WASHINGTON, Oct. 23 (UPI) -- The sniper terrorizing the Washington area reportedly complained of six failed attempts to get through to "incompetent" police on their hot line to the public in a handwritten letter found at the scene of Saturday's shooting in Ashland, Va.
The letter also warned of the need for more "body bags" unless a ransom was paid in a matter of days, The Washington Post reported Wednesday, citing law enforcement sources. Authorities confirmed the letter, at least three pages long, demanded up to $10 million in ransom.
The letter listed six calls that had been "ignored" by operators answering phones at the command center in Rockville, Md., the Montgomery County police station and the FBI. It even named some of the people who had taken his calls, the newspaper said.
They had hung up, and "five people had to die" because of it, the Post reported. "Your children are not safe anywhere at anytime," says a postscript to the note.
The letter was found wrapped in plastic in the woods behind a Ponderosa restaurant in Ashland. The letter was neatly printed on lined paper and included several grammatical errors, sentence fragments and misspellings, the report said.
The victim of the Ashland shooting, a 37-year-old man from Melbourne, Florida, was in critical but stable condition at the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond.
The person or people behind the attacks apparently contacted police investigators again on Tuesday, but Montgomery County Police Chief Charles Moose did not disclose the content or means of that contact, except to say investigators were formulating a response.
Late Tuesday, Moose made a brief televised appeal for communication from the sniper, saying: "We are waiting to hear from you."
Moose said authorities want the sniper to call them at the same number they believe he has used before so that arrangements can be made for a private 800-number, private post office box or other secure method of communication.
Authorities have not yet connected Tuesday's death of bus driver Conrad Johnson, 35, to the sniper attacks that have killed nine people and wounded three others in Maryland, Virginia and Washington. Johnson was killed in Aspen Hill, Md., close to the scenes of several of the previous sniper attacks.
