Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, January 6, 1995 TAG: 9501060099
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: BOSTON LENGTH: Medium
He drove more than 500 miles, bypassing 180 abortion clinics, before zeroing in on one of the few open on New Year's Eve - a clinic long the target of radical anti-abortion activists.
He was marginally employed and failed to pick up his last paycheck. Yet when he was arrested, police found more than $1,000 in cash on him.
He is described as a disturbed loner, an outsider to the anti-abortion movement. Yet police reportedly found a receipt from a Massachusetts anti-abortion group and the name and number of a Virginia activist who has advocated the killing of abortion doctors.
While anti-abortion groups deny any connection to John C. Salvi III - who is charged with killing two women at two Massachusetts abortion clinics and shooting up a third clinic in Norfolk, Va. - the investigation has raised suspicions of a conspiracy.
``Why he went to Norfolk is a key aspect of the investigation,'' a senior federal official in Washington said on condition of anonymity.
Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority Foundation, which advises abortion clinics on security, said Salvi passed more than 180 clinics on his way to Virginia. She said only a half-dozen of those clinics were open on Saturday.
``He not only found a clinic open on New Year's Eve, but he found one with an anti-abortion demonstration going on, attended by people who advocate violence against doctors,'' she said. ``It could be by chance, but it strains credibility.''
Salvi was put on a plane to Massachusetts on Thursday after Virginia officials held off prosecuting him in the attack on Norfolk's Hillcrest Clinic.
Salvi faces two state murder charges in the Dec. 30 attack on two Brookline, Mass., abortion clinics that left two women dead and five wounded.
In addition to the murder charges, a grand jury in Boston indicted him Wednesday on two federal firearms charges carrying penalties of up to 10 years in prison each.
On Thursday, Salvi's attorney released a six-page statement that talked of persecution against Catholics, urged the Church to institute its own welfare system and listed a menu of jail food he said was tainted.
Salvi, 22, has been portrayed as a rabid opponent of abortion with no links to the anti-abortion movement.
But when arrested by Virginia authorities, Salvi had $1,277.04 in his pocket. Investigators who searched his truck found anti-abortion literature, four highway maps and a receipt from ``Mass. Citizens in Life.''
Also, the FBI told Norma Aresti, director of the Summit Health Center in Hartford, Conn., that her abortion clinic was on a list found in Salvi's possession. The clinic, another target of anti-abortion protesters, had increased security after the Massachusetts attacks and was open Saturday.
Frances Hogan, executive vice president of Massachusetts Citizens for Life, the state's largest anti-abortion group, said she had no idea what the receipt may be.
``We have looked this fellow up on our records and we don't have him as a donor and we do not have him as a member,'' she said.
The Boston Globe reported Thursday that a police search of Salvi's Hampton, N.H., apartment turned up the name and number of Donald Spitz, director of Pro-Life Virginia, an anti-abortion group that has tried to close the Norfolk clinic.
Spitz said Thursday that he never heard of Salvi before last week. He also questioned if the name and number found in Salvi's apartment was printed on anti-abortion literature.
``There is no conspiracy,'' he said. ``It's a fabrication of the pro-abort mind, and the Justice Department is chomping at the bit to do their bidding.''
by CNB