Justice halted: The murdered prosecutor

Sara James Correspondent • Profile

Amy Wales: It hit me viscerally. The way that nightmares tend to. And I still cannot get my head around why that happened.

It was just three weeks after the attacks of September 11, 2001. America was on high alert. Amy Wales was in London when she had a terrifying dream about her father, back home in Seattle.

Amy Wales, Tom Wales' daughter: It looks sort of - very much like a terrorist attack in the domestic sense. And then more specifically, this cloudy figure shooting my father. And I woke up and I was screaming and was upset. And I immediately called him and left a message.

Sara James, Dateline correspondent: What did you say?

Amy Wales: I said, "'Pa. I dreamt you were shot. And, are you okay? Are you alive? You need to call me. And - I love you so much. And I am - I can't imagine it. I can't imagine it. Please call me back.'"

Hours passed and finally Amy’s phone rang. 

Amy Wales: He called up and he was just laughing and clearly making light of the situation. And said, "No, I'm very much alive and don't you worry, and in fact, you and your brother will be arguing about what to do with me later in life. As I'm up to no good in a nursing home."

Amy, deeply relieved, went back to her routine as a graduate student abroad. But just a week later, another call — this time, from her mother. The nightmare had come true.  Amy's father, Tom Wales, had been shot to death in his Seattle home. 

Amy Wales: It was horrible. It was shocking - it was devastating. I certainly wasn't prepared for it.

What happened that October night would haunt his family and baffle investigators for years to come as they tried to figure out who'd killed Tom Wales — and why.

On October 11, 2001, after a full day at the office, Tom Wales returned here to his home in Seattle's Queen Anne neighborhood. He spent the evening as he often did, on the computer. At 10:40 that night, neighbors called 911 saying they'd heard gunshots. Seattle police responded immediately, scouring the crime scene. They discovered several shell casings but no murder weapon. The killer had  shot Wales in the neck and torso - then vanished into the night.

To those who knew him, the murder made no sense.

Video   Learn how to read fingerprints Michael Shay, FBI fingerprints expert, shows Dateline how to analyze fingerprints from a crime scene. Dateline NBC

Wales was beloved, both by his close knit family and a wide circle of friends who found him funny, engaging and delightfully quirky. He was a mountaineer who also tackled culinary peaks.

Ralph Fascitelli: Everybody that met Tom thought they were Tom's best friend. He had a dozen best friends.

Yet Wales also had an unknown enemy, someone who hated him enough to kill him with ruthless, anonymous efficiency. In fact, the murder looked so much like a "hit" that investigators wondered if the killer might be someone Wales had antagonized through his work because Tom Wales was an assistant U.S. Attorney. If that were the case, it would be the first time in U.S. history that a federal prosecutor was killed in connection with his work.

Mark Bartlett: A coward snuck behind his back and crawled into his backyard and shot him through a window, four, five, six times. It's beyond despicable.

Sara James: This is somebody who stalked him.

Mark Bartlett: It would appear.

Robert Westinghouse and Mark Bartlett are prosecutors who worked closely with Wales in the U.S. Attorney's office. Wales handled white collar criminal cases like bank fraud and embezzlement.

Robert Westinghouse: He put justice above everything else in his work.  It made him an excellent prosecutor.

A federal prosecutor for 18 years, he had put hundreds of men and women behind bars. Could someone he'd prosecuted have shot him, or hired a hitman? A scenario difficult for his colleagues to accept. They say Wales was fair as well as tough, even  earning the respect of many he prosecuted.

Robert Westinghouse: There have been a number of defendants that were convicted by Tom Wales who have written letters that express their gratitude for him and his treatment of them.

Still, there was one notable exception. Shortly before his death, Wales had prosecuted a pilot who was part-owner of a company involved in a complicated case concerning the sale of rebuilt helicopters. The pilot's company wound up pleading guilty to a misdemeanor. The pilot felt unfairly prosecuted and, in a rare move, sued the U.S. Attorney's office and singled out Tom Wales.

The FBI won't discuss any possible suspects. But Seattle Times reporter Steve Miletich has learned from law enforcement sources and people close to the pilot that investigators started looking at him soon after the murder.

Sara James: What do we know about the movements of the pilot on the night when Tom Wales was murdered?

Steve Miletich: we know that he went to a movie that night, 2001: A Space Odyssey, in downtown Seattle.

Investigators quickly realized that that movie theater was close to Wales' home. The pilot and his companion left the theatre in separate cars when the movie let out at about 9:30 p-m.

Steve Miletich: The shooting happened at 10:40. Tom Wales' house was about 10 minutes away from - from the movie theatre.

But sometime around 10:40, around the time of the murder, telephone records show a call was made from the pilot's home phone. It seemed the pilot, who lived alone, had an alibi.

Steve Miletich: His defenders will say that it does show that he could not have killed Tom Wales.

And so the ruthless, careful killer of Tom Wales - whoever he, or she, was -  was still out there, in the shadows.

Wales (on tape): We will never concede the fight to end handgun violence in this state.

The FBI knew another possible motive for murder could have been Wales' activities outside the office. He was president of Washington cease fire, a gun control group.

Wales (on tape): I'm talking about simple, reasonable legislation that would hold gun owners responsible for keeping their firearms safely stored and away from kids. All of those have been opposed by the NRA.

His friend Ralph Fascitelli: He went head-to-head with the NRA, you know, probably for a 10-year period.  And here was somebody that died - died from gun violence.  So it was a pretty cruel irony for everybody involved.

The FBI gave Dateline a rare look inside its investigation. Bob Geeslin is the supervisory special agent assigned to the Wales case.

Bob Geeslin: We took on projects that have never been done, at least from my knowledge, in the Bureau before.

Sara James: Give me an example of a project that's never been done.

Bob Geeslin: The Makarov Project.

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