Director of homeless shelter called FBI about sniper suspect

Knight Ridder Newspapers

BELLINGHAM, Wash. -- When a man named Muhammad, who had checked into a Bellingham, Wash., homeless shelter shortly before the Sept. 11 attacks, started getting calls from his travel agent, the shelter's director grew suspicious.

"Our people don't get calls from travel agents," the Rev. Al Archer said on Friday. Most of his guests are indigent street people. So in the tense atmosphere after Sept. 11, Archer phoned the FBI to report on his guest.

But agents didn't follow up.

One year later, the same man leaped into public view when he was arrested this week as the suspected Washington, D.C.-area sniper. There is no hard evidence tying John A. Muhammad to al-Qaida or any other terrorist organization.

Ray Lauer, spokesman for FBI Seattle field office, would not comment on any tips, but said the office received thousands of leads and focused on those that were specific. "We have to pick and choose what people we have to investigate," he said.

Muhammad arrived at the Lighthouse Mission on Aug. 6, 2001, with two children, according to shelter officials. At the time, Muhammad was battling his ex-wife in court for custody of their three elementary-school-age children.

Sometime later, John Lee Malvo, the teenager arrested with him this week, also moved into the shelter.

On Aug. 31, 2001, Bellingham police seized the children, and they were eventually returned to their mother.

Meanwhile, Muhammad had attracted the attention of the shelter director, the Rev. Al Archer, because he took trips.

"I don't fault them at all," Archer said of the FBI. "They probably wouldn't have had anything to go with."