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FINDERS AND THE CIA CONNECTION? ARE THE CIA INVOLVED IN CHILD ABDUCTION?
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*The Washington Post*
Saturday February 7, 1987
*Officials Describe 'Cult Rituals' in Child Abuse Case Photos of Youngsters
Seized At D.C. Warehouse, Probers Say
Authorities investigating the alleged abuse of six children found with two
men in a Tallahassee, Fla., park discovered material yesterday in the
Washington area that they say points to a 1960's style commune called the
Finders, described in a court document as a "cult" that allegedly conducted
"brainwashing" and used children "in rituals."
D. C. police, who searched a Northeast Washington warehouse linked to the
group removed large plastic bags filled with color slides, photographs and
photographic contact sheets. Some photos visible through a bag carried from
the warehouse at 1307 Fourth St. NE were wallet-sized pictures of children,
similar to school photos, and some were of naked children.
D.C. police sources said some of the items seized yesterday showed pictures
of children engaged in what appeared to be "cult rituals." Officials of the
U.S. Customs Service, called in to aid in the investigation, said that the
material seized yesterday includes photos showing children involved in
bloodletting ceremonies of animals and one photograph of a child in chains.
Customs officials said they were looking into whether a child pornography
operation was being conducted.
According to court documents, computers and software were seized from the
warehouse, from a Glover Park apartment building and from a van that was
recovered in Tallahassee along with the children.
Yesterday's disclosures about the mysterious group grew out of an
investigation that was set in motion Wednesday by an anonymous call to
Tallahassee police about two "well-dressed men" who were "supervising" six
dishevelled children in a neighborhood park. The men were arrested and
charged with child abuse, according to Tallahassee police.
Their links to the D.C. area have led authorities into a far-reaching
investigation that includes the Finders - a group of about 40 people that
court documents allege is led by a man named Marion Pettie - and their
various homes, including the duplex apartment building in Glover Park, the
Northeast Washington warehouse and a 90 acre farm in rural Madison County,
Va.
Tallahassee police, who arrested and charged men identified as Douglas E.
Ammerman and Michael Houlihan with child abuse, contacted D.C. police
Thursday in an attempt to establish the identities of the children. They
learned that D.C. police had heard of the Finders group, according to
Tallahassee police spokesman Scott Hunt. No other member of the group had
been located last night, police sources said.
According to U.S. District Court records in Washington, a confidential police
source had previously told authorities that the Finders were "a cult" that
conducted "brainwashing" techniques at the warehouse and the Glover Park
duplex at 3918 20W. St. NW. This source told of being recruited by the
Finders with promises of "financial reward and sexual gratification" and of
being invited by one member to "explore" satanism with them, according to the
documents.
According to the affidavit the source told authorities that children were
used in "rituals" by the members, and though the source had never witnessed
abuse of the children, the source said the children's grandparents feared for
their safety.
On Dec. 15, a D.C. police detective observed a clearing in the area of the
3900 block W. St. NW where "several round stones had been gathered" near a
circle, as well as evidence that people had gathered there, according to the
document, which stated that "this practice is sometimes used in satanic
rituals."
Armed with that information and the report from Talahassee police of the
allegedly abused children, D.C. police sought search warrants for the Glover
Park residence and the warehouse.
Meanwhile, authorities in Florida attempted to learn more about the six small
children, described by a police spokesman as "hungry and..pretty pathetic"
who had set the investigation in motion.
The children, identified in a court document only by the first names of
Honeybee, John Franklin, Bee Bee, Max and Mary, were described as "dirty
unkept, hungry, disturbed and agitated". They had been living in the rear of
the van for some time, the document said. Yesterday, police spokesman Hunt
said one of the children, a 6 yr. old girl "showed signs of sexual abuse" but
that an examination by a local doctor showed none of the children as being
ill.
Five of the children were uncommunicative, according to police, and none
seemed to recognize objects such as typewriters and staplers. However, the
oldest was able to give investigators some information. She said that the two
men "were their teachers," according to Hunt. She was not sure where they had
been recently or where they were going. But until recently, they had been
living in the District in "a house with other children and adults." They
lived mainly on a diet of raw fruit and vegetables, she said.
The girl told the police that while they were in the District, the children
received instruction from "a man they called a Game Caller or a Game Leader,"
according to Hunt.
According to the D.C. court document, a Tallahassee police investigator
identified this man as Marion Pettie, who the confidential police source
"also identified as the Stroller, leader of this 'cult.'" The children have
been placed in emergency shelters in Tallahassee, according to Merril Moody
of the Florida Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services. He said
officials were trying to identify them.
Neighbors of the W Street house last night identified the photographs of two
of the children as residents of the house. Before their arrests in the park,
Ammerman and Houlihan had told police that they were teachers from Washington
"transporting these children to Mexico and a school for brilliant children,"
according to Hunt. When police asked the men where the children's mothers
where they said they were being weaned from their mothers.
Yesterday, U.S. Attorney Joseph E. diGenova said that authorities were
investigating "the crime of kidnapping" but that the investigation "is not
limited to that as the evidence evolves."
George Wisnowsky, spokesman for the FBI in Jacksonville, said the FBI was
"checking the transportation of children across state lines for immoral
purposes or kidnapping."
Authorities in Florida, who searched the van, found 20 floppy computer discs
and a device Hunt said could be used to hook into a computer in another
location by telephone. He said D.C. police have obtained evidence that a
computer linked to the group received a call from Tallahassee late this week.
Meanwhile, authorities in Washington were busy searching the warehouse and
the Glover Park residence, side-by-side brick apartment buildings that,
according to neighbors, stood out in the neighborhood because of a hot tub
and satellite dish on the roof. Only women and children lived there, though
men visited regularly, according to neighbors.
One woman from the neighborhood said the children from the house were "easy
to spot because they were so dirty," adding that adults with them "seemed not
to care." She said the group from the house reminded her of "leftover
hippies." But another neighbor, college professor John Matthews, who said he
had lived at 3918 W St. for a short time while looking for an apartment, said
the residents were "a close-knit group" of feminists who liked to help people
and were not a cult. "The neighborhood talks about them because of their life
style," Matthews said.
The Fourth Street warehouse, which authorities said also was used as a
residence, had windows that were boarded shut. One wall was covered with a
huge map of the world, lit by floodlights. Upstairs, mattresses were flung on
the floors of various rooms.
Staff writers Joseph E. Bouchard, Ed Bruske, Mary Thonton, John Harris and
Linda Wheeler contributed to this report.
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(Seven years later...)
*U.S. News & World Report*,
Dec. 27, 1993/Jan 3. 1994
Through a glass, very darkly Cops, spies and a very odd investigation
The case is almost seven years old now, but matters surrounding a mysterious
group known as the Finders keep growing curiouser and curiouser.
In early February 1987, an anonymous tipster in Tallahasse, Fla, made a phone
call to police. Two "well dressed men" seemed to be "supervising" six
dishevelled and hungry children in a local park, the caller said. The cops
went after the case like bloodhounds, at least at first. The two men were
identified as members of the Finders. They were charged with child abuse in
Florida. In Washington, D.C. police and U.S. Customs Service agents raided a
duplex apartment building and a warehouse connected to the group. Among the
evidence seized - detailed instructions on obtaining children for unknown
purposes and several photographs of nude children.
According to a Customs Service memorandum obtained by U.S. News, one photo
appeared "to accent the child's genitals". The more the police learned about
the Finders, the more bizarre they seemed: There were suggestions of child
abuse, Satanism, dealing in pornography and ritualistic animal slaughter.
None of the allegations was ever proved, however. The child abuse charges
against the two men in Tallahassee were dropped; all six of the children were
eventually returned to their mothers, though in the case of two, conditions
were attached by a court. In Washington, D.C. police began backing away from
the Finders investigation. The groups practices, the police said, were
eccentric - not illegal.
QUESTIONS. Today, things appear to have changed yet again. The Justice
Department has begun a new investigation into the Finders and into the
group's activities. It is also reviewing the 1987 investigation into the
group to determine whether that probe was closed improperly. Justice
officials will not elaborate, except to say the investigation is "ongoing"
and that it involves "unresolved matters" in relation to the Finders.
One of the unresolved questions involves allegations that the Finders are
somehow linked to the Central Intelligence Agency. Custom Service documents
reveal that in 1987, when Customs agents sought to examine the evidence
gathered by Washington, D.C. police, they were told that the Finders
investigation "had become an internal matter."
The police report on the case had been classified secret. Even now,
Tallahassee police complain about the handling of the Finders investigation
by D.C. police. "They dropped this case, one Tallahasse investigator says,
"like a hot rock." D.C. police will not comment on the matter. As for the
CIA, ranking officials describe allegation about links between the
intelligence agency and the Finders as "hogwash" perhaps the result of a
simple mix up with D.C. police. The only connection, according to the CIA: A
firm that provided computer training to CIA officers also employed several
members of the Finders.
The many unanswered questions about the Finders case now have Democratic Rep.
Charlie Rose of North Carolina, chairman of the House Administration
Committee, and Florida's Rep. Tom Lewis, a Republican, more than a little
exercised. "Could our own government have something to do with this Finders
organization and turned their backs on these children? That's what all the
evidence points to," says Lewis. "And there is a lot of evidence. I can tell
you this: We've got a lot of people scrambling, and that wouldn't be
happening if there was nothing here."
Perhaps. But the Finders say there is nothing there - at least nothing
illegal. The Finders have never been involved in child abuse, pornography,
Satanism, animal slaughter or anything of the kind, says the group's leader,
Marion David Pettie. Pettie, too, says the group has never been connected to
the CIA. In an interview with U.S. News, Pettie described the Finders as a
communal, holistic-living and learning arrangement. The group numbers some 20
members, Pettie says; they do freelance journalism, research and "competitor
intelligence" for a variety of mostly foreign clients. The Finders work for
no foreign governments, Pettie says. Their duplex, in a residential Northwest
Washington neighborhood, is decorated with global maps and bulletin boards.
Residents in Culpepper, Va., 90 minutes from Washington, say the Finders
operated an office there, too, from time to time. That office contained
computer terminals and clocks reflecting different time zones from around the
world.
CIA officials say they referred all matters concerning the Finders and the
police investigation to the FBI's Foreign Counterintelligence Division. FBI
officials will not comment. Law enforcement sources say some of the Finders
are listed in the FBI's classified counterintelligence files.
None of this fazes Pettie. He says the CIA's interest in the Finders may stem
from the fact that his late wife once worked for the agency and that his son
worked for a CIA proprietary firm, Air America. Overall, says Pettie, "we're
a zero security threat. When you don't do much of anything, and you don't
explain, people start rumors about you." To judge from the latest case, some
of the rumors can last an awfully long time.
By Gordon Witkin and Peter Cary with Ancel Martinez
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