vault backup: 2026-05-15 13:15:53
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@ -3,15 +3,35 @@ category: "Intelligence & Government"
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tags:
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- Person
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- CIA
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summary: "Isabelle Pettie was a CIA employee and the late wife of Marion Pettie, the leader of The Finders."
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- The_Finders
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- Washington_DC
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- Cold_War
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summary: "Isabelle Pettie was a CIA employee and the late wife of Marion Pettie, leader of The Finders. FBI Vault documents confirm her CIA employment and her possession of passports to Cold War restricted destinations including North Korea, North Vietnam, and the Soviet Union."
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location: "Washington, D.C."
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---
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Isabelle Pettie was a CIA employee and the late wife of [[Marion Pettie]], the leader of [[The Finders]]. Her employment with the CIA established a direct connection between the intelligence community and the leadership of The Finders, a relationship that became central to investigations into the group's activities and potential intelligence links.[^1]
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The discovery of Isabelle Pettie's CIA employment occurred during the broader investigation into The Finders following the February 1987 arrests of group members in Florida. As investigators examined Marion Pettie's background, they learned that his wife had worked for the CIA, and that one of their sons had worked for Air America, a CIA cutout used to traffic heroin in the golden triangle region during the Vietnam War. These family connections to intelligence operations raised questions about whether The Finders maintained formal or informal links to the agency.[^1]
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Isabelle Pettie was a CIA employee and the wife of [[Marion Pettie]], the founder and leader of [[The Finders]]. Her employment with the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] was confirmed by FBI Vault documents released as part of the 2019 Finders document disclosure, and was acknowledged by Marion Pettie himself in a 1993 interview with *U.S. News & World Report*: "his wife once worked for the Central Intelligence Agency."[^1][^2]
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The 1993 Department of Justice inquiry into CIA involvement with The Finders examined these connections in detail. The Washington Times reported in December 1993 that a Metropolitan Police document quoted a CIA agent confirming that the agency was sending personnel to a Finders Corp., Future Enterprises, for training in computer operations. While Isabelle Pettie's specific role within the CIA was not detailed in the publicly released documents, her employment provided a documented link between the intelligence community and the organization's leadership.[^1]
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### CIA Employment
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The significance of Isabelle Pettie's CIA employment extended beyond her individual role. The connection suggested that The Finders may have functioned as an unacknowledged intelligence asset, or that intelligence personnel used the group's infrastructure for training and operational purposes. The family's multi-generational involvement with intelligence-connected entities, including Air America and Future Enterprises, indicated a pattern of overlap between The Finders and the intelligence community that warranted the Department of Justice investigation.[^1]
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The precise dates of Isabelle Pettie's CIA employment vary across sources due to apparent inconsistencies in the underlying FBI Vault documents themselves. The most commonly cited range in journalism is approximately 1952 to 1961, though some documents suggest a start date as early as 1950 or 1951 and an end date as late as 1971.[^2][^3] She was listed in CIA records under the job title of staff stenographer.
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FBI Vault documents established that Isabelle Pettie held passports to North Korea, North Vietnam, and the Soviet Union during the Cold War -- three destinations that were among the most restricted for American citizens during that era and would not ordinarily be approved for travel by an employee listed as a staff stenographer.[^3] This discrepancy between her official job category and her documented travel authorizations became a focal point in discussions of the CIA's relationship to [[The Finders]] and to the Pettie family more broadly.
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### Discovery During the Finders Investigation
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Isabelle Pettie's CIA employment came to investigators' attention during the 1987 federal inquiry into The Finders. Metropolitan Police and U.S. Customs investigators learned of her background as they examined [[Marion Pettie]]'s personal history in the weeks following the February 4, 1987 arrests in Tallahassee, Florida.[^1]
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An MPD report filed February 19, 1987 by Sgt. John H. Stitcher Jr. described a CIA official acknowledging Isabelle Pettie's employment with the agency and stating that the investigation had been "treading on their toes" and that the CIA had a "vested interest" in the group.[^3] The FBI's Foreign Counterintelligence Division subsequently classified all MPD reports related to The Finders as Secret.[^3]
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### Significance to the CIA Connection Question
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Isabelle Pettie's documented employment, combined with [[George Pettie|her son George's]] work for [[Air America]] and [[Future Enterprises|Future Enterprises' training]] of CIA employees, constituted three overlapping family and organizational connections to the CIA that investigators noted formed a pattern. The CIA's formal public position, articulated in 1993 by spokesman David Christian, characterized the agency's relationship with The Finders as "an indirect, tangential association" limited to the Future Enterprises computer training connection, and did not address Isabelle Pettie's employment in detail beyond confirming it.[^1]
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She had died before the 1987 investigation began. Her specific operational role, if any, within the CIA beyond her stenographer classification has not been established in accessible primary sources.
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### Footnotes
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[^1]: Dovey, S. (2023). Eye of the Chickenhawk. United States: Thehotstar.
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[^1]: Witkin, Gordon, Peter Cary, and Angel Martinez. "Through a glass, very darkly: Cops, spies and a very odd investigation." *U.S. News & World Report*, December 27, 1993 / January 3, 1994.
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[^2]: Dovey, S. (2023). *Eye of the Chickenhawk*. United States: Thehotstar.
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[^3]: FBI Vault, "The Finders," vault.fbi.gov/the-finders (released November 2019). Also cited in: MintPress News, "Losing Finders: The Buried Documents that Linked the Infamous Cult to the CIA," 2019. https://www.mintpressnews.com/losing-finders-buried-documents-link-infamous-cult-to-cia/277756/.
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@ -27,5 +27,11 @@ Following the 1973 raid, [[Dallas Police Department]] Lieutenant Harold Hancock
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After release, Norman continued crimes; by 1983, arrested in Pennsylvania for using boys in "Handy Andy" pornography, released on bail in 1985, then fled. In 1986, wanted in at least five states, he used jailhouse lawyer skills to reduce bail, posted $7,500, and skipped, apprehended in Illinois in July 1987. Norman died in 2011 after spending his later life in and out of prison and parole programs.[^1]
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### Connection to The Finders
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When [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] investigators examined the address book carried by the two [[The Finders|Finders]] members arrested in Tallahassee, Florida on February 4, 1987 -- [[Douglas Ammerman]] and [[James Michael Holwell]], who were transporting six malnourished children -- names in that address book appeared in FBI files related to Norman's network. According to FBI file notes cited in secondary sources, two individuals named in the address book appeared in FBI Dallas field office file 145-0 relating to Norman's Odyssey Foundation child prostitution investigation. A third name appeared in an FBI Buffalo field office file concerning [[NAMBLA]] members suspected of murder connections.[^1]
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The address-book overlaps represent the primary documented connection between The Finders and Norman's network. The underlying FBI documents establishing this connection are cited in secondary sources including *Eye of the Chickenhawk* and the NAMBLA-related investigation files; they were also referenced in the FBI Vault's November 2019 Finders document release. No direct organizational relationship or personal contact between Norman and Finders leadership has been established in accessible primary sources.
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### Footnotes
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[^1]: Dovey, S. (2023). Eye of the Chickenhawk. United States: Thehotstar.
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[^1]: Dovey, S. (2023). *Eye of the Chickenhawk*. United States: Thehotstar.
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@ -4,20 +4,61 @@ tags:
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- Person
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- CIA
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- Military
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summary: "Marion Pettie was the leader of The Finders, a group that law enforcement and researchers have described as a commune or cult operating in the Washington D.C."
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- The_Finders
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- Washington_DC
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summary: "Marion David Pettie (1920-2003) was the founder and leader of The Finders, a Washington D.C.-based communal group investigated in 1987 for child trafficking connections. A retired U.S. Air Force Master Sergeant with family ties to the CIA and Air America, Pettie served as the group's 'Game Caller' for approximately three decades."
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born: 1920
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died: 2003-10-24
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location: "Washington, D.C. area"
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location: "Washington, D.C. / Culpeper, Virginia"
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---
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Marion Pettie was the leader of [[The Finders]], a group that law enforcement and researchers have described as a commune or cult operating in the Washington D.C. area. The children in the group called him the game-caller. Pettie was a former [[U.S. Air Force]] Master Sergeant, a background that provided him with military training and connections that would later become relevant to investigations into the group's activities.[^1]
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Pettie's personal connections extended into the intelligence community. His late wife, [[Isabelle Pettie]], had been a [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] employee. One of his sons had worked for [[Air America]], a CIA cutout used to traffic heroin in the golden triangle region during the Vietnam War. These family connections to intelligence operations became central to inquiries into whether The Finders maintained operational links to the CIA or functioned as an unacknowledged asset.[^1]
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Marion David Pettie (1920-2003) was the founder and leader of [[The Finders]], a Washington D.C.-based communal group that came under federal investigation in February 1987 following the arrest of two members who were transporting six malnourished children in a van in Tallahassee, Florida. A retired [[U.S. Air Force]] Master Sergeant with documented family connections to the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] and its proprietary airline [[Air America]], Pettie functioned within the group as the "Game Caller" - the title used both by adult members and by the children under the group's care - for approximately three decades until the group's announced dissolution in 1987.[^1][^2]
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The investigation into The Finders intensified in February 1987 when two members of the group were arrested in Florida for transporting children. U.S. Customs agents and Metropolitan Police in Washington D.C. discovered preexisting information from an informant stating that a group calling themselves the Finders were conducting brainwashing techniques and that children were used in rituals. Search warrants were secured for a warehouse and a nearby duplex house owned by Pettie, which were raided on February 5.[^1]
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### Early Life and Military Service
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Inside the warehouse, investigators discovered hot tub and sauna facilities, various film sets, a video screening room, a library containing books on mind control, and a room full of networked computer equipment with a satellite link on the roof. Files seized during the raids contained detailed instructions for obtaining children for unspecified purposes, including the impregnation of female members of the community, purchasing children, trading, and kidnapping. Other files contained printouts of telex messages sent to networked computer terminals across the United States and abroad, including a purchase order for two children in [[Hong Kong]] to be arranged through an official at the [[China|Chinese Embassy]].[^1]
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Pettie was born in 1920 in Culpeper, Virginia, where his family had lived for what he described as ten generations. He dropped out of school after ninth grade. He served in the [[U.S. Army]] before and during World War II, later transitioning to or serving within the U.S. Air Force, where he attained the rank of Master Sergeant. He retired from the Air Force in 1956.[^2]
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The 1993 [[Department of Justice]] inquiry into CIA involvement with The Finders revealed that Future Enterprises had provided software training for CIA employees, and that an employee of the company named [[Robert Garder Terrell]] was a member of The Finders who had been let go in February 1987. The Washington Times published an article in December 1993 citing a Metropolitan Police document dated February 19, 1987, quoting a CIA agent as confirming that the agency was sending personnel to a [[Future Enterprises]], for training in computer operations.[^1]
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From at least the 1940s, Pettie hosted open-house gatherings at his Washington D.C. residence. He described these as self-financed social events that drew intelligence figures, diplomats, journalists, and others. Pettie stated in a 1996 interview with the *Washington City Paper* that he had studied intelligence agencies since the 1930s, tracking the evolution from the Office of Naval Intelligence through the [[Office of Strategic Services|OSS]] to the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]].[^2]
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### Alleged Intelligence Connections
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An anonymous three-page investigative memo of unknown provenance, circulated among researchers during the 1990s, alleged a more formal intelligence relationship. The memo claimed that in 1946 Pettie served as chauffeur to General [[Ira Eaker]], then commanding general of Army Air Forces in the Mediterranean Theater, and that newspaper publisher [[Charles Marsh]] subsequently arranged for Pettie to receive counterintelligence training. The memo further alleged that Colonel [[Leonard N. Weigner]] of the USAF directed Pettie to retire from active duty and surround himself with "kooks" in order to provide cover for intelligence recruitment and the infiltration of counterculture movements, with Major [[George Varga]] serving as Pettie's case officer until Varga's death in the 1970s.[^2]
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Weigner died in September 1990. His *Washington Post* obituary confirmed a career in Air Force intelligence and the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]].[^2] The memo's specific claims regarding Weigner as Pettie's handler and Marsh as a facilitator are unverified and not corroborated by any accessible primary source.
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Pettie consistently denied CIA employment in public statements. In the most direct formulation, given to journalist Eddie Dean in 1996: "The reason the CIA wouldn't hire me is that they wouldn't have the control factor over me."[^2] In a 1993 interview with *U.S. News & World Report*, however, Pettie confirmed that his wife [[Isabelle Pettie]] "once worked for the Central Intelligence Agency" and that his son [[George Pettie]] worked for [[Air America]], the CIA proprietary airline that operated in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War.[^3]
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### The Finders and the Game Caller Role
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Pettie's communal gatherings evolved into The Finders, a group that coalesced in the late 1960s and established a formal communal structure around 1971 at his Glover Park house in Washington D.C. Pettie functioned as the "Game Caller," structuring the group's activities through assignments he called "projects" - which could range from mundane domestic tasks to travel abroad - and exercising final authority over communal life.[^1][^2]
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He described no formal membership requirements: "Nobody signs anything." His stated personal philosophy, offered to Eddie Dean, was "to know everything and do nothing."[^2] The group blended Taoism with New Age and Human Potential Movement concepts, and members pooled finances into what [[Robert Gardner Terrell]] called the "Invisible Bank."[^1]
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Beginning around 1980, children in the group were raised communally rather than by biological parents. Pettie described this practice as replicating what he believed were original Native American child-rearing traditions. Children were not enrolled in conventional schools and were removed from their parents for months during group-organized travel described as educational.[^4]
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### The 1987 Investigation
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The February 1987 arrests of [[Douglas Ammerman]] and [[James Michael Holwell]] in Tallahassee while transporting six malnourished children prompted searches of The Finders' Washington D.C. warehouse at 1307 Fourth Street NE and the Glover Park duplex. Investigators found extensive computer networks with satellite communications, files describing methods for obtaining children, and telex communications referencing international operations. [[U.S. Customs]] Special Agent [[Ramon J. Martinez]] documented the contents in reports dated February 7 and April 13, 1987.[^1][^5]
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An MPD report filed February 19, 1987 by Sgt. John H. Stitcher Jr. described a CIA official acknowledging Isabelle Pettie's CIA employment and stating that the investigation had been "treading on their toes" and that the agency had a "vested interest" in the group. The [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]]'s Foreign Counterintelligence Division classified MPD reports Secret and directed MPD not to brief the FBI's own Washington Field Office. All charges against the two arrested men were eventually dropped.[^1][^5]
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### Post-1987 and Final Years
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By 1996, when journalist Eddie Dean interviewed Pettie in Culpeper, Virginia, Pettie was 76 years old and living in his ancestral hometown. He denied that The Finders had engaged in any criminal activity and characterized the group name as informal: "There's no such thing as the Finders. It's just a group term for people who like to hang around me."[^2]
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A 1996 court appearance involved Pettie being unable to locate a briefcase containing approximately two million dollars in land deed documents. [[Robert Gardner Terrell]] announced the group's dissolution on March 11, 1987, though activity was observed at the former warehouse address as late as October 1991.[^1]
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Pettie gave no extended public interviews after 1996. He died on October 24, 2003, in Culpeper, Virginia.[^2]
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### Family
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- **[[Isabelle Pettie]]** (wife, deceased by 1987): Confirmed CIA employee, approximately 1952-1961. Held passports to North Korea, North Vietnam, and the Soviet Union.[^5]
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- **[[George Pettie]]** (son): Worked for [[Air America]]. Had broken contact with his father by 1985 and was operating a home inspection business in Northern Virginia at the time of the 1987 investigation. He described the circa-1971 Glover Park gatherings as "the beginning of a new life" for his father and followers.[^3]
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### Footnotes
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[^1]: Dovey, S. (2023). Eye of the Chickenhawk. United States: Thehotstar.
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[^1]: Dovey, S. (2023). *Eye of the Chickenhawk*. United States: Thehotstar.
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[^2]: Dean, Eddie. "Finders' Keeper." *Washington City Paper*, May 24, 1996. https://washingtoncitypaper.com/article/287890/finders-keeper/.
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[^3]: Witkin, Gordon, Peter Cary, and Angel Martinez. "Through a glass, very darkly: Cops, spies and a very odd investigation." *U.S. News & World Report*, December 27, 1993 / January 3, 1994.
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[^4]: Fisher, Marc and John Mintz. "Finders Group Has Its Roots in Popular '60s Hippie Refuge." *Washington Post*, February 7, 1987.
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[^5]: FBI Vault, "The Finders," vault.fbi.gov/the-finders (released November 2019). Also: Martinez, Ramon J. U.S. Customs Service Reports, February 7, 1987 and April 13, 1987. Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/ted-gunderson-fbi-the-finders.
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10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Stuart Miles Silverstone.md
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10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Stuart Miles Silverstone.md
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---
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category: "Other"
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tags:
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- Person
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- The_Finders
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- Washington_DC
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- Computer_Operations
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- 1980s
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summary: "Stuart Miles Silverstone (alias: Steve Learner) was an active member of The Finders found by U.S. Customs investigators inside the group's satellite-equipped computer room at the Glover Park duplex during the February 1987 raids."
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location: "Washington, D.C."
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---
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Stuart Miles Silverstone, who operated under the alias Steve Learner, was an active member of [[The Finders]] and was found by U.S. Customs Special Agent [[Ramon J. Martinez]] inside a satellite-equipped computer room at the group's Glover Park duplex during the February 1987 federal raids on The Finders' properties.[^1]
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### Discovery During the 1987 Raids
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When U.S. Customs and Metropolitan Police investigators executed search warrants on The Finders' Glover Park duplex at 3918-3920 W Street NW on February 5-6, 1987, Silverstone was found inside a room containing multiple computers, printers, and satellite communications equipment. Large plastic bags filled with color slides, photographs, and photographic contact sheets including images of children were also seized from the same area.[^1]
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The room Silverstone occupied at the duplex appears to correspond to the communications hub through which the group's telex messages were generated. Martinez's reports identified telex communications found at the warehouse and duplex -- transmitted through MCI accounts to terminals across the United States and in foreign locations -- including what Martinez described as a purchase order for two children in Hong Kong through a contact at the Chinese Embassy.[^1]
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### Membership and Aliases
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The active membership roster circulated during the 1987 investigations listed Silverstone by his alias "Steve Learner." His given name Stuart Miles Silverstone appears in investigative documents; some sources list a date of birth in June 1941, though this has not been independently verified. His specific formal role within [[Future Enterprises]], the computer training company associated with The Finders that conducted business with the CIA, is not established in accessible primary sources.[^1][^2]
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Silverstone is not known to have given any public interviews or made any public statements in connection with the 1987 investigation or subsequent inquiries. He does not appear in the 1993 DOJ/FBI follow-up inquiry records accessible through the FBI Vault.[^2]
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### Footnotes
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[^1]: Martinez, Ramon J. U.S. Customs Service Reports, February 7, 1987 and April 13, 1987. Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/ted-gunderson-fbi-the-finders. Also: Dovey, S. (2023). *Eye of the Chickenhawk*. United States: Thehotstar.
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[^2]: FBI Vault, "The Finders," vault.fbi.gov/the-finders (released November 2019).
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