Who whacked Assistant US Attorney Thomas W. Wales?

Who whacked Assistant US Attorney Thomas W. Wales?

Ten years ago today, on 10-11-01 at about 10:30pm, Assistant US Attorney Thomas C. Wales was shot to death while sitting at his computer in the basement of his home in the 'Queen Anne' area of Seattle, Washington.  The unknown assailant fired multiple shots from a Russian-made Makarov pistol through the window of the basement from the backyard of the residence.   If Wales was killed because of his work, he would be the first federal prosecutor in U.S. history to be slain in the line of duty.

Ten years later, police are stumped.  Though his 18 years as a prosecutor has been widely reported as a more likely motive for the murder, officials say Wales was a low-profile assistant U.S. attorney who worked on mostly nonviolent, white-collar crimes and almost always negotiated plea settlements.  Some have speculated that pro-2nd amendment advocates are behind the crime, as he was involved in pro-gun control efforts.

If the shooter was some grudge-motivated amateur, I guess it was just lucky that:

--he was able to approach the house and hide in the back yard without anybody noticing

--there were no dogs at the house or in the neighbors' yards

--the victim lived alone

--that he was able to get close enough to hit and kill his target, despite having to shoot through glass

--that the victim conveniently placed himself in clear sight of the shooter for an extended period of time

--that he was then able to get away without him, his car, or his license plate number being identified


No way, this was no amateur job, but rather a professional hit. By someone who knew he could safely hide in the backyard and also knew exactly where the target would be at the appointed time. And was not afraid of being tracked via stolen license plate. I smell an inside job.

Motive? Forget the gun-control angle. Pro-2nd Amendment advocates are ideologically opposed to any crime committed with a weapon, and are too politically savvy not to realize the enormous damage such a crime would do to their cause. I am surprised more attention has not been given to the 9-11 tie-in. If the prosecutor's forte was white-collar crimes, then he could have run across inside evidence of the suspicious 'short' trading on airline and insurance industry stocks in the weeks before 9-11. I think it is significant that he was shot while at his computer. Did the victim suffer from a bad case of 'loose-lips' by blabbing about what he knew all over the internet?

Some other oddities:

--Police finally did a door-to-door canvas of the neighborhood to see if anybody had seen anything--FOUR YEARS LATER

--The FBI sent its agents on a wild goose chase across the country, trying to track down every Makarov replacement barrel ever sold, as though the killer would conveniently keep the evidence and hand it over on demand.

--The US Attorney in Seattle, John McKay, according to his own version, was fired by the Bush administration because he was trying too hard to solve the case.

When the government fires the prosecutor for trying too hard to solve the crime, there can only be one reason: THE GOVERNMENT DOES NOT WANT THIS CRIME TO BE SOLVED. Why not? Because they are the ones who ordered the hit.


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Your hypothesis appears quite sound to me.

I never knew about this until now, but since you brought it up and gave me some information about it, I can't help but agree with you.

Who did kill Thomas W Wales?

It does have the appearance of a professional hit. I wonder if a silencer was used since you said no one heard the gunshots.

I wonder what he uncovered that made this necessary?

A lengthy article on this case can be found here:

An Unsolved Killing and the US Attorney Scandal


Tom Wales was not supposed to be home on the night of October 11, 2001. Wales, an Assistant United States Attorney in Seattle, had planned to have dinner and spend the evening with his girlfriend, Marlis DeJongh, a court reporter who lived downtown. But that afternoon Wales called DeJongh and said that he had projects he needed to work on at home. In the evening, after leaving his office, near the federal courthouse, he returned to his Craftsman-style, wood-frame house in a quiet neighborhood known as Queen Anne.

Wales was forty-nine years old and had been a federal prosecutor for eighteen years. When he worked late, which was often, he would tell his family and friends, "I'm here at my post, serving my sovereign." The phrase was partly a joke, a bit of feigned grandiosity to justify a tendency toward excessive meticulousness: Wales did things slowly. He also had idealistic notions about his work. He took satisfaction in mustering the resources of the federal government to take on criminals, especially those with white collars who abused their privileged status.

Thanks for posting, I had zero knowledge of this suspicious murder..