Terrorist hunter: Montana judge, mother of 3 an unexpected patriotEDITOR'S NOTE: This is the first of a five-part series. The next installment will run Aug. 12.
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By Alfred Lubrano
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McClatchy-Tribune
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McClatchy-Tribune - Shannen Rossmiller walks to the Federal Courthouse in Scranton, Penn., on July 10. Shannen is a federal witness in the trial against Curtis Reynolds, a Wilkes-Barre man who plotted to blow up the Alaska pipeline. |
Michael Curtis Reynolds, a failure from Wilkes-Barre, Pa., leaves Room 205 of the Thunderbird Hotel in Pocatello, in December 2005 and heads for a rest stop on a remote stretch of I-15. His agenda for the day is to pick up a bag of money from al-Qaida so he can destroy America. A belligerent drifter who once tried to blow up his parents, Reynolds, 47, is a regular in the Osama bin Laden Crew chat room searching for jihadists to help him cripple the U.S. economy. Reynolds has made contact with a self-described Islamic extremist who says he'll pay Reynolds $40,000 for his scheme to blow up U.S. energy pipelines. Hurricane Katrina taught Reynolds that disruption of oil hurts America. And in that chaos, he believes, lies opportunity. - Shannen Rossmiller spends Sept. 11, 2001, frozen in front of the TV in her Montana home. "Oh, my God," she tells her husband, Randy. "They're going to need thousands of body bags. This doesn't seem possible. It's so surreal." Randy had never seen his wife so tense. "We can't do anything about it, Shannen," Randy says. "Just take a Jacuzzi or something." Rossmiller, a municipal judge in a small town, complies, but the hot water doesn't help. Still shaken, she steps out of the tub and slips. She lies on the cold white tile, staring at the two towels on the rack, willing them to fall and cover her in case one of her three kids comes in. She can't get her legs to work. Calling for help, she waits until Randy finally runs in and carries her upstairs. But it is agony. She has broken her pelvis. Rossmiller spends the next six weeks in bed, becoming "radicalized." Fox News, MSNBC, CNN -- they saturate her brain. For reasons she cannot articulate, Rossmiller immerses herself in all things Arabic, studying the culture and learning the language. It's as if a powerful force has taken hold of her, compelling her to think about Sept. 11 and little else, save for the spasming pain. "I can't figure it out," she thinks. "Is this post-traumatic stress? It's more than passion. It's anger. This is the ugliest, darkest thing I've ever seen." - Rossmiller projects a down-to-earth style, from her deferential politeness to her attire -- flip-flops and jeans. If you didn't know she's a mom, a wheat farmer's daughter and a former cheerleader, you might guess. But if you think that's all she is, you misread her entirely. Breaking her pelvis is the first in a string of events that will lead Rossmiller, now 38, to become a highly valued al-Qaida hunter who works with the FBI in an extraordinary partnership to expose terrorists, domestic and foreign. Recently, the FBI publicly acknowledged her efforts. But much of Rossmiller's work is considered confidential, and federal law enforcement officials will not comment about it. Other law enforcement officials say Rossmiller has received death threats, and they monitor her to try to keep her safe. In 2001, though, Rossmiller is only beginning to understand how terrorism works. One of the first lessons she learns is that many Arab extremists connect on the Web. With the help of a translation program, she reads the Web sites and postings in Arabic chat rooms. Slowly weeding out the pompous and the blowhards, she homes in on radical Islamists who sound dangerous -- though she learns to turn down the sound on the beheadings. Rossmiller can't sleep much. Never could, really. So her post-Sept. 11 routine is to wake at about 3 a.m. and monitor extremists. Now moving around on a four-post cane, Rossmiller feels more capable, more daring. She wants to participate. Her plan is to break through the wall of anonymity that the Internet provides and interact with jihadists. She knows she can't communicate as a woman, let alone an American. "Women in extremist cultures are lower than the family goat," she says. So Rossmiller invents a persona, a young radical bent on the destruction of the United States. In early winter, she posts some rudimentary Arabic online, basic "Death to America" cheerleading. And waits. No one bites. "Come on, Shannen, you look like an idiot out there," she tells herself. "Get it right." Rossmiller studied criminal law at the University of Montana at Missoula, then became a municipal judge in Montana, where sitting on the bench doesn't require a law degree. She had a reputation for being tough, even fining her father for speeding. One day on the bench, she has an epiphany: The criminal mind-set is like jihadi thinking. It makes sense. The toughest people in court are in for assault, fueled by drugs and alcohol. The jihadists are like those assailants, Rossmiller decides. Their intoxicant isn't crystal meth but fundamentalist Islam, a perversion of the Muslim religion. Believing in the wisdom of the law, she locks up bad guys, then goes home and sleeps well. For a couple of hours. - It's 3 a.m., early May 2002. By now, she is continuing physical therapy, but she's done with the pain pills and the cane. The jihadists, though, have become central in her life. "Go on, I dare you," she murmurs as she finds her way to a new Web site, The Arab Castle. "OK," she says. "Watch this." "Death to America," she types in Arabic, a phrase now as familiar as "Good morning." It has been eight months since Sept. 11, and Rossmiller is well on her way toward completing online Arabic courses from the Arab Academy in Cairo and from the State University of New York at Buffalo. She waits for a reply. An answer comes quickly enough: "I wish someone would blow up the American base in Afghanistan," a person writes in Arabic. No one corrects her, which must mean Rossmiller has said it right, in the right spot. She's elated. Having digested a clutch of Arab novels, Rossmiller uses the devices of fiction to invent characters she can be on the Web. She researches mosques in Jordan and Pakistan to learn their street locations and the names of their imams. This way, she can make authentic references during online chats. To her uncomfortable surprise, Rossmiller discovers that impersonating extremists is getting easier. "That's a little scary," she says to herself. "What's inside me that lets me do this?" "I have Stingers to sell," a Jordanian writes to Rossmiller in July 2002. He says he has gotten them from a source in Pakistan. Rossmiller stares at the computer screen. She reads everything about the Middle East, and she knows from old news reports that the United States sent Stingers to Pakistan in 1987. "You are an infidel undercover," Rossmiller berates the man, hurling one of the worst insults in radical Islam. "You have no missiles." The man bites: "I do, I do" -- then types the serial numbers. Rossmiller can't believe it. Excited, she goes on an FBI tip site and writes what just transpired. Soon, an FBI agent for the Joint Terrorism Task Force in New Jersey calls, demanding to know how Rossmiller got such information. He keeps her on the phone, grilling her, she thinks, as if she's a terrorist. - On a frigid morning in November 2005, Rossmiller boots up her computer. It's 4:30 a.m., and she's awake. She pops open a Diet Coke. Around the desk are the bric-a-brac of a patriot: World War I and II posters. A Betsy Ross collectible plate. Inspirational quotes. And toilet paper with Osama bin Laden's face on it. "Wipe here," it says. Rossmiller takes a run through the Osama bin Laden Crew chat room to see what the jihadists are up to. A posting jumps out at her like a mountain lion. Every e-mail here is in Arabic. This one's in English. "If any real member of the OBL crew is reading these," Michael Curtis Reynolds writes, "E-mail me."
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