Murder spelled out

Abigail Goodman, Las Vegas Sun

Sunday, May 7, 2006 | 9:05 a.m.

FBI behavioral analysts are examining an anonymous letter mailed from Las Vegas on Jan. 23 by an author who claims he was paid to commit the 2001 murder of Seattle federal prosecutor Thomas Wales. The letter, sent to the Seattle FBI more than four years after Wales' death, was likely written by someone connected to the killing, according to analysts, who say both letter and envelope reveal clues about the unknown author.

The letter was postmarked Las Vegas and mailed without signature to the FBI on Jan. 23, its anonymous author claiming he had been paid to murder Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Wales in his Seattle home more than four years ago.

The letter, according to FBI profilers, is a sign that somewhere, someone connected to the crime is getting nervous - but not in Las Vegas.

Special agents from the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit in Quantico, Va., say that mentioning Las Vegas twice in the letter suggests the author - identified only as "Gidget," with a dead-end West Charleston return address - is double-dealing, hoping a false Las Vegas front will send investigators down the wrong rabbit holes.

"Our opinion is that this individual is not living in Las Vegas now and was not living in Las Vegas at the time the murder was committed," in October 2001, says Special Agent Shawn VanSlyke, lead behaviorist studying the anonymous letter.

It seems more likely that the author either traveled to Las Vegas to mail the typewritten letter or had someone mail it from here, VanSlyke says.

The first theory fits nicely with a recent Seattle Times report, which cited unnamed sources close to the investigation, that a Washington airline pilot and long-standing suspect in the unsolved murder was in Las Vegas days before the letter was mailed.

A spokesman from the Seattle FBI field office refused to comment on the reports or the suspected pilot. Behaviorists in Quantico also declined to comment, saying only that whoever "Gidget" may be, he - or she - is trying to think tactically.

"It's definitely something someone gave thought to," VanSlyke says. "The author had a purpose in mind when they wrote it."

In the letter, the writer says he was hired by a "nice-talking lady" to shoot Wales, then traveled from Las Vegas to Seattle with his own money to "avoid an audit trail." He claims that he waited in Wales' back yard until he spotted the federal prosecutor through a window, fired his gun and watched Wales collapse. He then "dropped off the gun, found my money and returned to Vegas."

A team of about 10 FBI behaviorists read and re-read the letter, VanSlyke combing over it at least 40 times. The scenario presented - a hit man takes on a job for a client sight unseen, spends his own money to get to Seattle, finds a gun and receives payment only after the work is done - struck the profilers as highly unrealistic, but very likely crafted by someone connected to the crime.

"We have serious doubts about the veracity of the information in the letter," VanSlyke says. "What you have is someone who is really trying. It's an anonymous letter trying to present an image (of himself) other than the true image."

By putting blame on a Las Vegas hit man, the author attempts to thwart investigators, VanSlyke says. False-blame mailings are so common to criminal investigations that FBI behaviorists have a name for them - Post Office Manipulation of Investigation Communications, or POMIC.

Those letters are typically written by someone connected to the crime in question and often are prompted by media attention or publicized breaks in a case, he says. The Las Vegas letter, seemingly coming out of thin air, leads agents to believe "Gidget" may be worried that authorities are closing in.

"The timing of the letter was very unusual," VanSlyke says. "It would mean to us that there is some sort of stressor the author is feeling, some sort of pressure related to the investigation. That pressure is only known to the author."

Choppy sentences and an overall "staccato" ring to the letter, not unlike a detective novel, may be evidence of the writer attempting to create a believable hit-man persona from things he has seen or read, VanSlyke says.

Trying to sound like someone else, however, the author inevitably reveals something of himself or herself.

Profilers believe the name Gidget, a presumed reference to a 1960s TV show and movie, is significant to the letter writer, who includes it unnecessarily and perhaps has used the term in another context, past or present.

The author's mention of an "audit trail" also stood out to behaviorists, who found the term and concept unusually advanced for an otherwise unsophisticated letter and possibly indicative of the writer having a business or accounting background, VanSlyke says.

The handwritten envelope and typed enclosure could mean the author felt an urgency to send the letter and couldn't wait to configure a printer for the envelope, agents say. The same discrepancy could mean the letter and envelope were composed at different times, or passed between different people.

The letter struck behaviorists as grammatically sound and written in business style, indicating the author is probably educated . He never includes information sensitive to the case, instead painting a scenario with information easily gleaned from media accounts of the murder, which have often pointed to Wales' work as an anti-gun activist and federal prosecutor as possible motivation for the murder.

The letter ends with remorse profilers call unconvincing: "I feel bad about it," the letter reads, "but I needed the money, and there were no witnesses."

The author wasn't writing to clear his or her conscience, VanSlyke says, though why a person would write at all, from Las Vegas, more than four years after the fact, is an answer that FBI analysts can't fish from think tanks alone.

"We hope that someone out there may recognize some feature of this letter or envelope and provide what may be the final piece of information we need to make an arrest," he says.

The Department of Justice is offering a $1 million reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person, or persons, responsible for Wales' death - wherever they may be.