I apologize to my old friends for this repeat, but for any new friends who come along I wanted to share this incredible story with them. Not that it's incredible 'cause I wrote it, but that it's incredible 'cause it's true. Think of it if you ever happen to have the opportunity to be on a jury and all that's facin' you is circumstantial evidence....
As you all know, I drive a big rig, and thru the end evers of my hard work I meet lots of, shall we say... interestin' folk. I have a regular drive-by acquaintance who has had the opportunity to ride with me on more than one occasion. She definitely walks to the beat of a different drum, but not a more genuine person will you meet. The following is a story told to me by her. I will refer to her from here on out as "Drive-by". It is repeated purely for your entertainment value as I found it highly intriguin'. The name of any person mentioned herein is merely for the tellin' of this tale. They are innocent as far as I know and in no way have been connected to the crime at hand.
Okay. Here goes....
Back durin' the Beltway Sniper days "Drive-by" was a cable news network addict. Since 9-11 she rarely changed the channel to even catch her local news. She was on permanent stand-by awaitin' the next big attack. I'm sure this was from a combination of PTSD and OCD, but regardless, the woman spent every waking moment watchin' cable news networks.
She flipped around from CNN to FOX to MSNBC.
On October 11th, 2002 Drive-by was tuned in to MSNBC as they were givin' live coverage of a sniper hit that mornin'. Chris Jansing was on live with the 'manager' of the gas station where this latest attack had occurred. The exchange of the interview was as follows:
CHRIS JANSING: I have on the phone Michael Scenna, he is the manager of the Exxon station where the shooting occured. Michael, thank you for joining us.
MICHAEL SCENNA: Yes, I'm here.
CHRIS JANSING: What can you tell us about what happened this morning, where were you, what, what did you see and hear?
MICHAEL SCENNA: I'm the manager here and I was working when, when, when this all went down this morning, and uh, basically this gentleman, he comes into the store everyday, and he's very well known, and everybody likes him, and it was just horrible to be, um, what had happened to him.
CHRIS JANSING: Did you see anything? Did you hear anything? We know that there has been one guy who works across the street who reported seeing this white van, um, but what did you see?
MICHAEL SCENNA: I saw the man, um, being snowballed by Howard Stern.
Obviously, it was a prank call. How he ever got past the staff at MSNBC to be live on the air is beyond me. It just goes to show you how desperate the competition was to one-up the other. They didn't even take the time to verify this guy was who he said he was.
Regardless, Drive-by was bothered by this whole scene, mainly because she had no idea what the term "snowballed" meant. She is a detective at heart and she began to scour the internet lookin' for a definition or explanation of "snowballed". She looked and she looked and she looked, all to no avail. (BTW, if any of you know exactly what this term means she'd be indebted to you for life. It's been a thorn in her side ever since.) She did, however, luck upon a blog where a poster had commented on the interview with a play by play of what was said. To this day, that post is still there and as proof of the authenticity of this story, here is the web address for it:
http://www.inarguendo.blogspot.com/2002_10_06_inarguendo_archive.html
As Drive-by re-read the words spoken by the prankster, somethin' stuck out to her....the name he had used....Michael Scenna. Now remember, I told you Drive-by was a sleuth through and through and her wheels started spinnin' right about now. Michael Scenna....Michael Scenna...What was the significance of that name?
CHAPTER 2
As I have said, Drive-by polkaed to her own accordion, the likes of which none of us will EVER be able to hear, regrettably so. She had paid painfully close attention to every drip of information regardin' the sniper. She was bankin' on the theory that it was a new form of terrorism bein' played out in our country's capital...or is that capitol? Oh what the hell, you know what I mean. She had written notes on the backs of envelopes, magazines, napkins, ANYTHING that was handy at the time a vital piece of information came across the waves and she kept them all on her bedside table. In her mind, this kept her in control of the situation and it was somethin' she could do to be proactive against the terror that literally kept her a prisoner in her own home, in her own bedroom, in her own bed, in front of the TV, 24/7, watchin' cable news.
As she read the name Michael Scenna a bee started buzzin' in her bonnet. She gathered her bedside notes and laid them out on the bed like a ladder. She purposefully climbed thru the stack a knowin' what she was lookin' for. Ah ha! There it was! The name she had been lookin' for. "Was it Michael Scenna?" you ask. Well no, it wasn't. It was Michael's Craft Store. "Now what in tarnation does one have to do with the other?" you ask me, and to that my only reply is... "polka".
By this time Drive-by had a "wanted" poster of the twisted perp in her mind's eye that was drawn in great detail by the numerous "experts" framed within her boob tube. They theorized and hypothesized and espoused that the sniper, without a doubt, had to be a white, middle-aged male with military experience, possibly former CIA. They went on to say that by this time (11 shootings had occurred with 8 deaths) the killer would most likely try to insinuate himself into the investigation by either callin' in a tip or hangin' around the crime scene, etc. He was smart. He was calculatin'. He was sadistic.
Drive-by was now beginnin' to formulate a theory of her own. She drug out her road maps and pulled up her Yahoo and began to plot. By the time she was done she had drawn out every major road in the tri-state area. And even though she never so much as set a foot East of the Mississippi 'ceptin for that one trip to New York, she now knew the Beltway like the back of her hand so's she could navigate it blindfolded at rush hour if she had to. Now, the only thing left for her to do was to test her theory out. Would it fly or would it flop?
CHAPTER 3
Could he be so brazen? So bold? Was the fiend attemptin' to nationally reveal himself under the cloak of his own name, all the while thumbin' his nose at the fuzz and G-men? Really, if you thought about it, it was flippin' brilliant! What better way for a disgruntled ex-goverment, possibly CIA employee to get revenge upon his malevolent peers than to make them all look like fools?
Drive-by's heart was beatin faster than a bee's wings and her stomach was boilin' up a brew. She marked them off one by one.
Scene #1 - 13850 Georgia Ave., Aspen Hill, Maryland. The exact location: Michael's Craft Store.
Scene #2 - 2201 Randolph Road, Wheaton, Maryland. The nearest Michae'ls Craft Store was 2.8 miles at a straight shot.
Scene #3 - 11411 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland. The nearest Michael's Craft Store is 1509 Rockville Pike, 2.2 miles at a straight shot.
Scene #4 - The intersection of Aspen Hill Rd. and Connecticut Ave., Aspen Hill, Maryland. The nearest Michael's Craft Store is 0.1 mile at 13850 Georgia Ave, just around the corner.
Scene #5 - 3701 Rossmoor Blvd., Silver Spring, Maryland. The nearest Michael's Craft Store is 1.6 miles at a straight shot.
Scene #6 - This shootin' did not support her theory.
Scene #7 - This shootin' did not support her theory.
Scene #8 - The exact location was Michael's Craft Store in Fredericksburg, Virginia.
Scene #9 - The location was Bowie Middle School in Maryland. At the time Drive-by believes there was a Michael's Craft Store within a mile of the school. The current data from Michael's shows a store within 2 miles, just across the interstate from the school.
***It should be noted that by this time, according to news reports, employees of Michael's Craft Stores were floodin' the tip lines wonderin' if the shooter could be a disgruntled ex-employee of Michael's.***
Scene #10 - 7203 Sudley Road in Manassis, Virginia. The nearest Michael's Craft Store is 0.9 mile at a straight shot up the road.
Scene #11 - This shootin' did not support her theory.
Scene #11 brought her back to the present day, October 11th, and she sat back and surveilled the roads and dots and notes before her. It was an awesome amount of information. I figure Drive-by had more data compiled on her Vellux comforter than Chief Moose ever had lyin' on his desk.
Now, what to do....what to do? She felt she needed another shootin' for confirmation before feelin' confident enough to call the police. At this point they'd just write her off as a crazy loon, and she was right. Hell, it turned out even the dayum snipers couldn't get thru on the tip line for bein' written off as crazies. They got hung up on twice.
Yes, Drive-by had to sit back, be patient and wait....
CHAPTER 4
In case any of you out there are still cogitatin' as to what, exactly, Drive-by's theory was, I'll elaborate. Drive-by had summized that the sniper had placed himself directly underneath the noses of the Feds. He was so close, in fact, that had they only inhaled they would have smelled the audacity emanatin' from his egotistical pores. He had wittingly outed himself on national television under the guise of anonymity. No prankster would call in a prank usin' their real name....or would they? As I said, if you thought about it long enough you'd soon see the genius of it all. The sniper had gotten himself on TV talkin' about his very own doin's, usin' his own VERY REAL name, and mockin every single one of them and his victim, all under the supposition of pretense. (Did I just say that? I hope you all know what it means cause it came across about as clear as mud to me.)
And if all of that wasn't a bag of bubble gum and a pack of candy cigarettes, then hear this. She had also deduced that he, Michael, was leavin' a flashin' neon sign at every crime scene pointin' right at him, all to the unawares of the cops.
But as I said, she would wait with clammy hands and baited (anchovies to be exact) breath until the next shootin'. By her calculations she had narrowed down the possibilities of the next crime scene to three locations and if he struck at any one of 'em she was dialin' the fuzz.
As some of you may or may not know, Drive-by didn't have to wait for long. It was a mere three days later and the sniper had struck again. This time his victim was an FBI agent in the parkin' lot of The Home Depot in Church Falls, Virginia. "And where," might you ask, "would the nearest Michael's Craft Store be?" "Well," I'd say, "right next door, of course!"
This was it. The turnin' point. Drive-by knew what she had to do. She had to call the tip line. She gathered her papers together and organized them by date and then went to Yahoo to print out the page that had started this snowball a rollin' in the first place. But by now, you see, Drive-by had been so overwhelmed with the drama that she no longer remembered exactly how this had all began. But YOU remember, don't you..."snowballed".
When she had first stumbled upon the transcript "snowballed" was the word she had put in the search box that led her to find it, however, this time she would not. (Not not find it, but not use that word.)
Now I realize some of you are thinkin' right this very minute that Drive-by was off her rocker. But I have to say that up until this point in the story I viewed her as walkin' a thin line between genius and insanity and I couldn't quite make up my mind which way she was leanin'. But the events to follow would make me a believer and I do believe that I heard an accordion a playin' in the distance, if only for a short while...
You see, for some reason it had never popped into Drive-by's noggin to do a name search for a Michael Scenna. She had been so entangled in the mappin' and the waitin' that it had never crossed her mind. As fate would have it, instead of typin' in "snowballed" to find her site she typed in the name "Michael Scenna". As expected, the blog site popped up awaitin' her mouse's click when Drive-by's eye was drawn to the link below.
It was a web site by the name of namebase.org. Now for those of you who don't know what namebase.org is, let me give you the run down/low-down/pertinent info...Namebase.org is a website that contains a " cumulative index of books and clippings containing citations to names of individuals and groups involving :
-assassinations, organized crime, and scandals
-Wall Street and transnational corporations
-foreign policy and media establishments
-political elites from the Right and Left
-Cold War history and intelligence
My understandin' is that it is funded and ran by a group known as Public Information Research, Inc. and basically their goal is to make everythin' that is "classified" unclassified. Anythin' they can or have gotten their hands on they make public.
Drive-by's mouse clicked away in a flash. She tore at her hair and prayed it wasn't an outdated cache and then what to her wonderin' eyes did appear.... You're thinkin' what, a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer?
Helllll no!
It was that name again, only it read as follows:
SCENNA MICHAEL A
Tanzania 1974-1976 Belgium 1978-1983
Anti-CIA Club of Diplomats.Spooks in U.S. Foreign Service. 1983 (8)
Ray,E... Dirty Work 2. 1979 (456-7)
State Dept. Biographic Register. 1977
Win Magazine 1976-06-17 (6)
In case you don't understand what all this means, once more, I'll explain. What this information was sayin' is that Michael A. Scenna had served in Tanzania from '74 to 76 and in Belgium from '78 to '83 as a spook. In English...he was a CIA officer.
Needless to say, Drive-by's jaw had hit the floor upon readin' same. Her hands were shakin' and her mouth had gone dry and she was thiiiiiiiis close to peein' her pants. This was just too much. Too much! She immediately did a People Search and no longer to her surprise, she found a Michael Scenna, middle-aged, living very near to the Washington DC Metropolitan area.
So, now we know the followin':
A Michael Scenna phoned in a prank to MSNBC regardin' a sniper shootin'.
Several of the shootin's had been at a Michael's Craft Store, and all were relatively close in distance to a Michael's Craft Store.
A Michael Scenna had served as a CIA officer in the 70's and 80's. He was now middle-aged and would be presumably retired.
A Michael Scenna lived near the Washington area.
Drive-by sucked in a deep breath and dialed the numbers. It goes without sayin' that she was scared crapless and the hairs were standin' up on her head. It was 2:30 a.m. Eastern time. Hopefully they weren't too busy to answer her call. A man's voice was heard on the other line and Drive-by let it all out in one super sonic, run-on, never takin' a breath sentence. When she had spat it all out she came to a screachin' halt, a waitin' for what was to come next. She expected humiliation but all she heard was silence. Then a man's voice nicely asked her if she would mind holdin' on for a minute.
They put her on hold! Drive-by stood there and shook like a stop sign in the winds of a hurricane. They left her on hold for at least five minutes, I'm sure all the while settin' up their tape recorders and tracin' the call. When he came back on line he asked her to repeat everythin' she'd just said, only a little slower this time. She recounted her story just like I've told you. They thanked her, took her name, number and address and bid her adieu.
Now Drive-by was just waitin' for the news to announce the arrest of one Michael Scenna. And she waited...and she waited...and she waited. Until one day the story broke that the sniper, no, make that the SNIPERS, had been arrested and neither of them were white or ex-CIA or had the name of Michael.
I must say for the longest time Drive-by believed it all to be a cover-up. That the government had orchestrated the arrest of these two men to cover-up their own stupidity of not knowin' who the real sniper was bein' he had said his name on national TV and ever' crime scene was pointin' to the name "Michael". Had they arrested her man and her story got out as to how SHE 'solved' the Beltway Sniper case a lot of heads would roll and no one was willin' to take the fall for justice. Instead, they created a big fat cover-up. It was....a conspiracy.
The years have passed and Drive-by reluctantly accepts that it was all circumstantial evidence and her theory was the victim of coincidence...and the fact that Michael's Craft Stores in the East are like hookers in Vegas...one on every corner. Probably the only thing her hardwork earned her was a case of paranoia....and a place for her name on a government watchlist for conspiracy theorists.
