Articles, government corruption, freedom of speech, truthClose Informant And Friend Of Former FBI Agent John O'Neill, Killed on 9/11, Tells How FBI Higher-Ups 'Shut Him Down' Letting 9/11 Happen
Janet Parker was helping O'Neill get close to a known terrorist kingpin in the months preceeding 9/11, but says FBI officials did everything in their power to block O'Neill.
August 16, 2005
By Greg Szymanski
A Seattle woman who was a close informant of former FBI agent and Al Qaeda hunter John O’Neill during the crucial months prior to the 9/11, said they both provided vital information in an attempt to stop the attack but were blocked by officials in the New York and Washington bureaus every step of the way.
The informant’s earth shattering revelations and hard evidence, including names, dates, locations, motives and sordid dealings of known terrorists, may once and for end all speculation that the FBI overtly tried to thwart O’Neill’s investigation, as well as even show authorities worked closely, assisting known terrorists in bringing about 9/11 as well as other previous terrorist attacks.
The detailed information, never released publicly and provided to the Arctic Beacon and the American Free Press, clearly shows, according to the informant, a plot in the FBI by O’Neill’s boss, Tom Picard and others higher-up in the chain of command to block O’Neill just when he may have been able to gum up the works, mainly from contacts made by the Seattle informant with a major Al Qaeda cell operating on the East Coast.
Seattle veterinarian and long time friend and informant of O’Neill, Janet Parker, 53, said O’Neill was stopped by his bosses only months prior to 9/11 from getting a wire tap on a major cell leader, Shadrack Manyathella, who had close ties with Ali Mohammad, a suspected CIA double operative and Mohammad Atta, the alleged 9/11 ring leader.
“His own bureau blocked him every step of the way, but John wanted me to bate Shadrack and get as much information as possible,” said Parker in an extended telephone conversation from her Seattle home this week, concerning several telephone conversations with the alleged terrorist thug in the months preceding 9/11.
“Shadrack was anxious to get me into his organization, since I was considered a valuable asset as a veterinarian. Also, he wanted me to marry another one of his friends named Mohammad, I think so he could get him citizenship papers and a passport.”
During July 2001, O’Neill and Parker communicated numerous times, sharing vital information and trying to determine the best way to uncover Shadrack’s plans, as O’Neil told Parker “something big was in the works and coming down soon.”
Although O’Neill was working non-stop, day and night, to connect the dots and pin down Shadrack and the intentions of other terrorists, traveling back and forth from Europe and Yemen about the USS Cole bombing as well as trying to stop future attacks.
However, Parker said during this time O’Neill also became very despondent and depressed by the lack of cooperation he was getting from FBI headquarters.
Parker, who first became associated with O’Neill more than 30 years ago in other FBI-related investigations, said O’Neill had even traveled to France, deciding to work with French intelligence, instead of his own bureau, since they were more cooperative and Shadrack often communicated to other terrorist cells, located in all parts of the world, in French.
“You have to understand that John and I had known each other for a long time. We shared a lot of information, not only about Shadrack, Al Qaeda and what turned out to be 9/11, but also about the Boston FBI scandal which I was involved in, when various FBI agents were jailed for corruption and about 19 informants like myself were brutally murdered,” said Parker, adding O’Neill protected her identity in that case and probably saved her life, allowing her to run for her life and start over again in Seattle. “I remember once when my foster daughter was visiting, I think in February, 2001, I overheard talk about airplanes and the World Trade Center.
“But concerning John, he was ambitious and maybe that was his downfall, but he was also skilled, talented and completely dedicated to stopping terrorism. He did pressure me over the years and put me in difficult spots, but I would fight back at times, reminding him I was only a volunteer.
“However, since we both knew my inside connection with Shadrack was extremely important, concerning both the bombing of the USS Cole off the coast of Yemen and what turned out to be 9/11, I tried to help any way I could until we both realized we were working alone with no assistance from higher-ups in the FBI.”
Parker also sadly recalls during the crucial months before 9/11, O’Neill telling her that “someone higher-up” had blocked attempts to wire tap Shadrack, refused to let him return to Yemen, mysteriously deleted all his files at FBI New York headquarters and then finally relegated him to a desk job, far away from the front lines of terrorism.
“John was devastated when this happened, telling me how frustrating it was to know that something big was coming down but not be able to do anything about it due to lack of cooperation by his own bureau,” said Parker, adding O’Neill told her in the later part of July 2001 that he had already planned to leave the FBI but was unsure of his next move.
“Although John would keep sensitive details from me for ethical reasons and also in order to protect my life, never specifically mentioning names, I think, as does his long time partner Valerie James, it was his direct boss, Tom Picard, who was acting on orders from higher-ups, all of them together trying to stifle John’s investigation. I am not really sure why but the only conclusion I can draw is that they wanted to let 9/11 play out and John and I were getting in the way.”
During the month of August 2001, Parker lost contact with O’Neill, who resigned under pressure in late August, taking a cushy job handed to him on silver platter as head of security at the World Trade Center. According to Parker, O’Neill never really wanted to leave the FBI and would have preferred staying in the intelligence field for another agency, but was lured away to the WTC job over money, being offered $350,000 in comparison to his $100,000 FBI salary.
What happened next is well-documented, as O’Neill was killed inside the Twin Towers on 9/11, after officially starting work on Sept. 10, a coincidence never been fully investigated but filled with suspicion, some saying he was set-up and others brushing his death aside as mere coincidence.
“The last time I talked with John was Sept 8, 2001. He wasn’t with the FBI, but was still somehow actively pursuing Shadrack and Al Qaeda,” said Parker. “John was telling me all sorts of things. I said I’d help him, but I also remember asking him how much danger I was in and if I even had to watch my back from our own FBI. He never mentioned anything about the World Trade Center security job, but was furious with me for allowing my foster daughter to fly from the East Coast to Seattle.
“John had been closely monitoring her activities as well, since she had unwillingly gotten caught up with Shadrack and his shady activities years ago. John was furious since he lost track of her on the East Coast, having no idea I changed her flight date for the early part of September.
“I remember him saying that they were planning something big soon and he was angry because he was still watching my foster daughter’s movements closely. At that time we decided to meet in October at a remote place in the Berkshires during an upcoming Boston veterinarian conference I was attending so we could talk strategy. This was the last time I talked to John, but some strange things happened with my foster daughter while she was visiting me in Seattle just days before 9/11.”
And it was Parker’s foster child, Patty, now 24, originally sold as a sex slave to Shadrack by her Vermont drug-running brothers in the late 1990’s that provided Parker and O’Neill’s main connection to what she calls an Al Qaeda cell heavily involved for years in the planning of 9/11 and other terrorist acts.
Although the story of Parker and her step daughter involve a complicated web of corruption starting in the mid 1990s on the East Coast, including illegal arms dealing, brutal killings of young girls stolen from state-sponsored foster care institutions, corruption in the famous Boston FBI scandal, connections to the Irish mob and gangster Whitey Bulger and finally Shadrack’s terrorist cell, it was originally problems surrounding Parker’s foster daughter that brought the pair together again.
After Parker and her foster daughter witnessed an arms deal going down near their country home in Hudson Falls, O’Neill intervened to lend assistance in the mid 1990’s, although she did communicate with him briefly in 1993 involving an upstate New York investigation after first World Trade Center bombing.
Parker first met O’Neill in 1975 when she worked in Peru in the Peace Corps and was airlifted from Lima back to Washington D.C. during a coup attempt. Afterwards, O’Neill, just getting started in the FBI, took an interest in her Peruvian experiences, interviewing her at Penn State where she attended school, beginning what turned out to be a working relationship that lasted up until O’Neill’ untimely death at Ground Zero in 2001.
“I’ve been accused before of being John’s lover, but that’s never been the case,” said Parker. “I lost track of John in 1975, both of us getting married and going our own separate ways.”
And it wasn’t until 1987 that the paths of Parker and O’Neil crossed again, this time at Washington State University when Parker was in the midst of getting her veterinarian’s degree and O’Neill was investigating alleged terrorist activity going on at the university.
“He asked for my help in getting photos for a sting operation involving an Iranian who was harassing me when I was teaching English as a second language,” recalls Parker. “I got him to go to a picnic where John took the photos and it turned out he was on a terrorist watch list.
“John was involved in watching for domestic terrorism and as a veterinarian, I was close to animal rights’ groups, who John was investigating and who were also putting pressure on Washington State and especially targeting my professor, Dr. Robert Speth. Together John and I made a good team, attending various animal rights’ conferences and trying to secure information.”
After graduating in 1991 and traveling to Hudson Falls, NY, to practice veterinary medicine on primarily cats and dogs, it wasn’t until 1993 that O’Neill came calling again, this time asking Parker for assistance in tracking a local upstate New York Pakistani woman, suspected of being involved in the 1993 first World Trade Center bombings.
“He asked for my help again, but this time it didn’t amount to much,” said Parker, recalling that O’Neill always approached his work diligently, like a true detective, always using inductive and deductive reasoning in an attempt to solve his case.
“He was a pleasant man, extremely intelligent and liked to live the good life, knowing that being around money and power meant also gaining vital knowledge. Maybe in the long run this was his downfall, but at heart, he was a good, honest, hard working man dedicated to his country and the FBI.”
But after helping O’Neill in the 1993 bombing investigation, Parker’s real troubles began, first witnessing with her foster daughter an illegal arms deal going down at her neighbor’s house and then getting thrown in up to her neck unexpectedly into the Boston FBI corruption case and, if that wasn’t enough, simultaneous getting embroiled into the dealings of the dangerous Irish mob and its leader, Whitey Bulger.
“I was always interested in helping abused children and decided to take on a foster child, as my husband of 22 years, though we are now divorced, couldn’t have children,. I met Patty and went about the foster care procedures. She had gone through incredible abuse with her drug-trafficking family and was living with me when we witnessed the arms deal go down at Joe Lambert’s house as we were standing in our horse pasture,” said Parker, recalling that her problems increased substantially when she notified authorities, receiving no help and eventually, along with her daughter, becoming the victim of threats and several near misses on her life.
Although what followed involved many mysterious and complicated details, basically O’Neill tried to protect Parker throughout the investigation while, at the same time, trying to nab the crooked FBI agents in the Boston bureau, agents involved in illegal dealings with the Irish mob and other known terrorists.
“I found myself in the middle of drugs and violence while still practicing veterinary medicine and essentially John got involved, coming to my rescue. It was a web of criminality that went deep and was hard to pinpoint, but I remember John was always trying to get me to testify but, at the same time, trying to protect me and my foster daughter from getting killed,” said Parker, adding during this period in 1995 her personal life went through turmoil, getting divorced, placing her foster daughter back in foster care and moving to where she took another job as a veterinarian.
“I was offered this great job with great pay in Massachusetts that turned out to be a come-on to get me involved with illegal prescriptions sales and money-laundering,” said Parker. “When things started to heat up, I started to get violent calls threatening me and my foster daughter who was back in the Vermont foster care program.
“John got dragged into this whole mess and he said he didn’t like it one bit since he was in direct conflict with the Boston FBI. They didn’t want him to get too close. Then in 1997 John wanted me to testify and put me in the witness protection program .At the same time, I started getting run off the road in obvious murder attempts, found out my horse pasture was set on fire back in upstate New York and also was being told my foster daughter’s life was in serious danger.”
However, after 19 confidential informants were mysteriously murdered during the Boston FBI corruption case, sending some agents to prison including the Boston FBI Director, Parker backed-off from testifying, fleeing with her horse van and running for her life cross country, finally settling in Tukwila, WA near Seattle.
“I wanted out, plain and simple,” said Parker.
But several months after landing another veterinary job, Parker again started receiving threatening phone calls, wondering if the nightmare she was living on a daily basis would ever end.
Then in January 1999, O’Neill turned up on her Seattle doorstep again, this time investigating the 2000 Millennium plot and the LAX bombing threats. And it was when O’Neill arrived that threats started escalating further, as frightening news came from the East Coast that her foster daughter had been sold to Shadrack by her brothers as a drug payoff and two of the four eye-witnesses to the upstate New York illegal arm’s shipment, Joe Lambert and his daughter, Jessica, had been brutally murdered.
“My foster daughter and I were the other two witnesses and I was totally scared,” said Parker. “She was now in the hands of Shadrack, had a baby with him and I heard two other girls recruited for sex and put into that group’s hands were eventually found beheaded before they had a chance to go to police.”
During this time, Parker was also accosted, threatened and pushed into a hallway wall outside her apartment by someone she later identified as one of Bulger’s Irish mob street thugs.
“Every time I went to the authorities, nobody helped me,” said Parker, adding a lack of law enforcement cooperation turned out to be a pattern throughout her Al Qaeda investigations with O’Neill and continuing even today.
At present, the whereabouts of her foster daughter and Shadrack are unknown, her daughter essentially disappearing after her trip in early September 2001 to Seattle. Parker also said the last time she spoke with Shadrack was on or about Sept. 8, 2001, when he tried to encourage her to join his organization.
“The whole key to this story that I am telling is that John O’Neill may have been able to do something good for America and stop 9/11 and other terrorist activity, but they shut him down. Plain and simple that’s what they did and I am totally convinced of it,” said Parker.
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