hundreds of investigators from multiple agencies had swooped in. this was all hands on deck? this became the number one case in the bureau at that time. fbi special agent michael and his partner, lori gibbs, who has since retired. we re coordinating teams from that task force. each team looking into different aspects of the case. we have to look at everything. so you decided to just divvy it up, everyone focus on their individual tasks. right. and some of these teams had 25 to 30 people on them. and there was a team that looked at all of the victims and what they may have had in common. they believe the killing of the da was linked with the shooting of prosecutor mark hasse he back in january. but it was all one big collective hunch. until a tip came through that would confirm the connection. the crime stoppers web based tip line. we get a tip that claims credit for the marchesi murders. it came in eastern sunday night. it began, do we have your full attention now?
my secretary turned around and she was crying. initially, i wanted to comfort. i couldn t imagine she was crying about. when she turned from the window, she said, it s mark. mark cassie, her friend and colleague. my natural instinct was that he had been hit by a car. she said no, he was shot. who is it? oh my god, it s mark hasse-y! coming up, get you another breath, mark. the ems is almost here. the ambulance is coming. a dedicated prosecutor shot right outside of the courthouse. stunning onlookers and police. it s nothing that you could prepare for. who would even attempt such a brazen attack? did that tell you that these two knew each other? it seemed very personal to me. when dateline continues. i m down with rybelsus®.
no, it s not. we re gonna find the murder weapon. ranger kasper did the honors, lifting the heavy, steel door. this is one of those moments that i ll never forget because it was just wow. what did you see? we saw the white crown vic, the car that we d been looking for for all those days and all those man hours, and there it was. and we knew finally we had eric williams. but there was so much more. police uniforms and bulletproof vests, more than a half dozen police badges, thousands of rounds of ammo, and enough guns to supply a small army. he s got six or seven weapons of the right caliber that could have been the mcclelland murder weapon. we have five or six weapons of the right caliber that could ve been the hasse murder weapon. did you think that one of those guns had to be the murder weapon? i felt like our chances were pretty good because there were just so many in there. the guns and ammo were sent off to the lab for testing. inside this treasure trove of
a sheriff s deputy recognized the user i.d. for the county crimestoppers anonymous tip line. the first number corresponded to a tip from early in the hasse case. the tipster claimed to have overheard two men in a bar saying they d killed mark hasse. that meant the tip came from williams computer. a follow-up computer search also revealed williams had searched several how-to websites. one of the websites was how to throw the police off an investigation by sending in fake tips. the second number on that scrap of paper was even more important because it turned out to be the real thing. it matched back to that computer message that gave details about the hasse murder weapon and also threatened more killings. so we knew right then that that tip that had come into the command post was sent by eric williams. and we knew right then we were going to be able to put eric williams in jail. he was arrested, not for murder, but for making a terrorist threat about killing a judge.