to me. I told the man to follow me, then jumped back into the ambulance, turned on the siren and made my way to the hospital. as quickly as I could.

There was one strange moment on the way. When we got to the turn-off from M Street onto Memorial Bridge the man braked his car and put out his left indicator as if he was going to turn towards Arlington. Then immediately the indicator turned off and he continued following after me.

When we got to the hospital I pulled up the ambulance in front of the rear entrance. A couple of aides ran out and, together with the man, we managed to lift the injured woman onto a trolley. One of the aides asked the man how the patient had suffered her injuries He replied that she had fallen in Rock Creek Park. This was not the same story that he had told me and this immediately made me suspicious of him. So I let the two aides and the man continue pushing the trolley through to the casualty unit and quickly ran off to fetch a security guard. There was something about the man's manner that I found unusual and it was troubling that he had told two different stories about how the woman came to be injured.

I told the security guard on duty that there was a man in the casualty unit whom I thought might have hurt the woman who had come in with him. The guard radioed this through to the DC police - he is required to do that - and then he came with me to the casualty unit. However, by the time we got there the man was gone. The nurse-in-charge told us that he had gone out to move his car so that it wasn't an obstruction. By the time the security guard and myself got out into the parking area, the man and his car were gone.

I have seen police sketches of the man believed to have killed the woman whom I helped to bring to the hospital. I have no doubt that this man and the man whom I helped to rush through the DC traffic are the same person. He is a young to middle-aged man of pale complexion. He has greying hair and a red beard, though I believe that his beard may be dyed. He is of medium height and build and speaks with a foreign accent, I think English...".

10. Extract from statement of Dwayne Olveira

[23 July]

"...I work as a printer at the DC Sunday Post. I usually work nights. On 17 July I worked through the night on a very long run. There was a special supplement being published on the economic crisis and these kind of supplements always take a lot of time. Anyhow, as a result I didn't leave work until about 10 a.m. on the morning of 18 July. This was getting close to the time that my wife finishes work. She has a part-time job as a guide at the Old Stone House and finishes work around 12.30 every day. So I decided I'd suprise her by meeting her after work and save the cost of a bus-ride home in the process - my wife takes the car to work each day so that she can collect our daughter from school on the way back. Anyhow, that gave me a couple of hours to spare. So I went into Rock Creek Park to grab forty winks. I lay down in the sunshine behind some high bushes near the 23rd Street end of the park. I set the alarm on my cell-phone for 12.15 - Old Stone House is quite close by - and then took a nap.

At 12.15 the alarm on my cell-phone started ringing. I turned it off and lay for a few minutes more in the sunshine. To be honest, I was still half-asleep, though not so asleep that I didn't hear a strange conversation going on over the hedge. I heard a man say something like "This is a hold-up". I don't think those were the exact words but I am certain that I heard a woman say "Is this some sort of joke?". The man then asked if the woman had a car. She said yes and he told her to take him to the car. Because I was still half-asleep I didn't appreciate the significance of what I was hearing. Once I realised what I had just heard I got up to see if I could spot the man and woman I'd heard talking. However, there was no-one behind the hedge any mote and no-one else around. I mentioned the conversation to my wife when I met her but thought no more of it. We spent the last few days out-of-town in Chincoteague. When we're there I go fishing with my friends and my wife spends all the time gossiping with hers. The end result was that neither of us saw much television. It was only when we got back and I saw the death of that young nurse smeared all over the papers and heard the details on the television that I realised that I must have overheard a conversation between the nurse and the man who killed her. I called the police immediately and was asked to make this statement...".

5. Extract from statement of Dessie Mahon

[20 July]

"...I am a first-year law student at Trinity College Dublin. I am spending the summer working in "Flaherty's", an Irish bar off Rawlins Park.

On 18 July, I started my shift at 1 p.m. Sometime later I saw a man entering the bar. He caught my eye because he was wearing a very heavy jumper on what was a very warm day. The man looked about him for a moment or two and then went into the restroom at the back of the bar. I said nothing to him and did not follow him. We were quite busy as it was the end of the week and some workers from a nearby construction site had come in to spend some of their week's wages on a few drinks.

Perhaps a half-hour later I noticed a man leaving the bar. At first I didn't recognise him. He gave me a slightly sheepish look as he passed where I was standing. Then I recognised him. It was the man who had come in and gone straight to the restroom. He looked different from when he had arrived. He wasn't wearing his jumper. Plus he didn't have a beard any more - and he did when he came in.

All of this made me suspicious of the man. I called out to him but he immediately ran from the bar. I ran out into the street after him. However in the few seconds that it took me to get around the bar-counter he was almost down at the Corcoran Gallery, a good half-block away.There was no way that I could catch the man and in any event I couldn't leave the bar un-tended. So I went back into the bar and into the restroom to see what he'd been up to.

Inside the restroom I found a fake beard stuffed into a trash-can. I looked around for the man's jumper but couldn't find it. However, when I was throwing out rubbish later that evening I found it in a laneway behind the bar. There is a window onto the laneway from the restroom and it is possible that he threw the jumper out the window.

As the day went on the television stations were full of news about a woman who'd been murdered in Rock Creek Park. We have a television running in the bar and I was half-watching the news between serving drinks. When I heard the description of the man police were looking for, I was sure that this was the man I had seen in the bar. I have since been shown a police sketch of the man wanted for murder. I am confident that this is the man I saw, except that he has gotten rid of the beard that features in the sketch.

My uncle was also working in the bar on the evening of the 18th. I told him about the man who came in earlier that day. When I saw the television news I told him that the man I had seen was the man police were looking for. After we shut up shop for the evening, my uncle brought me to the police station where I have given this statement...".

4. Extract from statement of Xavier Gonzales

[20 July]

"...I am an assistant gardener in Rock Creek Park. On the morning of 18 August I was working on the south lawn of the park, weeding some flower-beds. At around mid-day I had a 15-minute break. As it was very hot I bought a soda from one of the vendors in the park. I then sat down on a bench near Anderson House to drink the soda.

While I was drinking I saw a young woman enter the park through one of the entrances on 23rd Street. She was wearing a green summer dress and a pair of white sandals. She was carrying a folded-up blanket. The woman walked towards me and then headed off towards the creek. She attracted my attention because she was a very beautiful woman. I am certain that she was the woman who was later murdered.

After a while I returned to work, joining one of my fellow gardeners, Juan Esteban. The two of us had been working for a while together, maybe 15 minutes, when I noticed a man sitting on one of the benches nearby. He was wearing very heavy clothes: a thick woollen jumper and a heavy woollen hat. He looked like a New England fisherman. He even had a beard. It was red in colour but it looked like it was dyed. He seemed to be talking to himself. After a quarter-hour or so this man got up and walked away. He carried a bag with him. It was a plastic bag from Dulles Airport, This stuck in my mind because he did not look like he had the money to be travelling by plane. We get a lot of strange people hanging around the park from time to time so after the man was gone I thought nothing more of him.

At a few minutes after one o'clock I finished work for the day. My wife is off visiting her mother in New York so I was taking a half-day in order to collect my daughter from school. As I walked through the park I saw the man I had noticed earlier. He was leaving the park with the young woman I had seen when I took my break. I was surprised to see them both together. They did not seem a likely match. The man did not have his airport bag any longer and he seemed to be holding something against the woman's back. I think now that it may have been a gun but I am not sure of this as they were some distance away.

I left the park by the P Street gate. When I stepped onto the street I saw the man again. By now he was almost a block away from where I was standing. He was leaning into the back of a car and doing something. He looked like he was hammering at something. When he reached back I saw that there was blood all over his jumper. I shouted at him to stop and started running towards him. When the man saw me coming towards him he quickly closed the back of the car, then jumped into the driver's side and drove off. He was moving so fast that he knocked the hat from his head. I noticed that his hair was a different colour from his beard. His hair was grey and his beard, as I mentioned, was red.

I continued running towards the car, thinking that it might get stuck in traffic, but the man was lucky. He slipped into the traffic and pulled away before I got to him. Undeterred I ran back into the park, found Juan Esteban and told him what had happened. He got his truck and we drove around the park a couple of times to see if we could spot the mystery man but he was well gone.

At 1.33 p.m. I called the police and told them what had happened. I know this is the time I called because it is recorded in my cell-phone. The police told me to stay where I was and arrived about a half-hour later...".