Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Cold case heats up! Who killed federal prosecutor Tom Wales?

Episode Date: May 7, 2018

Sixteen years after a federal prosecutor is assassinated, his killer is still free and unknown, but podcast series by two former CNN journalists has put heat under the cold case. Nancy Grace explores the murder of Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Wales with "Somebody Somewhere" podcast host David Payne and producer Jody Gottlieb, forensics expert Joseph Scott Morgan, and Crime Stories co-host Alan Duke. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Truthfinder. Truthfinder may reveal court records, bankruptcies, contact information, social, dating profiles, assets, and a lot more. You get it all in one easy-to-read report. Why fork out thousands of dollars to a private eye when you can do the job yourself? Go to truthfinder.com slash Nancy and enter any name to get started. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace on Sirius XM Triumph, Channel 132. Investigators say they are closer to solving the mystery of who murdered a federal prosecutor more than 16 years ago. On a chilly October night in 2001, Tom Wales was home sitting in his basement office when a gunman shot multiple rounds through the window. Officials believe there are people who know critical information that could help solve the case. Tom Wales was targeted, some say,

because of his job. And if that is true, he would be the first and only U.S. attorney killed in the line of duty. The killer is still at large. and the case was recently the subject of a five-part podcast. They say it was the perfect murder, but I'm not buying it. Investigators aren't buying it either. Why is a state's prosecutor, a U.S. attorney no less, in the same sentence with murder. What does anything have to do with the firing of that U.S. attorney? He wasn't even supposed to be home that night. Why? Why does he end up dead? I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us with an urgent report and an urgent story. With me, two very special guests, David Payne and Jody Gottlieb here to help us as we try and solve this mystery. They also have their own podcast delving into the murder of a well-respected prosecutor, a federal prosecutor, Tom Wells. Also with me, forensics expert Joseph Scott Morgan, professor of forensics at Jacksonville State University, and of course, Alan the Duke, Duke,

joining me in LA. First, to my longtime colleagues, David Payne and Jody Gottlieb. First to you, Jody, explain to me why you are drawn to the murder of a federal prosecutor. I think one of the reasons is I have a history of producing content that busts bad actors engaging in bad behavior. And so I really couldn't believe after 16 years that this case had not been solved. It's one of the highest profile cases in the DOJ, Department of Justice. And, you know, it's been 16 plus years. And I still today remain baffled that this case has not been solved. You know, this is a guy who was not afraid of putting in long, long hours in the pursuit of justice. And, man, I know how that feels, David Payne.

I remember as a prosecutor, I would beat the street all week. And I remember I could not afford a good coat. And a lot of times I would be out in my little $99 coat that I got, I don't know where, JCPenney's, I don't know. And working cases, trying to find witnesses, and all weekends I would hole up in the law library at the courthouse. And I remember looking out the window over the city of Atlanta and thinking, the defense attorney's kicked back somewhere right now having a beer, watching a football game. I'm going to get it over on him.

And that would give me the strength to just keep researching and keep researching the law to make my legal arguments to win in order to get evidence in a trial before the jury. It's always 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration. When you win a case, this guy would often work late at night pursuing justice. I'm talking about a murdered prosecutor, Tom Wells. David Payne, my also longtime colleague. David, what drew you to the murder of this stand-up guy? Well, I saw in him a lot of what I see in myself. I mean, he was a, I was a former federal prosecutor as well, just share that same pedigree with you. And he was 49 years old. As you mentioned, he was sitting at home at 1040 at night in his house

on Queen Anne Hill in Seattle. He was doing emails and somebody walked up to his window and shot him through the daylight basement window. And that case remains unsolved. So when when you looked at it and when Jody and I started looking to find a cold case out here in Seattle, this was an obvious one for both of us to gravitate towards. You know, we don't really hear a lot about who Tom was as a person. They used to drive me crazy, David, that the jury would kind of get to know the defendant sitting there in court. He'd look all pitiful and he'd be well groomed and looking sharp, sitting with a fleet of defense lawyers. When I knew he's a thug, a killer, a dope dealer, or whatever he was, the jury would never know that. But I could never

bring in a photo or recollections of the murdered victim. They could never get to know the victim because that would be inadmissible in a court of law because it has no bearing on the murder. So they never get to know the victim. But in this case, tell me about Tom David. Who was Tom Wells? Well, like everybody, he's a complicated human being. And when we started looking into this case for our podcast, and we did a 10-month investigation on this particular case. Oh, and I love the name of your podcast, Somebody Somewhere.

Man, that's an awesome name because we always say that. Somebody Somewhere knows who did this. that's an awesome name because we always say that somebody somewhere knows who did this. That is an awesome name. So go ahead. So Tom Wales, by all accounts, was, as you said, kind of a stand up guy, stand up prosecutor. He was a father of two kids. He was divorced, but very recently divorced. And by all accounts, it was an amical divorce from his wife. His wife had come out of the closet a couple of years before. They shared the home that he lived in, the one that he was killed in on that fateful night in 2001. He was somebody who was a little bit of an Atticus Finch in the community. There was a local

high school. Oh, wait, now you're really speaking to my heart because as a little girl, my sister would bring home her school books. She's almost four years older than me. And I would finish my work. I would grab her stuff and run off with it. Well, particularly not her math work or science, forget about that. I take her books. And when she was assigned to Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, as soon as she put it down, I ran off with it. So I guess, say, maybe in the third or fourth grade, I read To Kill a Mockingbird. And Atticus Finch became my hero.

And then many years later, after my fiance was murdered, I didn't know what to do. I couldn't be a school teacher anymore. I had to do something. And he really inspired me to go into the law. So you're saying Tom Wells was an Atticus Finch type person. What do you mean by that? He was. He was a very, by all accounts, a very righteous person with a strong sense of justice, almost to a fault. And we talk about that in the podcast. But one example of that is that after there was a local high school shooting, he took up the mantle of gun control here in Seattle. He became the president of a group called Washington Ceasefire. And that's one of the places that investigators look to see whether there was a motive for killing Tom was because of his work on gun control.

So this is way before, you know, the era that we're in right now. He was someone who was really out front and outspoken on that issue. And in an area where, you know, you get a lot of death, a lot of death threats, a lot of blowback from people. You know, just get a lot of death threats, a lot of blowback from people. You know, just hearing that is scary. I remember during certain prosecutions that I handled, I would have to move out of my house. I remember having my back door kicked in, my mailbox destroyed every single day of a particular trial that lasted a long time. I'd get the box back up, and they come and knock it down again, be followed to my car, heckled, blah, blah,

having my car windows beaten in while I was in court. Just a lot happens that people never know about. Guys, I want you to take a listen to this. Good afternoon, everyone. I want to welcome you all to the Tom Wales Conference Room here at the U.S. Attorney's Office. I also want to specially welcome the Deputy Attorney General of the United States, Rod Rosenstein, here to Seattle. The attack on a law enforcement officer is an attack on our entire justice system.

I want to assure you that this murder investigation is very active. The main investigation includes over 2,300 subfiles for specific investigative areas of interest and has generated over 51,000 documents, three times larger than the size of the Enron investigation of the early 2000s. Do you think this case will ever get solved? I hope so, but this is not like a white-collar crime, piecing the documents together case. This is a murder, and murders tend to be solved very quickly or not at all. And the fact that there has been no arrest for 16 years suggests that it won't ever be solved. The 2001 murder of Assistant United States Attorney Tom Wales is both the most complex and simple affair we have ever known. The simple part is this. Someone walked up to his window, shot him twice,

and sped away off Queen Anne Hill in Seattle. But tens of thousands of leads and tens of thousands of man hours later, we have a case file three times the size of one of the largest financial fraud cases in history. And no official answer to the question that started this podcast, who killed Tom Wales? And why haven't they been brought to justice after all these years? Wow, that's a tiny taste of somebody somewhere investigating the murder of a stand-up guy, a federal prosecutor, Tom Wells, murdered as he sits working for you, for the people. With me, two very special guests, David Payne and Jody Gottlieb, who created this podcast, Somebody Somewhere. Let's go to Jody. That night, October 11, He gets home around 7pm.

What happens just before he's murdered? He is working in his he had an office in his basement, and he was sitting at his desk, typing emails that he as he had done almost every night, and he was corresponding with his then girlfriend and about it. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Who's she? Who's the girlfriend? Marlis Dijon. She was a court reporter. And they worked together and they had just started dating. He was newly divorced amicably. And he was typing an email and someone snuck into his backyard and shot him through a daylight basement window somewhere around 1030 to 1050. And then he the perpetrator navigated off through a back alley and on foot and headed down the Queen Anne Hill. Interesting. Joining me, forensics expert Joseph Scott Morgan,

professor of forensics at Jacksonville State University. Joe Scott, thank you for being with us. What forensics can we glean from this kind of shooting? I mean, the perp didn't even come in the home to leave fingerprints or fibers or footprints or soil samples we could get to match up to maybe his driveway or anything. So what do we do to catch the killer that had the gall to gun down a federal prosecutor

who's sitting there at his computer working? Yeah, well, the first thing that we would look at, Nancy, at the scene are considerations. For instance, we're hearing that he was shot through a window, and it's never been actually stated as to whether the window was up or down. If the window was closed, then we would assume that there would be glass fragments. We would look for that. And also outside of the home in the area immediately adjacent to this window, we'd be looking for footprints in the dirt, as well as any kind of other debris that the individual may have left behind.

We're assuming that this is a semi-automatic weapon. It's been stated that it was a.380 Makarov. That means that it would have ejected shell casings. Those would be outside of the window more than likely. And then, of course, that brings us to the rounds that entered his remains, which would have been recovered at autopsy or at the scene if they passed through his body. And those are going to have unique identifiers to them. What do you mean by that? Unique identifiers? Come on, speak. Regular people talk, Joe Scott. Well, we'd be looking for a ballistic fingerprint on the surfaces of these weapons, what we normally refer to as rifling. Nancy, that's the twist that are left behind, the markings from the barrel that are transferred to the soft lead of the bullet that enters the body. Those things are unique to individual weapons.

Nancy, what's fascinating about this case is that the FBI has indeed reported that the gun used was a Makarov. And what's interesting about the rifling characteristics that a Makarov leads is that they are typically what is called four right. So four lands and grooves with a right-handed twist. And in this particular case, the rounds that were found both inside the house and in the body were six left. And so to explain that discrepancy, the FBI concluded that a aftermarket replacement barrel was put on that Makarov. We have some serious doubts about the analysis that was done. And there are a range of weapons that could have been used in this case. You know, we're throwing around the term a Makarov. It's a pistol. It is a Russian

semi-automatic. And it's named Makarov because of Nikolai Makarov. And it is the Soviet Union standard military police sidearm. Now, you often hear nine. You hear a Winchester, you hear a Ruger. You don't really hear Makarov that much. Would you agree with that, David? Absolutely. It's a very odd choice for a murder weapon. And if, in fact, it was shooting a.380 caliber and that Makarov replacement barrel was a 9-millimeter replacement barrel, which is the typical issue, you're shooting an undersized bullet inside that weapon, which is going to make it less powerful. So you have an odd choice of caliber, you have an odd choice of weapon, you'll run into reliability issues with that combination. So the whole configuration just begs a lot of questions. Well, you know, when you hear Makarov, to me, that's a very significant significant clue because I've prosecuted a lot of cases

thousands literally thousands and thousands and I can't really remember the time I saw Makarov being used you know the interesting and I don't want to get too much in gun lore because I don't want my twins around guns I don't want them growing up around guns but guns are out there and that's the reality of our life. The Makarov was actually a result of a contest because the Russians were replacing their standard issue gun and they actually held a contest to get a new gun. And it turned out that's how the Makarov was created. That's the story behind that. Now, interesting also, you were saying something about four to the side. Are you telling me that when a bullet travels down the barrel of a Makarov,

it creates a striation or a mark on the bullet that definitely proves it was a Makarov? Well, that is one of the open questions in this case because a makarov will produce markings that are four uh four right and in this case uh the markings were six left meaning six counterclockwise instead of four clockwise well then why are we saying makarov because that's what the fbi is saying and that is it that is at the heart of the issue here because at some point in this investigation, the FBI learns that the person they believe did it has a Makarov. And really the question, one of the biggest questions that we push on and press on in this case is when did the FBI learn their suspect had a Makarov? Well, it doesn't sound like it matches the bullets. I mean, am I missing something here?

No. So there is one aftermarket barrel that you can put on a Makarov that will leave six left. Now, now you're talking. Okay. Because just then I'm like, I'm sure I don't know more than FBI ballistics experts. So I was trying to reconcile in my mind how in the hay they're getting a Makarov. Yeah, the FBI figured out that there is a way you can retrofit a standard Makarov with a replacement barrel from a company called Federal Arms. It was a Minnesota company. And that company produced only about 3,500 of those barrels. So the FBI has literally spent almost 16 years now trying to track down every one

of those aftermarket barrels across the country, which we find fascinating for a number of reasons. But that's the only way they can get to the conclusion. Can I ask you something? Okay, so you're saying the Fed states a Makarov with this attachment that will produce six striation marks. Guys, I know I'm getting in the weeds on this, but it could be very, very integral to solving the case. So let me ask you, the attachment that results in not four, but six striation markings on the bullet used in a Makarov, what's the purpose of the attachment? What does it do? Why do I want the attachment on my gun? It's less an attachment than it is

the barrel itself. So you essentially open up the gun and replace the tube. But why? Why do I want to do that? There's two reasons you would do it. One is if you got the type of aftermarket barrel that has a threaded end to it, if you wanted to put a silencer on it, for instance. Okay, silencer, never mind, say no more. Yeah, that's it. Wait, but there was a witness that heard this, right? That's right. So there wasn't a silencer. So that's right. So now your other theory would have to be that he replaced the barrel and the gun because it had become corroded. Or he replaced the barrel and the gun because he wanted to be that he replaced the barrel and the gun because it had become corroded or he replaced the barrel and the gun because he wanted to be able to shoot 380 ammunition out of that which

is more common than the standard nine millimeter ammunition there's a brand new website causing a lot of trouble for people with something to hide have you ever had a bad feeling about somebody maybe suspected your partner's cheating? Maybe worried about your online reputation? If you answer yes to any of those questions, you may need Truthfinder. Public records are only recently easily available online. Before websites like Truthfinder, you'd most likely have to visit a courthouse to get that information. Now, it's as simple as entering a name. Truthfinder sifts through millions of public records from all over the country, assembling them into one easy-to-read report. Search the names of somebody you know. You could find criminal and arrest records, bankruptcies, contact information,

social, dating profiles, financial assets, and a lot more. Why fork out thousands to a private investigator when you can do the job yourself? Everybody you know has something to hide. Now you can root out the most dangerous people before you become the next victim. It's not just used to bust bad people. Truthfinder helps Americans reunite with friends, family, even people who served with them in the military. It's never been so easy to find the truth. Go to truthfinder.com slash Nancy and enter any name to get started. We're talking about the assassination, the execution, the murder of a federal prosecutor,

a stand-up guy with children, living life, sitting at his computer minding his own business when he's gunned down in his own home through the window. Now, I can just tell you right now, this was not a domestic dispute. It has no markings of a domestic dispute, and the recently divorced wife has an airtight alibi. It was not her. What does it lead me to believe, based on what I know, that this was an execution, possibly for hire? Listen to this. There is something about this case that sticks in the craw of anybody who looks at it in any depth. And it seems like the only way to get it unstuck, at least if you're a journalist, is to see for yourself what it was about Wales' work as a prosecutor that may have gotten him killed. I've been going through every pleading that has the word whales in it for the past couple days.

Wow. You mean in his work as an AUSA? 18 years. Oh, my God. All the way back. All the way back. Oh, my God. Wow. All the way back. And I'm still trying to find that nugget, too. My review of Tom's caseload would take me about two weeks in total. It is mind-numbing and tedious.

And I feel genuine empathy for the FBI investigators who surely traveled this road before me. I'm looking for evidence for how Tom comported himself, how he managed his caseload with pleas or trials, and how he represented himself. Was he capricious? Vindictive? Look, we've all known them. the arrogant lawyers with some modicum of power. I wanted to make sure I wasn't blaming the victim, but my thinking was this. If Tom was killed in the line of duty, maybe he had done something unusual to instigate it, and that created a motive. Or had he simply poked the wrong bear? Coming through the government databases, I learned a lot about Tom, at least about his job, his career and choices.

Frankly, I wasn't prepared for what I found. Did you get a sense of what and who the real Tom Wales was? Well, yeah, I mean, I had the sense of him as a fine person without enemies in his personal life. But he was also prickly and not a very successful prosecutor. He was someone who took way too long on cases and was not very productive and not the easiest person in the world to get along with. All of which led me to conclude that he was a real human being with the kind of complexity that we all have.

Straight out to Jody, Jody Gottlieb with me with David Payne and Joe Scott Morgan and Alan Deak. We're talking about an awesome podcast. It's called Somebody Somewhere, and we're trying to unravel the murder of a federal prosecutor that remains unsolved. I mean, who's going to put the bad guys in jail if you risk being murdered yourself and they don't even find the killer? Let me ask you something, Jodi, who was that speaking that said this prosecutor was not productive? That was Jeffrey Toobin, CNN analyst and New Yorker author, Jeffrey Toobin. I always find it interesting when journalists make a legal attack on lawyers that are practicing law. I mean, we don't know how when you say a federal prosecutor is, quote, not productive.

Yeah, I think I'll jump in on that as a journalist and a former federal prosecutor, because I was very uncomfortable and the same kind of uncomfort you have until I started delving into the cases. And I felt comfortable putting that interview into the podcast because it corroborated our own review of his cases. So let me give you some data points that I think were really interesting. He was a federal prosecutor for 18 years. He was managing only about eight to 10 cases by the time he was finished. And in the cases that he took to resolution, less than one third of them actually resulted in jail time. So think about that over

an 18 year career. So the cases he was prosecuting, the majority of them were bank teller embezzlement cases involving less than $10,000. They were very minor cases. Why did it take so long? I think were fair things to bring to the surface because we wanted to understand if somebody killed Tom Wales because of his work, what work was it that instigated that? And that's what leads you really to the prime suspect in the case. It is somebody that he prosecuted. It is probably his largest case. And it was being litigated in a post conviction type of way at the time of his murder. So that's why we looked at the cases. Yeah, I agree with you. It's very hard. And it was a very hard thing to do based on what we had learned about him as a person to have that kind of critical analysis of his work.

I especially have a problem with people that have tried very few cases, especially journalists that like to sit back and throw stones at other people about claiming a murder victim was, quote, not productive. I really have a problem with that. Yeah, I think he tried only, Tom Wales tried only one case in 18 years. for some reason, delving into the murder victim's trial record, how many cases he handled, how many he got jail time on, you know, just does that somehow make him less important? Does he really deserve bullets to the head? How do I know what one of his investigations may have touched on?

What Colombian drug lord was connected to a white collar. I mean, I don't know. I don't know what he was doing, but I know this. He's a federal prosecutor that ends up dead. And for other people to sit back and say he was unproductive in their opinion, I don't like that very much. Yeah, it's a fair point. I think the only reason we look at his cases is to try to find the motive

and in so doing instead of taking pot shots at a dead guy what if anything was learned about his cases that could be connected to his murder so he had one big case and it had just been resolved right prior to his murder in the summer before his murder which was in the fall of 2001 and it was this really odd case regarding the retrofitting of military helicopters and this is where you really start getting into the weeds um both tom wales and his fellow prosecutor a guy named bob westinghouse spent three years investigating and indicting four men and their two companies over the retrofitting of two helicopters. Basically taking military Huey helicopters, bolting on civilian parts and then getting airworthiness certificates for those so that they could be used to service government contracts. So for firefighting and things of that nature. That was

the case. And it's even odd trying to explain it. And can you imagine, you know, spending three years on it? So this is where the FBI believes their prime suspect, they believe the motive for the murder lies within this case. And in fact, they have spent 16 years trying to indict and arrest one of the defendants in that helicopter case. The feds come under a lot of fire for the way that the investigation into Tom Wills' murder was handled. Listen to this. Why now? What's different? What's changed? Why now? Well, the answer is this is not something we're doing just today.

This is a persistent effort. We've come together today to talk about this publicly, in part because of the efforts of the National Association of Former U.S. Attorneys. And it's just yet another opportunity for us to alert the public and to encourage people to come forward with any leads. Is there anything else to the timing about this? I mean, there's the podcast about this case that's been getting some attention. No, there's nothing else about the timing.

I did learn about that podcast yesterday, but that had nothing to do with the timing of this event. So, Alan Duke, it always just it's so unfair when a prosecutor is targeted. I recall this. Weigh in, Alan. Alan? Well, the thing that strikes me about this is the implication that for 16 years, this is unsolved. And will it ever be solved? Is there any evidence out there? This podcast, like others that we've dealt with, have uncovered new evidence. And like with Tara Grinstead, that is a good example. The hope is that this podcast could lead to a resolution of this case. I would like to ask David and Jody if they have any hope or expectation

that your podcast is going to make a difference like that. That's a great question, Alan. And we, during the course of the podcast, and I don't want to give any spoilers away, but through our eight, 10 month investigation, we did uncover some new evidence. Um, and we explored, our goal was to explore alternative theories, you know, very early on the FBI had honed in on their, their key suspect. And we felt that maybe at the expense of, um, exploring other alternative theories. So we really went into this to explore what those theories look like. And we believe during the course of our investigation that we have some information that will help create an alternative theory that we'd like explored. I wonder how his children feel about the fact that their father's murder

has never been solved. You know, Joe Scott Morgan, you and I have been involved in a lot, a lot of cases, and I always hate using jailhouse snitches or confidential informants. They can wreck a case, Joe Scott. Yeah, yeah, they can, Nancy. And you have to be very careful in what steps you take moving forward. I got to tell you something that's very troubling to me about this case in general is how muted the Seattle PD is in this whole thing. I am shocked on one level as a, you know, as a former investigator in New Orleans and in Atlanta, that they don't take a big role in a local homicide. And I know that we can hang all the trappings in the world that we want to and say, well, he was a fed. Yeah, he was a fed, but he was a citizen of that town. And that to me is very disturbing. Here we have, you know, what they'd like to say is the gold standard for a criminal investigation organization worldwide. And they've

had this case for 16 years and met with very little success. I'm just very curious as to why it would seem that the Seattle police would back off of this so very quickly. And, you know, you can just look at the articles and see that all of the information, everything from autopsy reports to ballistic reports to this curious thing about the Makarov. And all this stuff is coming to a second hand from someone by the, you know, the likes of Toobin. And it's a real head scratcher to me, you know, just throwing that out there. I agree. And to make matters even more confusing, the fact that the FBI used a confidential informant who himself has come under fire.

Listen to this. I have a prepaid call from Scott Temple, an inmate at a Colorado correctional facility. He was telling me that somebody had wanted Wales dead, and they had hired his street gang to do the job, and he indicated that he was involved in it, and explained that they'd stick him out and shot him through a window of his house, then hauled ass out of town and threw the gun into a river that flows underneath I-5. Just another Wednesday. On the phone talking with a serial killer

about what he told the FBI about Tom Wales' murder. Yes, it's that Scott Lee Kimball, episode three. But before we put this whole saga behind us, we couldn't, of course, leave without asking the biggest open question of all. I guess I should ask you, were you in Seattle in October of 2001? I was in Seattle. That's correct. There was a suggestion that you

may have had something to do with the Wales murder since you were in Seattle at the time. What's your reaction to that? Yeah, I had heard that before, but of course I wasn't involved in it. And of course, we didn't really expect a different answer. Although with Scott Lee Kimball, it's probably hard to ever know what is true. But on one topic, Kimball did make a point that gave us pause. The FBI is like a dog with a bone. Once he gets that idea of that bone in his mouth, you can't get him to look at you. You can't get him to roll over.

You can't get him to sit because he's convinced of that bone. They get something in their mind, and they don't want to be wrong. Nobody wants to admit a mistake. You know what I mean? They got me out of prison to help them, and I killed four people. They had never said that was a mistake on their part. Okay, you heard it from the horse's mouth. This confidential informant that the FBI has used to solve the case, or try to solve it, committed four murders. Hello, we're talking about a serial killer, Scott Lee Kimball.

Okay, but as I've always said many, many times, Jody Gottlieb, with me is Jody Gottlieb and David Payne, who have created an awesome podcast named Somebody Somewhere. Jody, I mean, sometimes you got to go to hell to get the devil, to get the witnesses to put the devil in jail. That's the reality of jailhouse snitches. That's what you have to do to prove a case sometimes. It is. And Nancy, we, you know, we reached out to him in knowing that he's a con man. He has a he's a convicted felon with a long list of crimes, white collar crimes. And while he was out on, you know, out of prison, he went on to kill at least four people that we know of. There could be many, many more. He's one of the most notorious serial killers in Colorado's history. And we felt

it was important that we explore all the options. You know, as we set out to produce this podcast, it was really about following the evidence that we had. It's a federal open cold case. And so, you know, this was the evidence we had. And we spoke to him while he's incarcerated in Colorado. You know, David Payne, it's easy to sit back and take pot shots on why did the feds let him out? He killed four people. Yeah, that's true. What, if anything, did he add to the investigation in Tom Wills' murder? It's a great question. They worked him very hard. They worked him for a significant period of time. They flew him from Denver, where he was being held, to work the lead case investigator. They put him up in hotels and they tried to get him to solicit information from a cellmate of his that he had in Alaska, a guy named Jeremiah. And they never could get a confession out of this Jeremiah, even though they wired up the rooms and and took all this time and effort with this particular case.

But at the end of the day, they could never get any evidence. And ultimately, they washed him out. And they thought he was not, you know, there was nothing fruitful here. So David Payne, Jody Gottlieb with me. Jody, where does a pilot from a commercial airline fit into this scenario? Well, very early on, Nancy, the FBI had identified this the pilot as their key suspect in the case. And we he's in our podcast. We mentioned him. And he had he was characterized as being an odd character and had made threats against local journalists and various people and felt the FBI feels strongly that he is indeed their guy. Wait, does that solve it by saying that?

No. And I think the the way I would characterize it is he was somebody that they logically had to look at. He had made threats against Tom. Tom had prosecuted him right before his murder. He had – this pilot had filed a malicious prosecution case against Tom Wales. He was that angry about him. So he was a logical person for the feds to look at. And they have spent now 16 years trying to put this one guy in the box, I think to thes the question of whether or not they have the right guy. Yeah, you're right about that. Take a listen to this.

Looking at this case with the hindsight of time, it is in fact easy to see how suspicion first came upon and stuck to the pilot. Everyone around Tom knew about this helicopter case, which was so outside the norm of his prior cases, as well as the pilot's public outrage over his prosecution. And Tom was unnerved about it. Here's his friend, Ralph Fasciatelli. Tell me about the last time you saw Tom. A couple weeks after 9-11, Tom and I decided to hike a mountain in the Cascades here called Mount Dickerman. I remember Tom talking about the case he was

prosecuting involving the pilot. And Tom was fearless almost to a fault. But I remember he, I don't think I'd call it fear, but trepidation and grudging respect that the individual had conviction that what he was doing was right and wouldn't let go. I think Tom really didn't know what to make of this guy. He was intelligent. He was dogged. But maybe even a little bit crazy. And I could tell there was something in his voice about it. The way you just described him as somebody not willing to let go is almost

the same way you described Tom. Yeah, I think they were very similar. I mean, you can imagine, you know, two bulldogs on the other side. Did he talk about the case or did he talk about the person? He talked about the person more than anything else. The guy was smart. The guy was willing to put it all on the line for his belief. But I also think he thought the guy was smart. The guy was willing to put it all on the line for his belief. But I also think he thought the guy was capable of doing almost anything. I did sense a certain weariness and trepidation, and he didn't know what to make of the pilot. On the evening of October 11, Tom Wells sitting at his computer at home, at his home office, in his computer at home at his home office in his basement but that basement had daylight windows okay so it wasn't subterranean a gunman manages to somehow avoid the security lights in wells's backyard okay so obviously the place had been cased before the shooting. Gets in the backyard, avoids the security lights, and shoots

Tom in the neck through a window with a handgun. Now, the only thing that makes me think it was not so professional was the killer leaves behind shell casings, and the shots were heard by a neighbor who called 911. Now, the fact that a neighbor heard it shows there was not a silencer. So how professional is that to you, Jodi? Right, and we explored that and feel that it was not a professional who did it. There were a number of casings that were left at the scene. And we explored all the ballistics, the crime scene that we could. You know, it's an open federal case. And the case had been bifurcated between the FBI and the Seattle Police Department, which adds a layer of complexity about who actually owned the crime scene and what it looked like. And so it added a layer of complexity and difficulty to solve it based on the fact that the crime scene was in fact contaminated. Interesting that you think the crime scene was contaminated,

but up to right now, in the last weeks, the FBI has actually stated that, quote, evidence strongly suggesting Wales was murdered by a professional killer. Now, they are just stating it's a professional killer. What, David? Yeah, it's interesting you say that because that's all given on background and through leaks. In the official presentation at the press conference that headlined Rod Rosenstein a couple of weeks ago, they did not provide that information. That information that you're referring to came from a, quote, law enforcement source. And they say and they believe it was a

conspiracy that was connected to the killing. And I don't think they they believe, I think, to give them their fair statement, they believe someone may have been hired or worked with their prime suspect. Professional only in the sense of being paid, but not professional in its execution. Okay. Professional in the sense they were paid, but not so professional in the way the guy was murdered. To Joseph Scott Morgan, truer words were never spoken. I mean, what pro leaves behind shell casings? Yeah, not too many. And it, you know, it sounds, I don't know, going back to what David had said, this bifurcation that's taken place, I've worked on a number of cases involving federal investigators where their interests completely deviate from those of local authorities.

And, you know, the old adage about too many cooks in the kitchen spoil the soup. And the focus is lost. The focus here is simply, very, very simply, a homicide that was committed in Seattle. And it's very easy to get drawn in emotionally and talk about, you know, what a crusader he was and all this sort of thing. There are a lot of other people that die in Seattle as well. At the end of the day, this is a homicide that occurred in Seattle and it should be worked as such. Now it seems like they've got a convoluted mess on their hands. Yeah. I wanted to add also, you know, this case has gone on for 16 years and there's, you know, huge amounts of sub files in this case and information that they've gathered. And I do wonder, even if they were able

to charge someone, whether they would be able to, in fact, get a conviction just based on the amount of evidence that they have. Can I ask one quick question just for clarity? Yeah, I'm very curious. At what point in time and how did the feds go about justifying their taking charge of the case? Is it simply based upon the fact that he is a federal employee or did they put forth the premise that, oh, we think that this is an assassination, ergo, we're going to take over the case. I think that's where I need clarification. I think that probably a lot of people in the audience would like to know that as well. Yeah, you hit the nail on the head. At the beginning of the case, of course, nobody knows

why he was killed. And if he was killed just because it was a random homicide or a personal thing or something related to his work on gun control, that would make it the purview of the Seattle police. The only theory under which the feds take it is if it was related to his casework. So originally what they did, nobody knew and there was wrangling in the case from the very night of the crime and who managed the crime scene. What they eventually did within the first three months of the case was decide to create a task force that was led by the FBI and had a Seattle police detective assigned. But I will tell you that from the Seattle Police Department's point of view, they feel like they were boxed out of that case. Guys, we're talking about the assassination, the murder of a federal prosecutor.

It was huge and horrific news in Seattle where Tom Wales was a very respected and very liked figure. I mean, this is a guy who graduates from law school and has the potential for a very lucrative career, making a lot of money with a New York law firm. But what does he do? He turns his back on that to become a federal prosecutor in the Seattle area. He gives his life to that and ends up dead at his home computer working. The case still unsolved. We are following the podcast Somebody Somewhere because we want answers in the murder of Tom Wells. To David Payne

and Jody Gottlieb who have created Somebody Somewhere. Thank you so much for being with us. Thank you, Nancy. Thanks for having us. Nancy Grace, Crime Stories signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.