Майкл Коннелли - Fair Warning

The federal agent said the motive for the killing plan was Walling’s part in the Shrike case. Walling, a former FBI profiler, consulted with FairWarning on its investigation into the deaths of several women across the country who died at the hands of a killer who broke their necks in a brutal manner. The FairWarning investigation revealed that the women were targeted because of a specific DNA pattern they shared. All had submitted their DNA to GT23, a popular genetic-analytics provider. Their anonymized DNA was then sold in the secondary market to a genetic-research lab, which in turn provided it to the operators of a dark-web site that catered to men wishing to hurt and take sexual advantage of women.

The website has since been shuttered. The Shrike has not been identified or captured. In the weeks since the killing spree was revealed by FairWarning, he has become celebrated in online forums catering to the “incel” subculture. The male-dominated movement — named for a contraction of “involuntary celibate” — is characterized online by postings involving misogyny, feelings of entitlement to sex, and the endorsement of violence against women. Several physical attacks on women across the country have been ascribed by authorities to incels.

Metz said that a study of Felder’s social-media history revealed that in recent weeks he had made several posts on various incel forums praising and revering the Shrike and the violence he committed against women. He ended most of these posts with #theydeservedit, according to Metz.

“We have no doubt that this guy came out here to abduct Ms. Walling as some kind of homage to the Shrike,” Metz said. “We are lucky that she wasn’t hurt.”

Walling declined to comment. It was, in fact, Walling who saved her own life. In a Sherman Oaks restaurant, Walling

noticed Felder watching her and acting suspiciously. She contacted the FBI and a plan was quickly formulated to determine if Felder was stalking her. Under FBI surveillance Walling left the restaurant and drove to a predetermined spot on Tyrone Avenue.

Metz said that Felder followed them in his car and drove into an FBI vehicle trap. When he was told to step out of the car with his hands visible, he complied. But then for unknown reasons, he reached to his beltline and pulled free a .45 caliber pistol. He was fired upon when he raised the weapon into firing position.

“He gave us no choice,” said Metz, who was on the scene during the shooting but did not fire himself.

There were seven other agents on the scene and four of them fired at Felder. Metz said the shooting will be investigated by the bureau’s Office of Professional Responsibility and the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Metz, the assistant special agent in charge of the Los Angeles Field Office, said he was concerned Felder’s activities could inspire others in the incel community to act out in the same way. He said efforts are being made to safeguard Walling and others involved in the Shrike case.

Meantime, Metz acknowledged that efforts to identify the Shrike and bring about his arrest continue, but frustrations mount with each passing day.

“We are not going to be able to breathe easy until this guy is in custody,” he said. “We need to find him.”

We gathered at Sun Ray Studios on Cahuenga Boulevard to record the last episode of the podcast on the Shrike. The last, that is, until there was some sort of break in the case worthy of a new episode. I had gone through seventeen episodes. I had discussed the story from every conceivable angle and had interviewed every person associated with the case who was willing to go on the record and be taped. This even included an interview with Gwyneth Rice in her hospital room, her voice now an eerie electronic creation manifested from her laptop.

This last episode was a heavily promoted live discussion with as many of the players in the case as I could bring together. The studio had a round table in the recording room. It was Rachel Walling, Metz from the FBI, Detective Ruiz from the Anaheim Police Department, Myron Levin from FairWarning, and Hervé Gaspar, the lawyer who had represented Jessica Kelley, the victim in the William Orton case. I had never been able to figure out whether Ruiz or Gaspar had been my Deep Throat source. Both had denied it. But Gaspar had eagerly accepted the invitation to be part of the podcast, while Ruiz had to be cajoled. That tipped my guess toward Gaspar. He relished the secret part he had played in the case.

Lastly, we had Emily Atwater on the phone, calling in from her unknown spot in England and ready to answer questions as well.

We had calls on hold before the scheduled hour even began. This did not surprise me. The podcast had steadily grown an audience. More than half a million people had already listened to the prior week’s episode, when the live event was announced.

We gathered around the table, and Ray Stallings, the engineer and owner of the studio, handed out headsets and checked and adjusted the microphones.

The moment was awkward for me. It had been almost three months since Robinson Felder’s attempted abduction. In that time, I had only seen Rachel once and that was when she had come to my apartment to collect some clothes she had left there.

We were no longer seeing each other, despite my apologizing and taking back the accusation I had made against her on that last night. As she had warned, my accusation ruined everything. We were now finished. Getting her to appear on the final podcast took an email lobbying campaign that was a digital version of begging and groveling. I could have easily proceeded without her on the episode, but I hoped that getting her into the same room with me might spark something or at least give me the chance to once more confess my sins and seek forgiveness and understanding.

It wasn’t a complete shutdown of communications because we were still inextricably bound together by the Shrike. She was my source. She had access to Metz and the FBI investigation; I had access to her. Though we communicated by email only, it was still communication, and more than once I had tried to engage her in a discussion outside the bounds of the source/reporter relationship. But she had thwarted and deflected such efforts, with the request that we keep things on a professional level from now on.

I watched her as Ray positioned the microphone in front of her lips and had her say her name a few times while he checked the sound levels. She avoided eye contact with me the whole time. Looking back, I was as mystified by this turn of events as by anything else that had occurred in the case. I could not figure out what I had or didn’t have inside me that would lead me to doubt a sure thing and look for the cracks in its foundation.

Once we went live, I began with the scripted intro I used at the start of every episode of the podcast:

“Death is my beat. I make my living from it. I forge my professional reputation on it... I’m Jack McEvoy and this is Murder Beat, the true-crime podcast that takes you beyond the headlines and on the trail of a killer with the investigators on the case.

“This episode wraps up our first season with a live discussion featuring the investigators, attorneys, and journalists who all played a part in exposing and hunting a serial killer known as the Shrike...”

And so it went. I introduced the panel members and started taking listener questions. Most of them were routine softballs. I acted as moderator and chose which participant to throw each question to. Everybody had been prepped beforehand to keep their answers short and precise. The shorter the answer, the more questions we could get to. I directed more than an equal share to Rachel, thinking that somehow it was like engaging her in conversation. But it felt hollow and embarrassing after a while.