West Virginia

Martinsburg

Danny Casolaro checked into the Sheraton Hotel in Martinsburg on August 8, 1991, to meet a source for his investigation of what he called The Octopus; before leaving he had told his brother that if anything happened to him there, "it would not be an accident." He was found dead in the hotel on August 10, and West Virginia authorities ruled the death a suicide. A Martinsburg funeral home embalmed the body before officials or his family had authorized it, and the state medical examiner, Dr. Frost, who confirmed the ruling in January 1992, found a fully conclusive examination of the embalmed body impossible. The papers Casolaro had carried to Martinsburg were not found. Martinsburg police records released in 2024 under a request by Zachary Treitz and Christian Hansen showed that another person had visited his room on the night of August 9 and that an eyewitness had given police a statement and sketch of the visitor matching Joseph Cuellar, who had approached Casolaro at a local bar weeks earlier.¹ The House Committee on the Judiciary found no evidence that the Justice Department had tried to influence the local investigation.² On September 30, 1991, Robert Booth Nichols told Detective Sergeant Swartwood of the Martinsburg police that he believed Casolaro had been murdered.³

Senator Robert Byrd, in whose office Barbara Videnieks, wife of the Justice Department contracting officer Peter Videnieks, worked, sought to bring CIA administrative offices to Charles Town, near Martinsburg.³⁴

Sugar Grove

In May and June 1973 Hal Puthoff of Stanford Research Institute gave Ingo Swann and Pat Price the coordinates 38°23'N, 79°25'W, "described simply as being in West Virginia," supplied by what SRI's final report called "the OSI group responsible for threat analysis in this area." One subject drew "a detailed map of the building and grounds layout" and the other produced "information about the interior including codewords, data subsequently verified by sponsor sources." The site was the signals intelligence station of the NSA at Sugar Grove, and the sessions led to an NSA security inquiry.⁵⁶ The 1979 review of the program by Harry and Arlene Snyder noted: "It is alleged, although unverified by the authors, that Price had once worked for the organization that had control over that particular site."⁷ The coordinates had come from the CIA officer Bill O'Donnell by way of Richard Kennett, whose friend's cabin they were meant to locate.⁶