DECREE OF THE NOSFERATU JUSTICAR -------------------------------- Assembled by Archon Marcus Hemminger Message from Anne Rochestor, Servant to Assamit Abd-Azar Tallunear, dated July 15, 1989 My Master: An open investigation has brought a matter to my attention that may be of interest to you. First of all, it may interest you to know that [government agency name deleted] has begun an investigation in Providence, Rhode Island, one that perhaps mirrors your own, though it seems unlikely that [agency] knows of the murder of Prince Price. One of the items that has arisen was the alleged sighting, by several people, of John Hinckley, Jr., the would-be assassin of President Reagan. Mr. Hinckley Jr. is still incarcerated in federal prison. This leads me to believe that there may be some connection: the appearance of a known attempted assassin may serve as some kind of symbol or signal to the conspirators. As you informed me, several abilities of the Kindred allow the simulation of another visage. I hope this is helpful to you. Allah speed the successful conclusion of your efforts. Anne ------------------------------------------------------------------- Statement of Abd-Azar Tallunear, Assamite On January 16, I was hired to assassinate Prince Simon Price of Providence, Rhode Island. On January 20, Prince Price was ambushed: he and his bodyguards sustained heavy wounds. The Prince was then decapitated, and his bodyguards fled. I found one of the bodyguards the next night, and he told me what happened. I took his tape-recorded descriptions of the assailants to a portraiture artist, who produced images of the murderers. Two brown-haired women: one with short permed hair, one with shoulder-length hair. One brown-haired man with glasses, wearing upscale clothing. One man on undtermined ethnicity, possibly Italian. When Ms. Rochester's message reached me, it struck me that not only did the man in glasses look like John Hinckley, Jr., but the woman with shoulder-length brown hair looked somewhat like Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, who had tried and failed to kill President Ford... I contacted a local Nosferatu at that time and enlisted her aid. Her name was Sappho. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Statement of Sappho, Nosferatu neonate: Azar came to me about that time: he had some pictures he wanted to run through the files down at the police computer. Well, that wouldn't be too hard, you can get most of the federal files on CD-ROM now, if you know who to ask, but I told him it might not get him what he wanted. It would be going on a third-removed image, for one thing: a description to a picture to a scanned picture, so I wouldn't be able to give him much certainty. He said to try anyway, and was willing to pay the price, so I did. Well, I got a match on Hinckley to 90%. Squeaky Fromme to 85%. The other woman was 85% Sarah Jane Moore, another attempted assassin: Gerald Ford again. The Italian I had no idea on: there were a few matches, but none above 25%. So this got me thinking, what the hell? Is this real or some kind of Obfuscate put-on? So I dialed up some friends down in DC and got a few phone numbers and dialed up some..uh...colleagues, if you know what I mean, and got some prison records sent. Again, pretty easy stuff. This is where things get weird. It seems that shortly after he went to prison, Hinckley lost a great deal of weight and some hair. Fromme went from being a model prisoner to a slightly unruly inmate suspected of several crimes that didn't fit in with her psychological profile. And Sarah Jane Moore's profile went from marginal psychotic to paranoid schizophrenic. "It's almost as if she were a completely different person," the report said. At this point, I started wondering: how far back does this go? I called up Dewey, a Toreador who calls himself a "history artist." --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Statement of Reginald Dewey, Toreador ancilla: Sappho called me on...let's see...the sixth. I owed her a trivial favor, and was more than happy to answer her questions. It is of course impossible to count the number of potential Presidential assassins in history: many schemes have been foiled or just never got off the ground. However, Moore, Fromme, and Hinckley actually got close enough to threaten the President seriously. Hinckley in fact wounded President Reagan and three others. I told her that, historically, Samuel Byck was probably the next closest "serious" Presidential assassin: he tried to hijack a commercial airliner and crash it into the White House during President Nixon's administration. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Continued Statement of Sappho: Byck apparently killed himself on the plane. But the autopsy report, completed later that night, lists an appendix in good condition, while Byck's medical records, subpoenad by the Secret Service in 1973, when he sent a threatening audiotape to Senator Ribicoff, shows that he had his appendix removed in 1969. Something was obviously going on. I notified Azar of my findings. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Continued Statement of Abd-Azar: I received word from Sappho that it was possible that Hinckley, Fromme and Moore had been replaced with "body doubles" and released, as well as failed assassin Samuel Byck. She forwarded photographs confirmed to be of the assassins to me, along with pictures of Lee Harvey Oswald, who shot President Kennedy, Arthur Bremer, attempted assassin of Presidential candidate George Wallace, and Sirhan Sirhan, assassin of Presidential candidate and Senator Robert Kennedy. However, none of the pictures matched the person I had come to refer to as "the Italian". I kept them anyway. I asked Sappho to introduce me to her Toreador friend. It seemed efficacious to eliminate the middlewoman, as it were. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Continued Statement of Dewey: Yes, Mr. Azar was very polite and I was very happy to help him. It's difficult to obtain Assamite boons, and they are therefore extremely valuable. The picture he showed me of an Italian man didn't ring any bells, but even a brief perusal of my library found the case of Giuseppe Zangara, an Italian immigrant who shot at President-elect Roosevelt in 1933, killing Chicago mayor Anton Cernak instead. There was a single photograph of him in a collection of photographs from that era, and it seemed to match the picture fairly well. Zangara was electrocuted shortly thereafter, so there was little chance of knowing whether he, too, had been switched. That sounds very strange, looking back, but historical models have been built on more circumstancial evidence. And with what happened afterwards...like all historians, I suppose I have 20/20 hindsight. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Continued Statement of Sappho: Dewey said Hinckley was obsessed with two people: Jodie Foster and Lee Harvey Oswald. Providence Main Library records indicated that every book matching those keywords had been checked out by a Joe Hinckley, who got his card the week previous to the Prince's murder. The address he gave was nonexistent. It was time to act. I dropped this whole thing in Marcus' dead drop box in Baltimore and told Azar I had. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Continued Statement of Abd-Azar: I had no problem at that point cooperating with the Camarilla. This was a difficult and sensitive Masquerade situation. And besides, I'd heard that the Sabbat "Bishop" of New York had been killed. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Statement of Marcus Hemminger, Archon of Clan Nosferatu: Yes, the rumor of the death of the Bishop of New York had reached my desk at about the same time. The bizarre theories on the Providence murder seemed unbelievable. But when I called a deep-cover man in NYC, he told me something even better: an Italian Kindred (he thought it might have been a Giovanni) had appeared, complaining that Bishop Random had put a curse on him, making him sick to his stomach. He was the subject of derision -- then when he was half-jokingly presented to Bishop Random, a sniper put three bullets in Random's chest, "Zangara", as he was called, produced a can of pressurized kerosene and soaked Random in it, then set him afire. He escaped under cover of gunfire from a brown hair woman in a "frumpy" dress, and a balding man in a threadbare Santa Claus suit. I called Sappho back immediately. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Continued Statement of Dewey: Giuseppe Zangara's stated motive for trying to kill Roosevelt was "stomach sickness", which he blamed on the oppression he received at the hands of the rich. Sarah Jane Moore was a housewife, and dressed in a manner that might be considered "frumpy". Samuel Byck protested at the White House the Christmas before his assassination attempt dressed in a Santa Claus suit. He was balding. A history was forming itself -- and a knowledge of why of none of the four successful assassins had appeared: Booth, Czolgosz, Guiteau, or Oswald...the ones appearing now were failures. They were being given a second chance by someone or something...they might not even be Kindred. They might be nothing more or less than twisted dreams made real... -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Continued Statement of Archon Hemminger: Despite Mr. Dewey's preternatural pronouncements, witnesses in New York stated that they saw a pale aura around "Zangara". It is likely at least that he is Kindred and therefore subject to the Traditions. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- JUDGEMENT: These five people, presumed part of a coterie, are now Autarkis. This judgement willl last until further notice. They may be known as: "Giuseppe Zangara" (fluent in Italian, pale aura, often complains of pain in stomach) "John Hinckley, Jr." or "Joe Hinckley" (obsessed with Jodie Foster and Lee Harvey Oswald, wears glasses) "Lynette 'Squeaky' Fromme" (obsessed with Charles Manson, may be wearing a red robe and/or turban, shoulder-length brown hair) "Sarah Jane Moore" (short, permed brown hair, may be dressed in housewife-style clothes) "Samuel Byck" (balding, may be wearing Santa Claus suit) They are to be considered extremely dangerous. If possible, capture them alive. If this is not possible, Destruction is sanctioned by this office. ========================================================================= DOCUMENTATION DELETED FROM THIS REPORT: Abd-Azar: ...rumors of a secret collusion between Alamut and an anonymous Malkavian elder could not be confirmed or denied, although records show that someone who gave their name only as "Ruby" was allowed into the Outer Citadel early in 1963... Dewey: ...it is also possible that Czolgosz, Guiteau, Booth, and Oswald have also appeared, but their manner is so Kindred-like that we haven't noticed them. Booth could be considered the ultimate Toreador infiltrator, while contemporaries of Guiteau speculate that he might have been under the influence of Malkavian blood at the time of his hanging. There is no evidence whatever to support either of these theories... Marcus: ...there were also strange rumors that James McCord, top Nixon aide implicated in the Watergate break-in had been seen leaving an Elysium in Paris dressed as a plumber... ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Inspired by Stephen Sondheim's "Assassins" musical.