John H. Stitcher Jr.

John H. Stitcher Jr. was a sergeant in the Metropolitan Police Department of Washington D.C., assigned to the MPD Intelligence Division, who filed the primary document establishing CIA acknowledgment of involvement with The Finders during the February 1987 investigation. He died on May 28, 1993, at age 48, from septic shock, while working as a security guard at the Australian Embassy in Washington D.C. His death came approximately five months before the Department of Justice formally initiated its 1993 reinvestigation of the case, rendering him unavailable for interview.¹²

The February 19, 1987 Report

Stitcher's report, filed February 19, 1987, was titled "Re: Finders involvement with the Central Intelligence Agency" and carried the classification markings "Confidential" and "Do Not Disseminate." It documented a conversation between Stitcher and a CIA special agent (name redacted in the released version) regarding the ongoing investigation of The Finders following the February 4, 1987 arrests in Tallahassee, Florida and the February 5-6 raids on the group's Washington D.C. properties.¹²

The report recorded the following from that conversation:

• When Stitcher asked whether the investigation was "treading on anyone's toes," the CIA agent responded "Sort of."
• The CIA agent stated the agency had "had someone working on the case since it first broke."
• The CIA confirmed that Isabelle Pettie, the late wife of Finders leader Marion Pettie, "was an employee of the agency from 1950 until 1971." (Other FBI Vault documents cite different dates for her employment; the discrepancy has not been resolved.)
• Travel by at least one Finders member to Moscow, North Korea, and Vietnam during 1969-1971 had been conducted with CIA awareness and facilitation.
• The CIA stated it had a "vested interest" in the Finders; a substantial section of the released version of the report is redacted.

A separate MPD Intelligence Division report, filed April 13, 1987 and labeled Secret, concluded: "the Finders organization is and has been utilized by the Central Intelligence Agency as a disinformation service." This second report is attributed to the Intelligence Division rather than to Stitcher personally; whether Stitcher contributed to it is not established in accessible sources.²

The CIA "Internal Matter" Statement

In late March or early April 1987, Stitcher told U.S. Customs Special Agent Ramon J. Martinez that the investigation "had become a CIA internal matter" and that "the Finders was a CIA front gone bad." Martinez recorded these statements in his April 13, 1987 customs memo. A November 1, 1993 DOJ summary separately noted that Stitcher had been contacted by an unnamed party and "told him to step away from the Finders case."¹²

Death and Its Significance to the Investigation

Stitcher retired from the MPD and was employed as a security guard at the Australian Embassy at the time of his death. His cause of death, septic shock, is recorded in FBI documents that include his name unredacted specifically because he was deceased at the time of the FBI Vault release.²

The 1993-1994 DOJ and FBI reinvestigation, initiated by Acting Assistant Attorney General John C. Keeney's October 26, 1993 memo to FBI Assistant Director Larry A. Potts, specifically noted Stitcher's death and his unavailability as a witness. His February 19 report and his oral statements to Martinez were the principal evidence of CIA interference in the investigation; without his testimony, the documentary record of the CIA agent conversation rested entirely on his written report and on Martinez's account. The 1993-1994 inquiry concluded without corroboration of the interference claim.²

No other MPD reports by Stitcher specifically on The Finders beyond the February 19 document have been identified in publicly available records.²