Local ATF agents are now being called in to help with the Beltway Sniper investigation. In fact, one person from the Colorado Springs office is already in Maryland and two more are preparing to go.

This case is generating a tremendous amount of ballistics evidence. The Springs ATF agents will help gather and analyze those clues.

Rich Marianos is the head of the Colorado Springs office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. "Never in my career have I seen a sniper who's been involved in multiple incident such as this."

He also says his agents are needed because of the growing size of the investigation. "With the multiple crime scenes and the amount of evidence and meticulous gathering of the evidence, it's tremendous because you want to make sure that what is left behind is recovered."

Going over gun sales records will be part of the job too. "They're looking for multiple gun purchases. They're looking for other criminal use of firearms of this specific caliber. They're trying to trace down the specific ammunition and try to coordinate how this individual or individuals are operating in this area right now,"

Marianos says crime scenes strewn across a metropolitan area of 10-14 million people complicates the task. "It's very difficult to be the police everywhere in every location and you don't want an occupying army out there neither because this is the United States-- it isn't the old Soviet Union."