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Mar-05-2010 14:33printcomments

Pentagon Shooter and the Murder of Col. James Sabow

John Patrick Bedell knew a Marine fighter pilot, Col. Jim Sabow, had been murdered in a government cover-up.

John Patrick Bedell's drivers license photo
John Patrick Bedell's drivers license photo

(SALEM, Ore.) - John Patrick Bedell must have had a lot on his mind as he went through the motions of a dead man walking. He knew this would be it; nobody opens fire near the Pentagon without falling in a hail of bullets.

It must be brutal in the last seconds, to enter the very last stage of life. Surely that is what he thought, and that had to be what Marine Colonel Jim Sabow thought, as he took his last breath in 1991.

This was on the mind of Bedell when he drove from Hollister, California to Washington D.C. to make his final stand. Bedell was extremely disturbed by the death of the Marine Colonel 19 years earlier, he viewed it as the final proof that the U.S. government is truly at least in part, a dirty and dishonest group.

According to today's Wall Street Journal:

JPatrickBedell wrote that he was "determined to see that justice is served" in the death of Marine Col. James Sabow, who was found dead in the backyard of his California home in 1991. The death was ruled a suicide but the case has long been the source of theories of a cover up. Sabow's family has maintained that he was murdered because he was about to expose covert military operations in Central America involving drug smuggling.

The Wall Street Journal also mentioned how a person using the name, "JPatrickBedell" wrote the Sabow case was "a step toward establishing the truth of events such as the September 11 demolitions."

He also had a bit to say about the government's enforcement of marijuana laws. He had been arrested for growing pot in Orange County back in 2006. Colonel Jim Sabow was murdered in Orange County.

Jim Sabow was a decorated Marine Colonel
fighter pilot with everything to live for.

There are two links below to significant stories on Col. Sabow that were written by Salem-News.com reporter Robert O'Dowd, another former El Toro Marine, like myself.

We've been knee deep in the investigation of El Toro's severe environmental contamination for the better part of three years, and along the way, through Salem-News.com's John Uldrich, another former El Toro Marine, we were reintroduced to the story of Col. Sabow.

If you boil it all down, his death ranks among the most tragic military losses of all time, because along with him, we lost our honor as a country to a degree. Jim Sabow had been in the Marines almost 30 years, he was a highly decorated Vietnam War fighter pilot with 27 outstanding fitness reports. By all accounts, he was 'general material'.

But he got wind of something really bad happening at El Toro back in 1991. It was brought to his attention that shipments of drugs from South America were being funneled through the base as part of a weapons for drugs program that the federal government had outlawed in 1985, to aid Contra rebels.

Colonel Sabow knew that two of the base's top ranking officers were dirty, at least he suspected it. One had been investigated for drug running out of Panama earlier in his career, in the 1980's.

Jim Sabow was a Marine's Marine. He was on the record that he was going to end the drug running at El Toro. Suddenly he was facing charges that were purely trumped up, and that was on his mind the morning of January 22, 1991 when something happened, and the colonel ended up dead in his backyard, with a lawn chair on top of him, a shotgun nearby, and a whole bunch of injuries that most certainly led to his death, before the shotgun blast.

Cover for "U.S. Marine Air Wings", a history of Marine Corps
Air Ops. Colonel Sabow in Harrier. Photo: colonelsabow.com

Four men were observed to have flown up in a Marine helicopter from Camp Pendleton and entered the officers' base housing area. These four, along with a neighbor of the Colonel's, are the prime suspects in the death of Col. Jim Sabow.

They did it because he had told them he wouldn't have anything to do with the illegal activity. When the trumped up charges were mentioned, he stated that he looked forward to discussing the matter at a court martial.

His neighbor, Col Joe Underwood, who had just been busted the day before for improper conduct as a Marine officer, told him, "You will never get to a court martial", and he was right. The witness to that? Colonel Sabow's wife.

The death of Marine Colonel Jim Sabow according to his brother, Dr. David Sabow M.D., was murder. David has been in contact with numerous people over his brother's death, good people who were his brother's friends.

And the government has tried to do everything possible to end his quest for information. The DEA even tried to take Dr. Sabow down, through a set up.

A woman who had been his patient, refused, and she went straight to Dr. Sabow, and then filed an affidavit expressing what had happened with the DEA agents. We have the document. In fact we have material backing this story in numerous places, in different states.

Same old cover up

This morning we were all fairly blown away to discover that this Pentagon shooter, John Patrick Beddel, had written about the federal injustice of Col James Sabow's death on his Wikipedia page.

We published a major story that had been in the works for almost two weeks about Col. Sabow, the day before Beddel went on his suicide mission.

Yesterday, one of the contacts in our story who used to work for the federal government, received a call from a U.S. Senator threatening to charge him with revealing classified information over our report.

This morning that same contact had two white males in their 40's attempt to break into his home.


For the record, at least one reporter has met an untimely death over reporting on the case of Col James Sabow. It is clear that the same people in Washington D.C. who oversaw the Sabow murder are still in office or otherwise employed in the nation's capitol in some governmental capacity.

The Wall Street Journal and numerous other media agencies contained the reference to Col. Sabow this morning, then for some reason the newer stories coming out now seem to drop the reference.

"It is the same pattern as before", Dr. David Sabow told Salem-News.com this morning.

"They are trying once again to scrub my brother's name from the copy".

Tonight pseudo-journalist Brian Williams opened the NBC Evening News and talked about how Bedell was "deranged" and "disturbed". He tossed it to Jim Miklaszewski who talked about how the shooter believed the U.S. government was behind 9/11, which is a theory subscribed to by some of the country's top engineers and professors.

But not one reference to Col. Sabow, I guess the scumbag murderers in the federal government who know about the murder were at least able to reach their buddies at NBC. For all the talk about how the national news media is "controlled", this is a textbook example.

I'm glad we are here to make sure that doesn't happen. As far as intimidation goes, we are prepared and everyone should remember that the reporters on this story are all former Marines.

I'm not a big death penalty advocate, but I would very much like to see the people responsible for the murder of this great man swinging from the gallows pole. The people who killed James Sabow, regardless of any insignia on any uniform, were not Marines; they were a disgrace to the uniforms they wore. Anyone connected to the murder of a Marine officer, the best of his kind, deserves no quarter, and they are not Americans.

I am sorry that two Pentagon officers, Jeffrey Amos and Marvin Carraway were hurt. Fortunately, the Department of Defense say they were soon released from the hospital. One had been shot in the thigh, and the other had a shoulder wound. Both injuries were superficial.

Nobody on our team expected to learn today that this man had Col. James Sabow on his mind. We are trying to learn more about how Mr. Bedell knew the Sabow story.

United States intelligence agencies report that they are looking for motives leading up to the shooting, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said. In collaboration with the Pentagon Force Protection Agency (PFPA) and Arlington County Police Department, the FBI is investigating why Mr. Bedell approached the entrance to the Pentagon and shot the two PFPA officers.

It would take a lot less work for a brave person in the federal government to order a real investigation of the death of Col. James Sabow. His brother David has spent endless thousands of dollars and along with forensic work donated to his cause, he has the exact case laid out on his Website, dedicated to his brother: colonelsabow.com.


Tim King is a former U.S. Marine with twenty years of experience on the west coast as a television news producer, photojournalist, reporter and assignment editor. In addition to his role as a war correspondent, this Los Angeles native serves as Salem-News.com's Executive News Editor. Tim spent the winter of 2006/07 covering the war in Afghanistan, and he was in Iraq over the summer of 2008, reporting from the war while embedded with both the U.S. Army and the Marines. Tim holds numerous awards for reporting, photography, writing and editing, including the Oregon AP Award for Spot News Photographer of the Year (2004), first place Electronic Media Award in Spot News, Las Vegas, (1998), Oregon AP Cooperation Award (1991); and several others including the 2005 Red Cross Good Neighborhood Award for reporting. Serving the community in very real terms, Salem-News.com is the nation's only truly independent high traffic news Website. You can send Tim an email at this address: newsroom@salem-news.com




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Vic March 7, 2010 7:17 am (Pacific time)

Elaine...your husband may be interested in the book "Strong Men Armed" by Robert Leckie.(1962) It is a very well written history of the Marines in the Pacific , WW2.


Elaine March 6, 2010 11:40 am (Pacific time)

Must be something in the kool aid? These kinds of tragic events are only made worse as people use them to further their own absurdities at the expense of the innocent. You all should be ashamed of yourselves. My spouse has been looking into the HBO WWII series about the Marines in the Pacific starting tomorrow (he was a Marine in Vietnam) and read some transcripts of narrative by Tom Hanks, one of the producers. Expect this series to be politically correct and totally misleading. People always use tragic events to further their agenda regardless of the truth or who is injured.


Daniel March 6, 2010 10:00 am (Pacific time)

Tim this guy was over the edge , I would not read more into it or tie him into the Sabow story or 911, just like the crazy guy with the plane killing the irs people . It only distracts from the real stories and cover ups .


douglas benson March 6, 2010 7:56 am (Pacific time)

So now they want to put the president that authorized this garbage on the fifty dollar bill .The first criminal case ever to be dropped for national security reasons was involved in this scam that flooded our streets with cheap cocaine . There is so much evidence that our goverment still to this day is double dipping our wallets and ruining the lives of millions by bringing in the drugs for money and spending our tax dollars to "fight the war on drugs ."Prohabition corrupts and drug profits have corrupted our goverment all the way to the top. Too bad Bush JR reclassified the IRAN -CONTRA hearings as his first order of business.Cant have dad in prison now can we ?


Bob March 6, 2010 7:32 am (Pacific time)

Tim, good factual report. This shooter was obviously a psychotic. Thank God the officers were not seriously wounded. There’s no indication that he was ever in the Corps or knew Col. Sabow. Apparently, he had a history of mental illness, according to one news report.


Josh A. March 5, 2010 11:12 pm (Pacific time)

Sounds like somebody has their 'dirty tricks' team working hard.


Osotan; March 5, 2010 8:10 pm (Pacific time)

Semper Fi.


Oregon Reader March 5, 2010 5:10 pm (Pacific time)

Hmmm.. Cover ups occur in all levels of law enforcement. Are there cases in Goold 'ol Salem, Oregon of Police cover ups and framing of innocent individuals?


gp March 5, 2010 3:59 pm (Pacific time)

Good going SN, brave, strong and smart and not humor impaired, true patriots.


Ron Ritchey March 5, 2010 3:55 pm (Pacific time)

I probably would have proof read the article before allowing the world to read it. I'm pretty sure that the neighbor didn't fly in with the four men on the helicopter.

Tim King: Tim King: You could not be more right, that is a mistake that has now been corrected. My apologies.

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