U.S.

Abortion Doc Murder Suspect Caught

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

March 29, 2001 / 12:05 PM EST / CBS

In the small town of Dinan, France, James C. Kopp, out of money and rapidly running out of time, quietly gave up on Thursday almost three years on the lam from charges he assassinated an abortion doctor.

CBS News Correspondent Jim Stewart reports Kopp was arrested by French police as he walked out of the local post office clutching a package from the U.S. containing $300. It was just enough, the FBI believes, for the frugal Kopp to hit the road again.

"Our investigation determined that he was about to leave France. He was waiting for the receipt of some additional funds," said FBI Director Louis Freeh.

Accused of killing abortion Dr. Barnett Slepian of Amherst, N.Y. in 1998, and suspected in four other similar attacks, Kopp was finally run to ground through informants and cell telephone records.

Kopp, of St. Albans, Vt., became the subject of an international manhunt in the months after the Slepian slaying when he was called a witness in the case. The FBI added him to its Most Wanted list in June 1999. Offers of rewards for his arrest totaled $1 million.

Anti-Abortion Zealot

Activist James C. Kopp, charged with murdering a doctor, reportedly began a "spiritual search" after his sister died of leukemia and his parents' bitter divorce.

Kopp is accused of shooting Slepian with a high-powered rifle as the doctor was cooking in his kitchen. His car was spotted in Slepian's neighborhood in the weeks before the shooting, and the car was found abandoned at New Jersey's Newark airport in December 1998. Investigators have also reportedly gathered DNA evidence against him from a strand of hair found at the scene.

In May 1999, Kopp was formally charged in state and federal complaints with second-degree murder and with violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act by using deadly force against an abortion doctor.

Canadian authorities have also issued a warrant for Kopp for allegedly wounding a doctor in 1995. Both charges carry a penalty of up to life in prison. The federal charge also carries a fine of up to $250,000.

Law enforcement sources say an underground railroad of violent anti-abortion activists funded Kopp's worldwide flight, which took him from upstate New York...to Mexco, into Canada, possibly through northern Virginia 18 months ago, then back to Canada, to Ireland, and finally France. Authorities there followed him for several days before apprehending him.

Investigators say he was headed for Strassbourg, France, after picking up the money.

"Mr. Kopp had many aliases. He changed them frequently and he was able to obtain documents from foreign countries — drivers' licenses, passports, that kind of thing," said Joel Mercer, an FBI case agent.

Dr. Barnett Slepian (AP)SIZE>

He spent much of the past year in Ireland, investigators say, working for a time in a Dublin hospital. Sources say, however, that while in Dublin he called an old friend back in the U.S., and the FBI was listening in.

A local front page news story may have tipped Kopp off and he fled to France March 12.

Meanwhile, late Thursday afternoon the FBI arrested two people in New York on charges of helping Kopp stay on the run.