The sniper’s bizarre demand for $10 million may not be a genuine bid to fill his pockets – just another way to torment cops, an expert said.
“It sounds ludicrous to ask for $10 million. There’s no way he’s going to get that; that’s why I think it may be baloney,” criminologist Dr. N.G. Berrill, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told The Post last night.
Berrill would not dismiss the possibility the messages were left by someone other than the sniper who was somehow able to gain access to crime scenes.
“Part of me is wondering if any of this is real,” he said. But if the notes were the product of the mad gunman, “he’s playing around with everybody.
“I can’t believe at this point he really thinks he’s going to get some money out of this,” Berrill said.
He said there have been serial killers who have written public manifestos – notably Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, who forced authorities to publish his lengthy screed.
But Berrill said he’s never seen a killer go to such lengths to bait cops with bizarre demands and props such as tarot cards.
“It doesn’t hold together very well. I’m sure a lot of people on TV are talking about his grandiosity … but I can’t believe that he’d be that silly,” he said.
But, Berrill cautioned, his apparent game-playing clearly doesn’t diminish the threat the sniper poses.
And he takes very seriously the threat that “your children are not safe.”
Berrill agrees, “Nobody is safe – he could strike anywhere.”