Hoax threat leads police on Bellevue to Texas chase

A threat phoned in from Eastern Texas led police officers across Allegheny County on a wild goose chase to find a nonexistent double shooting at a nonexistent address.

The police frenzy Sunday night was spurred by a call earlier that day by a man who called himself "Sam" and said he had killed two people and demanded money. The call was a hoax and the caller was never located, but it eventually led authorities to an alleged scam artist, Carl Forward, in Newton, Texas.

At around 5:30 p.m., a UPMC South Side phone operator picked up the call from "Sam" and quickly routed the call to the Department of Emergency Services. The caller claimed that he was in Pittsburgh, had killed two people at 105 Lincoln Avenue and would kill more if he did not receive money.

A dispatcher there stayed on the line with "Sam," Department of Emergency Services 911 coordinator Jim Thomson said, as the 911 center tried to determine where the caller was located. Because the call was routed from the hospital and not a direct call, they could not determine the caller's location.

Mr. Thomson said that the dispatcher determined the Lincoln Avenue residence could not be within the city limits, so the dispatcher searched for communities around Pittsburgh that had a Lincoln Avenue with a 100 block because he thought the caller was foreign to the area and could not differentiate between the city and surrounding boroughs.

The search resulted in about seven places -- with Bellevue at the top of the list.

"'Could this [place you are located] be Bellevue?'" the dispatcher asked Sam, according to the 911 center.

"Yes," Sam replied.

The dispatcher notified Bellevue police to search for 105 Lincoln Ave., but officers could not find the residence and determined that it was a nonexistent address in Bellevue.

By 5:48 p.m., officers in Millvale were already inspecting a building on Lincoln Avenue.

Officer Scott Bailey was the first to come to the scene, and he blocked off the street with his police cruiser. Soon, a man inside 105 Lincoln looked out at the officers several times but refused to answer the door, Millvale police Chief Derek Miller said.

Police eventually contacted the resident, Bill Smith, who is hearing impaired. Mr. Smith said he had earpieces in while watching television.

He said he and his son did not realize the police were trying to contact them until the phone call.

While the police tried to bring the Smiths out of their home, the hostage negotiators had received Sam's cell phone number from dispatch. They began conversing with the man, and after uncovering clues on a possible location, Ross police Lt. Robert Bellan started to search for where the caller could be.

They quickly realized Sam was probably outside Pittsburgh -- perhaps even the state. He demanded that money be sent to a Western Union money transfer center on Forward Street at 6:30 p.m., even though the time in Pittsburgh at the time was around 7:30 p.m., Chief Miller said, leading authorities to deduce the caller was in the Central Standard Time zone.

Lt. Bellan searched for possible sites with Forward Street Western Unions and determined the likely location of "Sam" was in Newton, Texas. He notified the police there, and the police quickly arrived at the Forward Street area, Chief Miller said.

The Newton police found Mr. Forward at 105 Forward St.

Newton police Chief Tom Adams said Mr. Forward had been scamming a local bank by depositing checks and withdrawing the amounts the next day, before the check could bounce.

Chief Adams said Mr. Forward was successful at withdrawing some money and wiring it to an unknown location. Mr. Forward may be charged with theft, Chief Adams said.

"Why [the caller] was calling Pittsburgh for something that is going on in Texas -- I don't know what was going on," he added.

Chief Miller said the FBI was also involved in the case, after local police requested that the agency triangulate the cell phone.

Chief Miller also said he was told by Lt. Bellan that FBI agents were going to interview Mr. Forward.

Pittsburgh FBI spokesman Jeff Killeen said the agency aware of it, and "if deemed appropriate, we'll take investigative action."