|
||||||||
  |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Police careful not to raise false hopes
(CNN) -- Results from tests to determine whether a bullet shell casing found inside a white box truck is linked to the Washington-area sniper will not be released until Monday at the earliest, according to the Montgomery County police chief. CNN's Ed Lavandera and Carol Costello are on the scene at the Montgomery County police headquarters and filed this report: LAVANDERA: The latest development in this case came out late Friday. COSTELLO: Yes. Apparently an employee at a car rental place near Dulles Airport around 3:30 in the afternoon was cleaning out the truck and he found a shell casing. And it was a white box-type truck. So he put two and two together and called police. So police came out, they took the truck away and they're combing it for evidence. And the shell casing is at the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms labs here in Rockville, Maryland. LAVANDERA: So they'll do all those tests like they have in the cases before this. And quite frankly, the information on the ballistics has been coming back relatively quickly, I think a sign of just how intensive this investigation is. COSTELLO: Yes, I was just thinking about that, because wouldn't you know immediately if that shell casing came from a .223 bullet or a .222 bullet? LAVANDERA: I think you have to go through all the hoops and do those tests. COSTELLO: And they're being very careful about all information they release, of course, because, well, for obvious reasons. They don't want to give people false hope. And speaking of false hope, let's talk about this Matthew Dowdy, the 37-year-old man from Falls Church, Virginia, who was charged officially yesterday (Friday) with giving false information to police. LAVANDERA: And, you know, I think people here are still trying to figure out how this could have happened, why it happened. I was at that shooting scene on Monday night and, you know, quite frankly, I think it has to bother a lot of these investigators. Because investigators were leaving the scene talking amongst each other about really good witnesses this time and that perhaps this would be some sort of break. COSTELLO: Now, 37-year-old Matthew M. Dowdy -- police say -- lied about some very important details. He claimed that he saw the sniper, that he saw a weapon, that he saw an Astro van that was cream colored and police actually put out a description of that cream colored Astro van. And that's what made them so upset, because it really misled the public. And they really want the correct information coming in. LAVANDERA: And I think it struck a lot of fear into people, because the description that he gave was that he was underneath that parking lot that night. And, of course, these shootings happened at a much greater distance. So when we were out there, we were all trying to figure out where this shooter could have been at that time and we didn't know if he was on Route 50 there or across the street at the school parking lot. But when the description came out that he was actually underneath that parking lot, that was a much more disturbing picture, I think, for a lot of people. COSTELLO: And actually Matthew Dowdy was supposedly inside the Home Depot when FBI analyst Linda Franklin was shot and killed. He didn't see one single thing. What do we know about Matthew Dowdy? We know that he's been in jail before for minor offenses. Do we know anything else about him? LAVANDERA: I know some CNN reporters who have been hearing throughout the week that perhaps it was either the fame, the 15 minutes of fame, or, you know, obviously there's reward money in this case and perhaps that might drive people to say things that they shouldn't necessarily be saying. COSTELLO: Well, we do know that Matthew Dowdy is in jail right now. He appeared before a magistrate yesterday. They denied him bail. He's facing a second class misdemeanor. And if he's convicted of this he could spend about six months in jail and be fined $1,000.
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
