Arizona Congresswoman Shot dead at point-blank range moments ago~!

[Ed Jewett]

Arizona massacre suspect: 'I planned ahead'

By the CNN Wire Staff
January 9, 2011 -- Updated 2310 GMT (0710 HKT)




Who is Jared Loughner?



STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Jared Lee Loughner faces federal counts in Arizona slayings
  
• Loughner isn't talking with investigators, sheriff says
  
• A cab driver sought as a "person of interest" has been cleared, source says
  

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Read the charges against Jared Lee Loughner (PDF)
(CNN) -- The suspect in the weekend massacre in Arizona scrawled "my assassination" and "I planned ahead" on an envelope found in his home, according to court documents released Sunday.
The details were part of criminal complaint filed against 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner, the Tucson man now charged in Saturday's bloodbath at a supermarket where U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was hosting an open house for constituents. Investigators found a letter from the congresswoman in a safe at the house where Loughner lived with his parents, thanking him for attending a similar 2007 event, a federal agent's affidavit states.
"Also recovered in the safe was an envelope with handwriting on the envelope stating 'I planned ahead,' and 'my assassination' and the name 'Giffords,' along with what appears to be Loughner's signature," the affidavit states.
The shootings killed six people, including U.S. District Judge John Roll and Giffords aide Gabe Zimmerman. Among the 14 wounded were Giffords, who was shot through the skull, and two other members of her staff.



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RELATED TOPICS

• Arizona
  
• Shootings
  

Prosecutors filed two first-degree murder counts, two attempted murder counts and one count of attempting to kill a member of Congress against Loughner on Sunday. Those counts involve only victims who worked for the federal government, but state prosecutors also could bring charges in the remaining cases.
The murder count involving Roll states the judge, like Gifford and her aides, was conducting official duties at the time. According to the affidavit, Roll came down to Tucson from Phoenix to discuss the volume of federal cases in Arizona with Giffords and had talked with one of her aides, Ron Barber, before the shooting.
Loughner is scheduled to make an initial appearance before a federal magistrate in Phoenix on Monday, prosecutors said. A federal public defender known for handling high-profile cases, Judy Clarke, has been appointed to represent him, a federal judicial source told CNN.
Clarke previously defended the "Unabomber," Ted Kaczynski, and assisted in the case of confessed al Qaeda operative Zacarias Moussaoui.
Meanwhile, investigators have found, questioned and cleared a man they had sought as a "person of interest" after the killings. the FBI announced. The man was cab driver who dropped Loughner off at the Safeway where Giffords' "Congress on Your Corner" event was being held, a law enforcement official said Sunday.
Loughner has invoked his right against self-incrimination and is not talking with investigators, Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik said. The suspect was suspended from a Tucson community college in October after what the school said were multiple run-ins with campus police that led to his suspension.
"There's reason to believe this individual may have a mental issue," Dupnik told reporters Saturday night.
Pima Community College warned Loughner in a follow-up letter that to return to campus, he had to present a doctor's note stating that his presence would not be "a danger to himself or others."
Online, he railed against government "mind control" and illiteracy in YouTube and MySpace postings. He tried to enlist in the Army in 2008, but was rejected for reasons the service said it could not disclose.
Roll is the fourth federal judge killed since 1979, when District Judge John Wood was slain in a contract killing outside his Texas home. In 1988, District Judge Richard Daronco of New York was killed by the father of a plaintiff whose case the judge had dismissed; and in 1989, Circuit Judge Robert Vance was killed by a mail bomb sent to his Alabama home by a man prosecutors said had a grudge against the appellate court on which Vance sat.
In addition, the husband and mother of District Judge Joan Lefkow were killed in their Chicago home in 2005. A man who committed suicide two weeks later in Wisconsin left a note confessing to the killings, blaming a judgment against him in a malpractice case for the loss of his house, job and family, police said.
CNN's Bill Mears and Jessica Yellin contributed to this report.


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