there was no evidence of a long-term relationship with a female. Most of the relationships, if not all, appeared to have been platonic. Women were the key to James Kopp’s future, Fitzgerald was convinced that if he were to communicate with anyone while on the run, either for shelter or to resume his sniper campaign, it would definitely be a woman, somewhere.
There was a list of activists who had joined Kopp at protests in Vermont. An FBI agent had titled one document, “Vermont Rescuers—February 21, 1990 to May 9, 1990,” and included addresses. There were several women on the list. Agents had already located a few of them. But there was one who had not yet been found. Her name was Loretta Marra. Agents had discovered, among Kopp’s possessions in James Gannon’s attic, a magazine with abortion clinic bomber Dennis Malvasi’s mailing address on it. Malvasi was known by the authorities to be married to Loretta. She had been photographed under surveillance at Malvasi’s Brooklyn apartment back in October 1997. But she had since fallen off the radar. Perhaps Kopp would try to contact her.
Chapter 13 ~ On the Lam
After leaving New Jersey, Jennifer Rock and Jim Kopp drove for more than 30 hours, taking turns at the wheel, sleeping in the car. Jim altered his appearance on the road, bleached his hair blond to match the photo on the fake West Virginia driver’s license. There were long stretches where Jim said nothing at all to her. “The government has done this,” she said. “Set you up.”
Jim nodded and said nothing.
“I’ll never be able to see my family again,” he finally said. It is 1,986 miles from Newark to the Mexican border at Laredo, Texas. They crossed the border, parked near an airport. The thin blond man got out of the car and disappeared. On November 8, Rock drove back into the United States and headed north. When she returned to New York she dialed a pager number belonging to a “John Rizzo.”
The next day, FBI special agent Walter Steffens Jr. searched a lot in a truck stop campground in Kent County, Delaware. The lot belonged to a man named Javier Hernandez, who had bought it from James Kopp. Kopp had owned the property for three years, but his name did not appear on the deed. The land included a trailer and camper top. Steffens talked to neighbors who said they recalled Kopp living in the trailer about a year and a half before. He searched the camper and found a priority mail envelope containing an updated resume for Kopp, detailing his work history through April 1993. And he found a permit in the name of Dwight Hanson for use of the Elkneck Shooting Range, located about an hour’s drive away. There were four newsletters from another shooting range nearby, the Delmarva Sportsman Association, addressed to Kevin James Gavin at a Maryland post office box. Steffens visited the post office box and found another shooting range permit. Back at the FBI lab, the documents were dusted for fingerprints. The prints on the papers matched each other. They also matched fingerprints on file for James Charles Kopp.
That same day, agents searched the house at 1073 Buck Hollow Road, Fairfax, Vermont. It was a house belonging to a relative of Jennifer Rock. On Wednesday, November 11, agents again searched James Gannon’s home in Whiting, New Jersey. They seized four boxes containing papers, maps, computer disks, books, notebooks, an address book. There was an envelope addressed to Jack Crotty, c/o Doris and Scott, Pittsburgh.
“Who owns these boxes?” an agent asked Gannon.
“I don’t know,” was Gannon’s answer.
The contents were sealed and sent to the FBI office in Buffalo. Among the contents, an agent found a hand- drawn map. The map was dusted for prints. Also, on a torn piece of paper, the address 4990 Lebanon Road. The agent flipped the paper over, and saw on the other side a notation reading, “A to Z 883-9945.” The phone number was for the 615 area code, Old Hickory, a town near Nashville.
Soon after that, a man nattily dressed in a dark suit walked through the door of the A-Z Pawn Shop in Old Hickory. He stopped at the counter and looked at Patricia Osbourne, who was working the store that day.
“I’m John Eastes. I’m a special agent with the FBI’s field office in Nashville.” He asked to see Osbourne’s books. They went to the back of the store, and he began silently leafing through the pages.
“What are you looking for?” she asked. Eastes was the first agent to visit the store, but Osbourne would meet more in the weeks to come. They combed through the books, took materials away, brought them back. There had apparently been no gun purchase at the A-Z Pawn Shop by anyone named James C. Kopp.
FBI Special Agent Larry Wack learned from agents in Newark, New Jersey, of another address where Kopp had lived as late as the previous September under the alias Clyde Svenson. On the night of November 12, agents visited a three-storey, redbrick apartment on Communipaw Avenue in Jersey City. The agents moved to the back of the building, then up the stairs to a unit on the second floor, and knocked on the unfinished wooden door of number 346, the home of Seth Grodofsky. “Last time I saw Clyde was two weeks ago,” said Grodofsky.
“Where is he now?”
“I think he’s doing contracting work in New York.” The agents asked more questions. It seemed Clyde Svenson also
kept some belongings down by the docks along the Hudson River, down on Warren Street. The agents asked to search the apartment. Grodofsky refused. They would need a warrant. One of the agents left. The others stayed overnight, making sure no potential evidence was disturbed during the wait for a court to issue the warrant.
Meanwhile, more agents headed to Warren Street, on the water, Slip No. 7. They seized three sealed cardboard boxes belonging to Clyde Svenson. One contained a computer, monitor, printer, accessories. Another held a large vinyl travel bag containing a typewriter, book, lantern. Another box had books, computer disks, software guides. Among the loose papers was a Bell Atlantic phone bill and a New York Police Department traffic ticket for New York plate number BPE 216.
Warrant in hand, agents searched Grodofsky’s apartment the next afternoon. They found a padlocked maroon toolbox that had “Job Box” written on it. They cracked the lock. The box contained a hand plane, staple gun, electrical tape, heat gun and other tools. Agents also collected clothes, bedding, a plastic mug, church newsletters, duct tape, two small flashlights, a movie stub, a bottle of sauce, a photo of the Pope, travel brochures, a toothbrush and, in the bedroom, a bottle for holy water. Special Agent Barry Lee Bush looked in the closet. He stood on a chair to check the top shelf, spotted a notebook. He opened the book and saw a notation: “716 Barnet 834-6796, Amherst.” The notebook was sent to a lab for prints and analysis. The phone number was for Dr. Barnett Slepian’s office in Amherst, New York.
The same day, agents searched 1073 Buckhollow Road, Fairfax, Vermont, home of Grace R. Rock. They seized one Smith & Wesson handgun, two empty magazines, two boxes of cartridges.
On Thursday, November 19, agents visited Loretta Marra’s last-known address: 12 Indian Trail, West Milford, New Jersey. One of Loretta’s three brothers, Nicholas Marra, answered the door. “I haven’t seen Loretta. Not since the summertime,” he said.
“Is that unusual?”
“No. She’s like a vagabond, you know? No fixed address. I wouldn’t know how to get in touch with her if I tried. But we don’t talk much. Some of the family relationships are a little strained.” The agents interviewed another brother, Joseph. He said he didn’t get along well with his siblings—Loretta, Nick or Bill. “They have this fervent religious zeal on the abortion issue. Comes from my parents. They forced their opinions on the four kids. Loretta? No, haven’t been in touch with her in a long time.”
The FBI next located and interviewed Jennifer Rock, having tracked her license plate and studied her recent phone and banking records. Her calling card record indicated a call had been placed to 914-844-7355 on November 4 at 6:36 a.m. It was a pager number Kopp had given out to several people, including his sister Anne.
“Did you recently take a trip to Mexico, the agents asked?”
“Yes,” she said.
“When did you come back to the United States?”
“On November 4. At Laredo.”
Wrong answer. She couldn’t have crossed back from Mexico that day. Phone records placed her at work, an
