- Interview with Shannen Rossmiller
LISTEN TO AUDIO
An Unexpected Patriot
Page: 3 of 3 View All
After the conviction, trials just beginning
Michael Curtis Reynolds walks among them carrying a very different inventory: road flares, shotgun shells, speaker wire, batteries, superglue.
Contact staff writer Alfred Lubrano
Noticing the items on the shelves, he then reports back to his al-Qaeda operative on the Web, really FBI special agent Mark Seyler, Rossmiller's contact at the bureau. On Nov. 9, Rossmiller informed Seyler about Reynolds, and since early December the agent has been communicating with him in her stead.
In an e-mail Dec. 3, Reynolds tells Seyler where the bomb-making ingredients can be found. And he shows how to make claymores - a type of mine - with drawings. A heading over one bomb drawing says, "placement on [gas] well heads."
Reynolds' hard drive stores the information, along with an article titled, "How Can I Train Myself For Jihad?"
Pumped full of lead
Determined not to be victimized, Rossmiller buys a .38-caliber handgun.It's a pretty little thing, she says, a Lady Smith, with a rosewood handle. I like it. But my computer is my Kalashnikov.
And she's at war. Every morning at 3.
Eventually, for some unknown reason, the sense of menace abates. The air around Rossmiller is not as charged.
The Rossmillers institute a weekly electronic darts game in their house for diversion. Things are quiet for a while.
Then one night as the family sleeps, somebody breaks into the house, swipes Rossmiller's keys, opens the garage, and drives off with her Victory Red 2001 Pontiac Grand Prix GTP, with leather seats and a Bose stereo system.
It's found the next day, embedded in mud near a reservoir 35 miles south. The car has been shot full of .38-caliber bullets. The cops never find a suspect.
The day of the theft, one of the officers pulls her aside and asks: "Do you have any enemies?"
To read the first two articles
in this series, visit http://go.philly.com/rossmiller
Contact staff writer Alfred Lubrano
at 215-854-4969 or alubrano@phillynews.com.
Tomorrow
An ominous Christmas "bonus."
