B (16:43)
For years, Tom Wales built a reputation inside the U.S. attorney's office as a prosecutor who combed through case files with a magnifying glass. Some colleagues said he was meticulous to the point of being excessive. But to Tom the details mattered. They were the difference between bringing a criminal to justice or letting them run free. And in the mid-90s, there was one case he just couldn't let go. It had to do with military helicopters that were converted into civilian aircrafts. After the Vietnam War, thousands of military helicopters flooded the civilian market. Entrepreneurs bought them for cheap, stripped them down and rebuilt them to sell as passenger aircraft. Legally, they were allowed to do this. They just had to follow the Federal Aviation Administration guidelines, which included getting the aircrafts inspected and certified. But the FAA suspected that some operators were bending the rules or outright ignoring them to get certifications faster and cheaper. A properly converted helicopter could sell for $1.2 million. But every safety issue that had to be addressed cost money, which tipped away at the profits. Cutting corners meant tens of thousands of dollars in the seller's pocket. As long as they didn't get caught. Unfortunately for them, people like Tom Wales were paying attention. Tom teamed up with a colleague from the U.S. attorney's office and a special agent from the FAA. Together, they launched a years long inquiry into helicopter conversions in the region. Most of the people they looked into hadn't done anything too bad. Usually they'd fudge the paperwork a bit, things that could be fixed with fines or warnings. But two men stood out. A pilot named James Anderson and his business partner, Kim Powell. They ran a company called Intrex Helicopter, which they operated out of Powell's home in Seattle. They were in the midst of renovating a single chopper for civilian use. But something was off about their paperwork. To Tom, it looked like they'd used cheap military parts to retrofit the helicopter instead of shelling out for the proper materials. Then they'd forge their records to make it look like they'd done it the right way. Besides being illegal, the way they'd rebuilt the chopper was incredibly dangerous for anyone who tried to fly it. So Tom put together a case, and in 2000, he indicted Anderson and Powell on eight federal charges. These included mail fraud, falsifying records, and conspiracy to defraud the United States. The evidence seemed straightforward. Anderson and Powell had submitted false FAA logs for the helicopter. They'd even signed some of them using the fake signature of a mechanic who died in a plane crash. And in doing all of that, they put lives at risk. After years of piecing it all together, Tom felt confident he had a career making case on his hands. But soon he learned that things don't always go according to plan. In 2001, a year after the indictments, the government's own FAA expert witness abruptly changed his position. The expert now said the helicopter didn't pose any real safety concern. That didn't change the fact that Anderson and Powell had defrauded the government. But without the expert's supporting testimony, Tom's case collapsed. The U.S. attorney's office decided to fine Anderson and Powell rather than chasing a federal conviction. For Tom, it was humiliating. He later called it the most frustrating case of his career. But he had no choice. He had to let them dismiss the charges. Anderson and Powell walked away with a combined fine of $10,000. It was a slap on the wrist after facing serious federal charges, and yet Anderson wasn't happy with the outcome. Within a month, he turned around and sued the state and essentially Tom, to recover his legal fees. He claimed he was owed more than $125,000. He used a law that allowed defendants to get back their legal costs if they could prove the prosecution was baseless. Tom disagreed with Anderson's portrayal of the case. So did the U.S. attorney's office. They argued that Anderson wasn't actually after the money. He just wanted to know who had told the Feds about his operation. But Tom didn't want that information getting out. He and the U.S. attorney's office had spoken with at least two sources who said that Anderson could be violent and vengeful and they were worried Anderson might go after them. In the end, the lawsuit was dismissed and 40 year old Anderson was forced to absorb the full cost of his legal defense. He returned to his job as a pilot for US Airways. He was free, but he had a bitter taste in his mouth. Two years of legal fees, stress and the threat of a felony didn't just evaporate. And it certainly wasn't something he could forget about. Tom, on the other hand, tried to move on outside of work. His personal life was changing. During the helicopter case, Tom's wife Elizabeth came out as a lesbian and they divorced. The separation was amicable and luckily they didn't have to worry about the kids, who were grown adults by then. They agreed that Tom would keep their house in Queen Anne, a nice suburb of Seattle. But Elizabeth would still run her literary agency from the basement office during the day. Meanwhile, Tom had become a well known figure in Seattle. His work with Washington Ceasefire, the state's leading gun safety organization, had thrust him into public debates. He'd spent years advocating for better gun safety laws. He had enemies because of that. But he also had supporters. And in the late spring of 2001, when he delivered a commencement speech at a Seattle community college, both Groups were waiting for him. As he looked out at the audience of hopeful graduates, Tom spoke about fighting for the issues that mattered. He explained that for him, that issue was gun control. He told the students how he had spent the last decade building Washington Ceasefire in into an organization that took on the nra. When Tom left the stage, two mothers came up to him. One slammed him for giving the worst speech she'd ever heard. The other told him it was the best thing he could have said. Tom welcomed both stances. He just wanted people to care. Three months later, Tom's principles were tested. On September 11, 2001, two planes hit the World Trade center in New York City. The entire country reeled from the attacks and the panic led to some hasty new policies. One of the ideas that quickly gained momentum was the possibility of arming commercial airline pilots. To some it felt like a necessary step in preventing future attacks. Tom thought it was a terrible idea. He worried that introducing firearms into cockpits would create more risks, not fewer. His colleagues at Ceasefire agreed with him, but cautioned him to stay quiet. Emotions were raw. The public wasn't ready to hear any arguments against anti terrorism measures. But Tom had never been someone to wait for the right political moment. Not when there was something he cared about on the table. On September 25, just three weeks after 9 11, Tom appeared on the Seattle local news for a half hour debate about arming pilots. He made it clear that adding guns to commercial airlines wasn't the path to safety. He argued that asking pilots to fly planes and act as law enforcement was too much of a burden. It was a bold and controversial move that put him in the spotlight once again. And it seemed like not everyone appreciated his input because 16 days later, Tom Wales would be dead. On October 11, 2001, 49 year old Tom Wales was busy at work. He was drafting a proposal to require background checks at state gun shows. Even in the fog of post 911 politics, when any gun regulation was a non starter, Tom didn't let go of the issues that mattered to him. It was a long day. Tom didn't get back to his home in the Queen Anne neighborhood of Seattle until after 7pm he was supposed to go out to dinner with his girlfriend, 46 year old Marla DeYoung. She was a court reporter he'd been seeing for about a year. But Tom had called earlier to say he needed to cancel. He had some projects to finish at the house. As he walked through the front door, Tom greeted his elderly cat and coaxed her into taking her arthritis medication. Then he went upstairs to prep some drywall that he needed to install on the second floor stairwell. Around 10pm he finally set his tools aside, but he wasn't done with work yet. He went into the kitchen, poured himself a glass of wine, then headed down into the basement office he still shared with his ex wife, Elizabeth. That room was where the magic happened. It was a small space with bookshelves, piles of papers, and a desk in front of a picture window that looked out onto the backyard. Tom had written countless briefs, cranky letters to elected officials, and impassioned fundraising appeals for Ceasefire at that desk. Tonight he was writing one of those appeals. At 10:24pm Tom took a break to send an email to Marlis. It was nothing too wild, just Tom letting her know he was thinking about her. Then he returned to his appeal. Tom had no clue that outside, a dark figure was moving through his backyard. They slipped through the shadows, avoiding the light sensors that would have triggered flood lamps. They positioned themselves where they knew they wouldn't be seen. Then, at approximately 10:40pm the basement window shattered as several gunshots pierced the night. The bullets tore through the glass and struck Tom in the neck, throat and torso. The shooter didn't stick around to see their handiwork. They fled the scene, disappearing into the darkness. Next door, an elderly woman heard the gunfire and called 911. Within minutes, a nearby off duty officer arrived at the scene. He forced his way into the house with backup close behind. In the basement, officers found Tom collapsed beside his desk, alive but unable to speak. He was rushed to Harborview Medical center, the region's top trauma center. Word spread quickly about the shooting. Harborview's waiting room filled with people who knew and loved Tom, friends, colleagues and neighbors who couldn't understand how this happened. Among them were the acting U.S. attorney who lived close enough to have heard the gunshots, Seattle's chief of police, who also lived nearby, and one of Tom's closest friends, Eric Redman, a fellow assistant U.S. attorney. They waited throughout the night, the hours dragging into the early morning. Just before dawn, a surgeon came out to speak with the group. She bowed her head as she broke the news to them. Tom hadn't survived. Tom's death raised an obvious question. Why had someone killed a federal prosecutor in his own home? Was it personal? Was someone angry with him for his gun control activism? Or was it revenge for one of Tom's cases as an assistant U.S. attorney? If it was the latter, it wouldn't just be a tragedy. It would be an unprecedented moment. No federal prosecutor in U.S. history had ever been killed in the line of duty. But figuring out the motivation was important for other reasons, too. If Tom had been murdered because of his role as an assistant U.S. attorney, the investigation would fall under the jurisdiction of the FBI. Be I if the motive stem from his personal life or his political activism, then Seattle police would handle it. The answer would shape everything that came next. In the end, it seemed like his work was probably the reason, which meant the FBI took over the case. But at the time, the Seattle field office was drowning in post 911 counterterrorism work. Priorities had shifted to preventing future attacks. Agents were stretched thin, running on adrenaline and little sleep, chasing down threats that seemed to multiply by the hour. According to multiple sources, the earliest phase of the Tom Wales investigation was disjointed and unfocused without any clear strategy. It didn't help that they had so little to go on. According to one investigator, it was as close to a perfect murder as you could get. There was no DNA anywhere, no footprints, no witnesses. Whoever had pulled the trigger had been careful. The only physical evidence left behind at the scene were the bullets and shell casings. They immediately became the center of the investigation. The first thing the FBI did was send the bullets away for analysis. Ballistics experts at the Washington State crime lab determined that Tom had been killed with three.80 caliber rounds fired from a Makarov semiautomatic pistol. The Makarov was cheap, reliable, and extremely common in the United States, which meant that tracing one particular gun would be almost impossible. But the experts noticed one detail that might be helpful. There were tiny, distinctive markings on the bullets. These weren't from a standard factory issued barrel. They came from a replacement barrel. That wasn't unusual. Most original Makarov barrels wore out over time. But replacement barrels were far less common than the pistols themselves. The FBI tracked down the manufacturer of the replacement barrel. They learned that roughly 2,600 of those barrels had been sold in the U.S. so FBI agents began the painstaking process of tracking each and every one of those barrels down. They worked through purchase records, old addresses, federal firearms licenses, gun show vendors, and anyone who might have touched one of those barrels. It was incredibly slow work, but it was something. While some agents worked the ballistics trail, another team began assembling a list of potential suspects. They cast a wide net. They looked into former girlfriends, strained friendships, and political opponents. They even tracked down a limo driver who Tom had gotten into a minor fender bender with a few months earlier. They scrutinized Tom's role in gun control advocacy and considered whether someone from the pro gun lobby might have targeted him. And of course, they pulled records on every defendant Tom had ever prosecuted. Maybe there was someone out there who blamed Tom for ruining their life. Like the ballistics work, making the list of enemies was an enormous undertaking. The names piled up, every one of them a possibility, however remote, and each one had to be cleared. The agents were looking for a needle in a haystack. There were a million tiny hints pointing in different directions. But there was one person who stood out. Someone who was $125,000 in debt, whose reputation was ruined, and who thought it was all Tom's fault. James Anderson, the pilot who Tom had recently prosecuted. There was no hard evidence linking Anderson to the crime, just a gut feeling that he was involved. But a hunch wouldn't hold up in court, and investigating Anderson was a long and frustrating journey, one where the truth always seemed just out of reach. Thanks so much for listening. I'm Carter Roy and this is True Crime Stories. Come back next time for part two on the murder of Tom Wales and all the people it affected. True Crime Stories is a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios. Here at Crime House, we want to thank each and every one of you for your support. If you like what you heard today, reach out on social media, rimehouse on TikTok and Instagram. Don't forget to rate, review and follow Murder True Crime Stories wherever you get your podcasts, your feedback truly makes a difference. And to enhance your Murder True Crime Stories listening experience, subscribe to Crime House plus on Apple Podcasts. You'll get every episode early and ad free. We'll be back on Thursday. True Crime Stories is hosted by me, Carter Roy, and is a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios. This episode was brought to life by by the Murder True Crime Stories team. Max Cutler, Ron Shapiro, Alex Benedon, Natalie Pertzofsky, Sarah Camp, Alex Burns, Molly Quinlan, Artwick Haniya Said, and Russell Nash. Thank you for listening.
