Police arrested a Gulf War veteran and his teenage Jamaican sidekick in the Washington sniper case, ending a media frenzy that included a request by CNN to interview actors from the CBS series "Crime Scene Investigation." Lengthy footage was broadcast of a tree stump being dug up and hauled away. Experts and profilers who had spent untold hours on television speculating about the killer were forced to admit that their prophecies had been worthless. "My predictions were not that close," one expert said. "But the average American was hungry for information. And when there isn't real news, people make up their own. People wanted a story of who this guy was. What we did, by providing it, comforted them."

Harper's Weekly