American terrorist suspect, John Allen Muhammad (aka John Allen Williams, aka John Allen Muhammad). One of America’s most extraordinary manhunts culminated 10/24/2002, c. 3:30 AM with the arrest of the Army veteran and a teenager, asleep at a roadside rest stop. They are accused of a bloody, three-week spree that left ten people dead and several states paralyzed by fear. Williams was accompanied by 17-year-old John Lee Malvo, born 2/18/1985 in Kingston, Jamaica.
Relatives describe a normal childhood. John married high school sweetheart Carol Ann Kaglear on 11/22/1981 in Baton Rouge. They had one son, Lindbergh, who was born 10/04/1982. Relatives said he left his wife and son, however, about the time he enlisted in the Army on 11/06/1985, serving at Fort Lewis near Tacoma, Wash. That was also about the time that he embraced Islam, relatives said. In the military, he faced disciplinary charges as well as earning honors for the Gulf War. He was discharged on 4/26/1994. With his second wife, Mildred Green, he had three children. She left him in March 2000. He took the role of father-figure to the boy, John Lee Malvo.
The trail of terror began on 10/02/2002, 5:20 PM, when bullets broke a window in Aspen Hill, MD. No one was injured. An hour later, 6:04 PM, a male was shot and killed in Montgomery County, MD. The sequence followed (Time magazine 10/21/2002):
No.2: 10/03, 7:41 AM, male shot and killed in Bethesda, MD
No.3: 10/03, 8:12 AM, male shot and killed in Rockville, MD
No 4: 10/03, 8:37 AM, female shot and killed in Olney, MD
No 5: 10/03, 9:58 AM, female shot and killed in Kensington, MD
No.6: 10/03, 9:20 PM, male shot and killed in Washington, DC
No.7: 10/04, 2:30 PM, female shot and wounded, Fredericksburg, VA
No.8: 10/07, 8:08 AM, male youth shot and wounded in Bowie, MD
No.9: 10/09, 8:18 PM, male shot and killed in Manassas, VA
No.10: 10/11, 9:30 AM, male shot and killed in Fredericksburg, VA
No.11: 10/14, 9:15 PM, female shot and killed in Falls Church, VA
No.12: 10/19, 8:00 PM, male shot and wounded in Ashland, VA
No.13: 10/22, 6:00 AM, male shot and killed in Silver Springs, MD
On November 17, 2003, at the conclusion of his trial In Virginia Beach, VA, Muhammad was found guilty on two counts of capital murder (one conviction under a new state antiterrorism law). On November 24, the jury recommended the death penalty. Sentencing is scheduled for February 2004. Muhammad became the first person ever charged and sentenced under Virginia’s new post-September 11, 2001, terrorism law.
On March 9, 2004, the convicted “Beltway Sniper” was sentenced to death. His execution is set for October 14, 2004 but legal appeals may cause delays.
Already under a death sentence in Virginia, Muhammad was convicted on May 30, 2006 of six more sniper killings in a Maryland courthouse.
He was executed by lethal injection in Jarratt, Virginia at 21:06 on 10 November 2009.
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