Washington DC sniper

[Jolie Rouge]

Jury finds Muhammad guilty in sniper trial
By STEPHEN MANNING, Associated Press Writer
Tue May 30, 7:56 PM ET


ROCKVILLE, Md. - John Allen Muhammad was convicted of six of the Washington-area sniper killings Tuesday after the prosecution's star witness, Muhammad's young protege, portrayed him as the mastermind of an audacious terror scheme in which phase two would have been bombings against children.

Muhammad, 45, is already under a death sentence in Virginia for a killing there. The most he can get for the six murders committed in Maryland is life in prison without parole.

The jury took slightly more than four hours to convict him after a four-week trial in which he acted as his own attorney.

As the verdict was read, Muhammad stood grim-faced, his arms folded across chest. He was led out of the courtroom, pausing to ask the judge, "Your honor, may I speak?" The judge answered, "No, sir," and Muhammad was taken away.

Ten people in all were killed and three were wounded in Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C., in the string of shootings that gripped the metropolitan area with fear.

The trial marked the first time Lee Boyd Malvo testified against the man prosecutors say was his mentor and manipulator. And Muhammad's cross-examination of Malvo marked one of the most dramatic moments.

During two days of testimony last week, Malvo, 21, gave the first inside account of the shootings and described Muhammad's elaborate plans for a reign of terror.

According to Malvo, Muhammad had a two-phase plan — six shootings a day for a month, followed by a wave of bombings of schools, school buses and children's hospitals. Malvo said that when he asked Muhammad why, the older man replied: "For the sheer terror of it — the worst thing you can do to people is aim at their children."

Muhammad hoped to extort $10 million from authorities and use the money to set up a school in Canada to teach homeless children how to use guns and explosives and use violence to shut down other cities, Malvo said.

One of the attorneys who helped Muhammad with his defense said he was disappointed but not surprised by the verdict. Muhammad was blocked from presenting evidence he thought proved he was framed.

"When you give the jury only one side of the story, you can't expect them to do anything other than what they have done," said attorney Jai Bonner.

Juror Scott Stearns, the White House correspondent for Voice of America, said Malvo's testimony was particularly compelling. He noted that Muhammad frequently ended his questioning of witnesses by asking if they had eyewitness knowledge of his guilt. That question was glaringly absent from Muhammad's cross-examination of Malvo, he said.

Muhammad was occasionally able to point out small inconsistencies in the testimony of prosecution witnesses, but "did not successfully discredit the case the government built against him," Stearns said.

Maryland prosecutors said they needed to put Muhammad on trial as insurance in case his conviction in Virginia was overturned. Some of the victims' families had also sought a second trial, seeking an explanation for the random attacks on people as they went shopping, gassed up their cars and mowed lawns near the nation's capital.

After the verdict, Vijay Walekar, brother of sniper victim Premkumar Walekar, said, "I wish they had the death penalty." Walekar said of Muhammad: "He stands up and denies everything up there. It was hard for us to take it."

Malvo's testimony came after he agreed to plead guilty in the Maryland killings. He gave detailed descriptions of each shooting, even pointing out parking spaces where the sniper team's car was parked.

Aside from Malvo's testimony, Muhammad's second trial followed much of the same blueprint as his first, with prosecutors telling jurors that Muhammad and Malvo roamed the area in a beat-up Chevrolet Caprice, firing .223-caliber bullets through a hole bored in its trunk.

The jury heard a torrent of evidence that linked Muhammad to the shootings — fingerprints, DNA evidence, and ballistics tests that connected the bullets used in the shootings to the Bushmaster rifle found in the car when Muhammad and Malvo were arrested.

Acting as his own lawyer, Muhammad claimed he and Malvo were simply roaming the Washington region looking for his children who had been taken away from him in a custody battle with his ex-wife. He implied that authorities framed him by planting evidence.

In an often testy four-hour cross-examination, Muhammad continued to refer to Malvo as his "son" even though the younger man tried to show during his testimony that he was no longer under the sway of his one-time father figure.

Malvo, who received no leniency in return for his testimony, told jurors he wanted to face the man who he said trained him to be a killer and coerced him to join his murderous schemes. Malvo called Muhammad a "coward" and, at one point, glared at Muhammad, saying: "You took me into your house and you made me a monster."

Malvo told jurors that he shot three of the 13 sniper victims, while Muhammad pulled the trigger on the rest. He said Muhammad was the shooter in all but one of the six Maryland murders.

In March, Muhammad persuaded Circuit Judge James Ryan to let him defend himself, despite statements from two psychiatrists who said he may be mentally ill.

During closing arguments, Muhammad grew wild-eyed and sometimes shouted as he quoted the Bible, Mark Twain and Groucho Marx.

He struggled to mount a defense, hampered by his failure to meet deadlines on calling witnesses. He originally wanted to call hundreds of people to the stand, but the judge limited him to just a few dozen because he failed to follow proper courtroom procedure.

Many witnesses did not want to take part in his defense, refusing to show up at court even though they were issued subpoenas by lawyers helping Muhammad with his case.

In Maryland, Muhammad was charged with first-degree murder for the deaths in Montgomery County of James Martin, Premkumar Walekar, James "Sonny" Buchanan, Sarah Ramos, Lori Lewis Rivera and Conrad Johnson.

Maryland prosecutors originally sought a death sentence, but dropped those plans earlier this year. Muhammad's Virginia defense attorneys and some victims questioned whether it was necessary to reopen old psychological wounds from more than three years ago.

Muhammad could still face prosecution for earlier shootings in Alabama and Louisiana. He and Malvo are linked to other shootings in Maryland, Arizona, Georgia and Washington state.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060530/ap_on_re_us/sniper_trial;_ylt=Al2NnniOBOHWjmpqpr7GkRhH2ocA;_yl u=X3oDMTA4dW1uZXIwBHNlYwMyNzQ3

[Jolie Rouge]

For most people, the Beltway-area sniper case is a distant memory. Over and done. But in Montgomery County, Md., the pain and suffering caused by convicted killing spree murderers Lee Malvo and John Muhammad is as fresh and raw as it was three years ago when the pair terrorized the area--leaving 10 dead and three injured in their wake.

At the time, I covered two main aspects of the story that were underplayed by the MSM--Lee Malvo's illegal alien catch-and-release story and Nation of Islam convert Muhammad and Malvo's Muslim hate-mongering. Snide MSM'ers and the CAIR propagandists attacked those of who called these thugs what they are: terrorists.

This week, the snipers faced off against each other during Muhammad's trial for six of the murders in Montgomery County. Muhammad is serving as his own lawyer. On the witness stand, Malvo revealed the chilling details of just how much terror the Muslim pair sought to inflict in this community--from bombings to mass murder of children and pregnant women to the random slaying of six white people a day for 30 days.

Via the NYSun: http://www.nysun.com/article/33291


John Allen Muhammad had grand plans to extort millions of dollars from authorities in the 2002 Washington-area sniper shootings so he could set up a camp to train children how to terrorize cities and "shut things down," accomplice Lee Boyd Malvo testified yesterday.

Asked whether he believed Muhammad's plans, Malvo said yes.

"He's a man of his word. If he tells you he is going to do something, it is done," Malvo said. "If he says it, it is legit."

Malvo, who had never before taken the witness stand against his fellow sniper, gave the most detailed account yet of the planning that went into the three-week shooting spree that left 10 people dead at gas stations and parking lots.

Malvo also said Muhammad devised a two-phase plan to shoot as many as six random people each day for 30 days in the Washington area and then target children and police officers with explosives. They planned to place explosives on school buses in Baltimore, kill a Baltimore police officer, and then set off explosives packed with ball bearings at the officer's funeral.

When Malvo asked Muhammad why, he said, "For the sheer terror of it - the worst thing you can do to people is aim at their children."


The Montgomery County Gazette adds this detail from the testimony:
http://gazette.net/stories/052406/germnew193052_31939.shtml


On another occasion, Muhammad wanted Malvo to shoot a pregnant woman. He dropped Malvo off at a cemetery overlooking a housing project in Baltimore.
Malvo said he saw four different pregnant women.

‘‘I just couldn’t take the shot,” Malvo said.


And the Telegraph fills in more in its report, " The sniper's plan: kill six whites a day for 30 days:" http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/05/25/wsnipe25.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/05/25/ixnews.html



Malvo testified that Muhammad, driven by hatred of America because of its "slavery, hypocrisy and foreign policy" and his belief that "the white man is the devil", planned to kill six whites a day for 30 days.

Malvo alleged that Muhammad had said: "We are going to go to the Washington DC area and we are going to terrorise these people."

They then intended to move to Baltimore for stage two of their campaign, to shoot a policeman and then blow up explosives at his funeral.

More explosives would target the ambulances that would then rush to the funeral. Another plan to kill three busloads of schoolchildren was thwarted because the pair were arrested when Malvo fell asleep while keeping watch at a Maryland petrol station.

Muhammad's ultimate plan, Malvo testified, was to indoctrinate 140 young homeless men at a Canada compound who would "shut things down" in cities across America, unless they received £5 million.


And what kind of indoctrination would Muhammad and Malvo's army have received to prepare them for their terrorist assaults on American cities? Hint: Try a six-letter word that starts with "M" and ends with "M." The jailhouse drawings of Malvo are worth a thousands words. I've dug up a few from the Wayback Machine to refresh your memories:

http://michellemalkin.com/archives/005257.htm


http://michellemalkin.com/archives/images/malvo.jpg


http://michellemalkin.com/archives/images/malvo002.jpg


http://michellemalkin.com/archives/images/malvo003.jpg


http://michellemalkin.com/archives/images/malvo004.jpg


http://michellemalkin.com/archives/images/malvo005.jpg


http://michellemalkin.com/archives/images/malvo006.jpg


http://michellemalkin.com/archives/images/malvo007.jpg


http://michellemalkin.com/archives/images/malvo008.jpg



Still believe the killings had nothing to do with Islam?

[Jolie Rouge]

Va. gov: No reason to stop sniper execution
Dena Potter, Associated Press Writer
14 mins ago

RICHMOND, Va. – Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine said Monday he can't think of any reason he would stop the execution of Washington, D.C.-area sniper John Allen Muhammad.

Muhammad is scheduled to be executed Nov. 10 for the October 2002 killing spree that left 10 dead in the nation's capital, Virginia and Maryland.

"I know of nothing in this case now that would suggest that there is any credible claim of innocence or that there was anything procedurally wrong with the prosecution," Kaine said on his monthly call-in radio show on WTOP.

Kaine said he would review Muhammad's petition for clemency when he gets it.

Muhammad attorney Jon Sheldon said there were "huge procedural errors in the case" that he plans to raise in the clemency petition he expects to file in mid-October, and other issues he'll raise in a motion with the U.S. Supreme Court in early November.

Muhammad was sentenced to death for the slaying of Dean Meyers, who was shot at a Manassas gas station. Myers was one of 10 people killed over a three-week period in 2002 by Muhammad and his teenage accomplice Lee Boyd Malvo. Malvo is serving a life sentence.

In August, a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously rejected Muhammad's claims that prosecutors withheld critical evidence and that Muhammad should not have been allowed to act as his own attorney for part of his trial.

Muhammad made his own opening statement and questioned 18 witnesses before turning his defense over to court-appointed attorneys. During oral arguments in May, Sheldon argued that Muhammad's trial lawyers failed to tell the judge that he was too mentally impaired to represent himself.

Muhammad also claimed prosecutors withheld thousands of pages of documents that could have helped him, including ballistics reports, witness interviews and an FBI profiler's report that the shootings probably were the work of a lone gunman.

Judge Roger Gregory wrote in the opinion that the court did not condone the state's actions, adding that the prosecution should err on the side of disclosure — especially when the defendant is facing a possible death sentence.

"Yet, at this stage of the criminal process, we deal only with actions that were clear violations of the Constitution. While not admirable, the Commonwealth's actions did not violate the Constitution," Gregory wrote.

Sheldon said death shouldn't be allowed because of fuzziness between the degrees of constitutional violation.

"So not only was it improper, but it apparently was likely a violation of the constitution, just not a 'clear violation,'" he said in an e-mail to The Associated Press. "I'd call that affirming a death sentence on a technicality."

Kaine usually does not act on clemency petitions until after the courts have denied a condemned inmate's request.

Kaine, a Roman Catholic, is opposed to the death penalty, but has allowed nine executions and commuted one sentence since he took office in 2006. Virginia has the nation's second busiest death chamber behind Texas.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090929/ap_on_re_us/us_sniper_execution

[Jolie Rouge]

Sniper attorneys to appeal execution to high court
1 hr 55 mins ago

WASHINGTON – Attorneys for sniper mastermind John Allen Muhammad plan to file an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court in an effort to stop next week's execution.

Muhammad is scheduled to die by lethal injection Nov. 10 at a Virginia prison.

Attorneys for the 48-year-old have said they planned to file the appeal Tuesday. They asked Gov. Timothy M. Kaine for clemency last month.

Muhammad is to be executed for the slaying of Dean Harold Meyers at a Manassas, Va., gas station during a three-week killing spree in October 2002 that left 10 dead in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia.

Muhammad and his teenage accomplice, Lee Boyd Malvo, were also suspected of fatal shootings in other states, including Louisiana and Alabama. Malvo is serving a life sentence in prison.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091103/ap_on_re_us/us_sniper_execution


They asked ...for clemency ...

To whom were the VICTIMS to ask for clemency ?


Profiles: Lives shattered by sniper
Wednesday, October 23, 2002 Posted: 6:53 PM EDT (2253 GMT)

ROCKVILLE, Maryland (CNN) -- The Washington area sniper shootings began October 2. The victims seem to have been selected at random. They are men, women and a child of different races and walks of life.

All seem to have been carrying out mundane tasks of life at the times they were shot.

Conrad Johnson
The 35-year-old bus driver was shot October 22 in Silver Spring, Maryland. He was standing on the top step of his empty bus when he was hit.

The father of two was a 10-year county employee, who "loved basketball, loved his kids," Montgomery County executive Doug Duncan said.

Johnson, from nearby Oxon Hill, Maryland, was shot in the stomach, apparently as he was getting off the bus in a staging area for Montgomery County's Ride On commuter line.

Unidentified man
A 37-year-old man from Melbourne, Florida, was shot and wounded at about 8 p.m. EDT on October 19 as he and his wife were leaving a Ponderosa restaurant in Ashland, Virginia, near Richmond. The couple were traveling through the state.

The bullet pierced the man's upper abdomen and tore through several organs. Surgeons removed part of the stomach, the left half of the pancreas and the entire spleen.

His surgeon, Dr. Rao Ivatury, said the victim, who is 6 feet tall and weighs 200 pounds, "is a very, very strong man, and once he comes out of this I think he'll have a normal life. But it's going to be a bumpy road, a long process."

The victim's wife issued a statement, thanking the people of Richmond for their support and prayers for her husband. She also asked people to "pray also for the attacker and that no one else is hurt."

Linda Franklin

Linda Franklin, 47, an FBI analyst, had just finished shopping at a Home Depot in Falls Church, Virginia, when she was killed October 14.

Police said the Arlington, Virginia, woman was with her husband when she was shot once as she loaded items in her car in a Seven Corners Shopping Center parking garage, around 9:15 p.m. ET.

Sources said Franklin worked for the FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Center and said there was no indication she was targeted because of her occupation.

Kenneth Bridges

Kenneth Bridges, 53, a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, businessman, was killed as he filled his gas tank at an Exxon station off I-95 near Fredericksburg, Virginia, the morning of October 11. The co-founder of a marketing distribution company, Bridges was in the area on a business trip.

A friend, Gary Shepherd, said the family was "shocked and saddened by this senseless event."

"Ken was a loving husband, father of six children and an outstanding citizen of the Philadelphia community," Shepherd said. "While no family should have to endure this type of tragedy, the Bridges family hopes that this killer is brought to justice as quickly as possible."

Dean Harold Meyers

On October 9, Dean Harold Meyers, 53, was fatally shot as he pumped gas at a station in Manassas, Virginia. Meyers was a civil engineer from Gaithersburg, Maryland, and a Vietnam War veteran.

Woman, boy

On October 4, a 43-year-old woman was shot and critically injured in a Fredericksburg, Virginia, parking lot. She later was released from the hospital. She was not identified.

The sniper's eighth victim was a 13-year-old boy who was shot in the abdomen October 7 after his aunt dropped him off at a middle school in Maryland's Prince George's County.

His aunt, a nurse, rushed him to a hospital in Bowie. He was airlifted to a Washington hospital, where doctors removed his spleen and parts of his stomach and pancreas. He remains in critical but stable condition.

Pascal Charlot

Pascal Charlot, 72, who was killed the evening of October 3 on a Washington street, was the only sniper victim killed in the nation's capital.

A retired carpenter, Charlot immigrated to the United States from Haiti. He is survived by his wife.

Lori Ann Lewis-Rivera

Lori Ann Lewis-Rivera was getting ready to vacuum out her van at a Kensington, Maryland, gas station when she was killed October 3.

She grew up in a small town in Idaho and had recently moved east with her husband and daughter of preschool age. She was 25.

"I mean, she comes and goes, and all of a sudden she gets caught up in this. It's just devastating," said neighbor Rosa Malon. "There are no words for it."

Sarah Ramos

Sarah Ramos also died the morning of October 3. Ramos, 34, was sitting on a bench reading outside a post office near a Silver Spring, Maryland, retirement community when she was shot in the head and killed.

A native of El Salvador, Ramos was a member of several church groups and babysat for children and worked as a housekeeper.

"The thing that impressed me about Sarah," said her employer, Larry Gaffigan, "when she walked into the room, not just a person walked in the room but something walked in the room with her. Something that just warmed the house and your soul."

Ramos was married and had a 7-year-old son.

Prem Kumar Walekar

Also on October 3, Prem Kumar Walekar, 54, was shot and killed while filling his minivan with gas at a service station in Aspen Hill, Maryland. It was his 25th wedding anniversary.

"I just want everybody to know that my dad was ... the greatest person I ever met," said Walekar's son, Andrew. "I'm glad he was my father."

Ordinarily, the part-time cabdriver from Olney, Maryland, would not have been at the gas station at that time of day, but he was trying to finish his runs early so he could enjoy the warm afternoon.

Walekar was born in India and had intended to retire there.

James Buchanan

James "Sonny" Buchanan was known as a man with a big heart who was always ready to help others.

The 39-year-old son of a retired Montgomery County, Maryland, police officer was an active volunteer at the local Boys and Girls Club. He was an amateur poet and taught children how to garden.

"Sonny was the dad to literally 400 kids," said Gregory Wims, a friend and fellow volunteer at the club. "He came to the club two or three times a week, helped with homework, etc."

Buchanan previously ran a landscaping company but had gotten out of the business. He was mowing the lawn of a former customer's car dealership near Rockville, Maryland, the morning of October 3, when he was shot in the chest and killed.

James D. Martin

James D. Martin, a program analyst at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, was standing in the parking lot of a Wheaton, Maryland, grocery store when he was killed October 2. He was there to buy groceries for his church.

The 55-year-old was an amateur genealogist and a Civil War buff. He is survived by his wife and an 11-year-old son.

http://archives.cnn.com/2002/US/South/10/15/shooting.victims/index.html




DC Sniper victims
A Virtual Cemetery

Ballenger, Hong Im
b. Jun. 28, 1957 d. Sep. 23, 2002 Port Hudson National Ceme...
Port Hudson East Baton Rouge Parish Louisiana, USA

Bridges, Kenneth
b. 1949 d. Oct. 11, 2002 No cemetery listed

Buchanan, James L.
b. unknown d. Oct. 3, 2002 No cemetery listed


Charlot, Pascal Emile
b. Apr. 20, 1930 d. Oct. 3, 2002 Gate of Heaven Cemetery
Silver Spring Montgomery County Maryland, USA

Franklin, Linda
b. Mar. 11, 1955 d. Oct. 14, 2002 National Memorial Park
Falls Church Fairfax County Virginia, USA

Johnson, Conrad
b. 1962 d. Oct. 22, 2002 Resurrection Cemetery
Clinton Prince George's County Maryland, USA

Lewis-Rivera, Lori Ann
b. May 4, 1977 d. Oct. 3, 2002 Mountain View Cemetery
Mountain Home Elmore County Idaho, USA

Martin, James D.
b. May 7, 1947 d. Oct. 2, 2002 No cemetery listed


Meyers, Dean Harold
b. May 17, 1949 d. Oct. 9, 2002 Christ Evangelical Congre...
Schwenksville Montgomery County Pennsylvania, USA

Ramos, Sarah
b. unknown d. Oct. 3, 2002 Heavenly Angel Cemetery
Silver Spring Montgomery County Maryland, USA

Walekar, Prenkumar
b. Sep. 13, 1948 d. Oct. 3, 2002 No cemetery listed

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=vcsr&GSvcid=60117



See also : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beltway_sniper_attacks

[Jolie Rouge]

Victims, relatives to witness sniper execution
By Dena Potter, Associated Press Writer
1 hr 34 mins ago

RICHMOND, Va. – Some ache for revenge, others simply for justice. There is frustration, too, and defiance.

For those wounded by the D.C. snipers and for the relatives of those killed, the emotions leading up to the execution of the mastermind behind the 2002 attacks vary as widely as those who found themselves in the cross hairs.

John Allen Muhammad, 48, is set to die by injection in a Virginia prison Nov. 10, seven years after he and his teenage accomplice terrorized the area in and around the nation's capital for three weeks.

Some family members can't wait to see Muhammad take his final breath. Others plan to make the trip to Virginia but never step foot on prison grounds.

And there are those who plan to spend the night at home with their families, satisfied that Muhammad is paying for what he's done but indifferent as to how it will happen.

___

For Nelson M. Rivera and Marion Lewis, watching Muhammad's execution will be the closest they will ever come to revenge.

"I feel like it's going to be the last chapter of this book and I want to see what his expression on his face is. And I want to see if he says anything," the 38-year-old Rivera said. "I want to see his face and see how he likes that — confronting his death."

Lori Ann Lewis-Rivera, who was Rivera's wife and Lewis' daughter, was killed as she vacuumed her van at a Kensington, Md., gas station.

Rivera, a Honduran immigrant who recently became a U.S. citizen, has remarried and had two more children since Lori was killed, leaving behind a 2-year-old daughter, Jocelin. He now works as a public-schools groundskeeper in the suburbs of Sacramento, Calif.

Still, "there is not one day I don't remember what happened and I don't remember my wife. This is going to be with me the rest of my life," Rivera said.

Lewis, 57, a laid-off construction worker, said he would like to tell Muhammad how losing his 25-year-old daughter devastated their family.

"For the hurt, the pain that he's caused my family, I'd like to be his executioner, period," Lewis said.

___

Robert Meyers takes some solace in knowing that Muhammad's execution is out of his hands.

He and his wife, Lori, plan to be in the witness booth, but not out of any bloodthirsty lust to watch his brother's killer meet his maker. Rather, he considers it justice being served, a sentence being carried out.

"The reason why this life is going to be taken has everything to do with choices that he made and the process that those choices took him through," said Meyers, 56, of Perkiomenville, Pa.

Executions in Virginia, home of the nation's second-busiest death chamber, usually are intimate affairs observed by a handful of lawyers, prison officials, the mandated six citizen witnesses, a few reporters and family members.

But the sheer number of victims — 10 killed and three injured in and around the nation's capital alone — has the state scrambling to accommodate all the people entitled to watch. Corrections officials are tightlipped about the arrangements, though relatives say each victim's family was offered two spots in the roughly 10-by-10 witness booth.

Meyers said he owed it to his brother, Dean Harold Meyers, to be there and that he also wanted to be there for other victims' families.

Dean Meyers, 53, a Vietnam vet and civil engineer, was the youngest of four brothers. He was shot in the head while filling up at a Manassas, Va., gas station. Muhammad's teenage accomplice, Lee Boyd Malvo, later bragged to police, laughing that Dean Meyers "was hit good. Dead immediately."

It was Meyers' murder that sent Muhammad to death row.

"We're expecting justice being done, but not from a vengeful standpoint," Robert Meyers said. "It is more about the payment of his debt to society, because that was decided by others."

___

Charles Moore believes Muhammad deserves to die, and he's frustrated that Malvo will not be on a gurney beside him.

"The only thing that would give me closure would be if I knew that Lee Boyd Malvo was being punished properly," said Moore, 80, of Gainesville, Fla.

Malvo, who was 17 at the time of the shootings, was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for killing Linda Franklin, a 47-year-old FBI analyst who was shot as she and her husband loaded supplies at a Home Depot in Falls Church, Va.

"I don't see how someone can plan and plot and commit murder, one right after the other, and get off with just life in prison, I don't care what their age is," Moore said.

Moore, a retired bioengineer at the University of Florida, said his daughter used to call him every morning "to tell me to get out of bed and start chasing my wife around the house or something."

He struggles with Parkinson's disease now, and says he can't afford the trip to Virginia to watch the execution. He's not really sure he would make the trip if he could, though.

"When my daughter was first killed, if I would have had a gun I would have been willing to kill him but right now I don't know how I feel," Moore said. "I don't want him turned loose on society, that's for sure."

___

Caroline Seawell has refused to live the last seven years as a victim.

Sure, her ribs are deformed and there's a piece of mesh covering a hole in her diaphragm. But Seawell has been blessed with no major medical problems since a sniper's bullet raced into her back and through a handful of organs as she loaded a scarecrow and other Halloween decorations into her minivan.

She and her family moved to South Carolina not long after the shooting outside a Fredericksburg, Va., Michael's craft store. Her youngest son, now 11, doesn't even know about the shooting.

"I've been really good about being able to kind of just put it behind me," Seawell said. "I've been able to just continue on with my life."

In that defiant spirit, Seawell said she will not travel to Virginia to watch Muhammad take his last breath. He deserves to die for what he's done, she said, but after watching both parents die from cancer, she has no desire to witness another death.

"There was enough killing already with all of us," she said.

If anything, Seawell says the shooting has made her a much stronger person. If given the chance, she'd like to tell Muhammad and Malvo just that.

"They didn't do what they set out to do because they haven't devastated my life," she said. "I've been able to move on and continue and raise my children, which is exactly what I wanted to do.

"I don't want them to have any satisfaction out of the fact that they shot me."

Associated Press Writer David Dishneau contributed to this report from Hagerstown, Md.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091105/ap_on_re_us/us_sniper_execution_witnesses

[Jolie Rouge]

Muhammad family member speaks out before execution
Nov 09, 2009 10:06 PM CST

BATON ROUGE, LA (WAFB) - Convicted D.C. sniper John Allen Muhammad will die by lethal injection at a Virginia prison Tuesday night, after the U.S. Supreme Court denied a last minute request to block it.

Muhammad, 48, has strong roots in Baton Rouge, after spending the majority of his life in the city. Sheron Norman first met Muhammad, then John Williams more than 30 years ago. He married her sister, Carol, and the newlyweds lived together in Baton Rouge. “We were like the rest of America, saying I really hope they find whoever it is that's running around killing people because that horrified us,” she said.

A few days later the phone rang and Norman says it was a call that changed her life forever. “Can you imagine they call one of your family members' names and say they are a serial killer, or the beltway sniper, we were totally surprised and totally shocked,” she said.

Norman says the news about her former brother-in-law was a blow to her entire family. Since Muhammad was convicted in 2004, she hasn't spoken to him, but her sister Carol has. “We’re just kind of bracing ourselves. We don't know what's going to happen. We’re just bracing ourselves right now,” she said.

Years before the shootings, Muhammad converted to Islam, left his first wife Carol, and left Baton Rouge. Just a few years later he met a struggling teenager named Lee Boyd Malvo, who would turn out to be his accomplice during the D.C. shootings. “On behalf of my family, I'd like to extend our sympathies to those families and to let them know our prayers go out to them,” Norman said.

Norman says one of the most chilling parts of the story is what Muhammad will say to his first wife, just moments before he dies. “He told her he has something to tell her, so he'll tell her when she gets there,” Norman said.

Muhammad’s lawyers have asked for clemency from Virginia Governor Tim Kaine. The governor has announced he will deny any form of clemency.

http://www.wafb.com/global/story.asp?s=11473706

[Jolie Rouge]

Sniper victims’ families see justice in execution
Some will watch John Allen Muhammad die, while others won’t revisit pain
The Washington Post By Michael E. Ruane
updated 6:16 a.m. CT, Mon., Nov . 9, 2009

MOUNTAIN HOME, IDAHO - The setting sun is streaming in the living room window of Marion Lewis's house as he puts aside his cigarette and starts telling the story of the day his daughter was murdered. He is 57, a bulky, balding man sitting in his stocking feet. He has a brown bandanna around his neck, gray hair tied in a ponytail, and his glasses and a pack of cheap Seneca cigarettes are stuffed in his shirt pocket. He shoos away his two beagles, who retreat out the dog door.

He remembers the day, Oct. 3, 2002, when Lori Lewis Rivera was shot to death by the D.C. snipers at a gas station in Kensington. Two thousand miles away, her father was oblivious, out in the wilderness running a giant rock-crushing machine. Lewis stares at the floor as he recalls it, kneading his beefy hands and wiping away tears with his fingers. He can still hear the phone ringing and ringing back at the motel where he was staying that day, as he stood in the shower washing off the grime and wondering who could be calling.

Seven years since John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo went on a homicidal rampage across the Washington area, their work still torments the families it touched.

'Push the plunger myself'

But at 9 p.m. Tuesday, if all goes as scheduled, Muhammad, the mastermind, is to be executed in Virginia by injection — bringing closure, justice and finality, victims' friends and families say, to a saga that haunts the community still. Malvo is serving a life term in prison without the possibility of parole. "I don't have any doubt that I could pull the switch or push the plunger myself," Lewis said.

Between Oct. 2 and Oct. 24, 2002, when they were captured, Muhammad, then 41 and a former U.S. Army soldier from Louisiana, and Malvo, his 17-year-old sidekick, terrorized the District, Maryland and Virginia, shooting and killing people at random from the cover of their battered car. Sixteen people were shot, 10 fatally.

Their deadliest period was a 27-hour stretch spanning Oct. 2 and 3, in which six people were murdered within a few miles of each other in Montgomery County and Northwest Washington. Four more were slain and three more were wounded over the next two weeks. Five others had been killed and four others wounded by the pair, authorities think, in shootings across the country during the eight months leading up to the final bloodletting.

One of those killed Oct. 3 was Lori Lewis Rivera, a 25-year-old nanny and mother. She was vacuuming her employer's minivan at a Shell station at Connecticut and Knowles avenues when she was shot in the back. The bullet fragmented inside, destroying her left lung. Now, her father wants to watch Muhammad's execution in the death chamber of Greensville Correctional Center, near Jarratt, south of Richmond. Technically, Muhammad is being executed for the Oct. 9 murder of Dean H. Meyers, 53, a civil engineer from Gaithersburg who was shot while buying gas near Manassas.

Lewis and his former son-in-law, Nelson Rivera, plan to travel to Virginia this week to witness the execution. (In the seven years since the shootings, Rivera has moved to California and remarried, and he has two more children.)

Bearing witness

"I want to see what he made me see," Lewis said. "He forced us to look at our little girl laying in a coffin. I want to see justice done. I want to see him take a last breath. . . . I want to be able to describe it to the rest of the family."

Rivera said: "I want to see if he has any remorse, if he feels sorry about what he did. He doesn't have to tell me, 'I'm sorry.' . . . He needs to be sorry and repent himself for what he did. . . . I want to see in his face, if he fears to die, because he didn't give any chance to those victims, not a little bit of a chance. . . . "My wife took the [baby] car seat out of the van and put it on top of the vacuum and they still killed her."

Officials said last week that what witnesses will see is Muhammad strapped to a metal gurney. He will be wearing flip-flops, denim pants and a special short-sleeved denim shirt to allow technicians to attach a heart monitor and two intravenous lines — one for each arm — through which the deadly drugs will be administered.

Muhammad will first receive thiopental sodium, which will put him to sleep, then pancuronium bromide, to stop his breathing, then potassium chloride, to stop his heart. Death normally occurs in seven to 15 minutes, officials said. "A picture's worth a thousand words," Lewis said last week in an interview here. "And I very seriously doubt that the news agencies are going to waste a thousand words on his death."

Virginia corrections officials won't say how many victims' families plan to attend Tuesday's scheduled execution, but several besides Lewis are expected.

Still, other victims' relatives, such as Jocelyn Bridges of Philadelphia, whose husband, Kenneth, 53, was gunned down Oct. 11 at a gas station near Massaponax, Va., don't want to revisit past anguish. "I would like to be moving forward with my life," the mother of six said last week. "That has nothing to do with forward motion. That's a snapshot in time. My life is a moving train. It's moving forward. I learned that from my husband . . . got a train to keep moving on. I don't have to go back and rent or borrow or go to any more nightmares."

James Ballenger, whose wife, Hong Im Ballenger, was slain by the snipers in a Sept. 23, 2002, robbery outside her Baton Rouge beauty shop, went further. "I don't want nothing to do with it anymore," he said last week by phone. "I'm remarried. I'm done with everything."

[Jolie Rouge]

Ending a long wait

But Lewis, an unemployed construction worker whose bum left leg forces him to sit or squat instead of stand for long periods, is elated that he will be able to witness Muhammad's death. "He's dying for the murder of our daughter, and I'm still alive," he said. "They've dragged this out. I could have passed away by the time they executed him. Or they could have changed the laws and never executed him."

Lewis said he would favor a more "gruesome" method of execution. "Let's give the guillotine a shot," he said.

Lewis, a native of Homer, Ill., migrated to the vast, arid valleys of southern Idaho with his wife, Jo, and children, Lori and Charity, in the early 1980s. He's been a carpenter, a stonemason, a truck driver, a machine operator and a gold prospector. He is being flown to Virginia by the syndicated television show "Inside Edition" and is staying in Maryland with Rivera's brother.

Virginia corrections officials said Muhammad will have a chance to say some last words. Lewis said he wishes he could, too. "It would be short and simple: 'I'm here to see you die . . . son of a *****,' " he said.

'Impish smile'

Lori was a little girl when the family moved to the small, three-bedroom house on South 12th Street East in Mountain Home with the poplar tree out front. There are still pictures of her on the living room walls — as a toddler, and as a young married woman, posing with her husband and daughter, Jocelin. "She always had a kind of impish smile," her father said.

Lori attended Mountain Home High School a few blocks away, babysat for neighbors, and decided early on that she wanted to be a nanny. She left home at 19, attended a nanny school near Portland, Ore., and eventually found a job in the Washington area. There she met her husband, married in 1997 and had her daughter two years later. The family lived in Silver Spring.

Lewis and his wife always hoped Lori would one day return home. "We kept trying to get her back here," he said. "Especially after they were married and we had a grandchild that all we'd seen is pictures of."

But the small town and stark beauty of the mountain-rimmed valleys apparently had lost their charm. She told her parents, partly in jest, and her husband that she didn't like Idaho anymore.

Lewis said her death came on a day that still haunts him. "I was working on a portable rock crusher," he said. "We were out in the middle of nowhere. . . . We came off the highway and run back into the desert. Because of the remoteness and because we worked as many hours as we could a day, we didn't get back into the hotel until about 6:30 or 7 that evening. "Running a rock crusher is pretty dusty work," he said. "First thing you do when you get back to wherever you're staying at is you get down and you get a shower. I was in the shower, and the phone just kept ringing and ringing and ringing. When I got out, it was my wife telling me my daughter had been murdered."

He paused. "I broke down for a bit," he said. "Talked to my wife for a little bit. I got off the phone."

Storybook castle

Lewis closed his eyes as his cigarette smoldered in the ashtray. His boss sent someone to drive him home, he said. Later, he traveled to Maryland for a funeral service for Lori. "I will never forgive the people who took her away from us," he told reporters.

The Lewises brought her body home to Idaho and buried her in Mountain View Cemetery, just across American Legion Boulevard from where she had lived and gone to high school.

Over her grave they placed a gray tombstone etched with a motif her sister had drawn for Lori's wedding invitations. It depicts a storybook castle, with pennants flying and a horse-drawn carriage approaching on a winding path. "It's the fairy tale," Lewis said in the cemetery one evening last week.

As he prepared to journey to Muhammad's execution, he said his life has not been drastically different in the seven years since his daughter's death, except for one thing.

A few years ago, he was out of work and got hired to run a rock-crushing machine. It was a good job but brought back terrible memories. "I was reliving that night every day," he said. He lasted only two weeks. "I couldn't do it," he said.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33783650/ns/us_news-washington_post/

[Jolie Rouge]

Va. gov clears way for DC sniper's execution
By Dena Potter, Associated Press Writer
2 mins ago

RICHMOND, Va. – Gov. Tim Kaine denied clemency Tuesday for sniper John Allen Muhammad, clearing the way for him to be executed for the attacks that terrorized the nation's capital region for three weeks in 2002.

Muhammad is set to die by injection Tuesday night at Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt. His attorneys had asked Kaine to commute his sentence to life in prison because they say he is mentally ill. The U.S. Supreme Court turned down his final appeal.

"I find no compelling reason to set aside the sentence that was recommended by the jury and then imposed and affirmed by the courts," Kaine, who is known for carefully considering death penalty cases, said in a statement. "Accordingly, I decline to intervene."

Muhammad was sentenced to death for killing Dean Harold Meyers at a Manassas gas station during a three-week spree that left 10 dead across Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C.

He and his teenage accomplice, Lee Boyd Malvo, also were suspected of fatal shootings in other states, including Louisiana, Alabama and Arizona.

The motive for the shootings remains murky. Malvo said Muhammad wanted to use the plot to extort $10 million from the government to set up a camp in Canada where homeless children would be trained as terrorists. But Muhammad's ex-wife has said she believes the attacks were a smoke screen for his plan to kill her and regain custody of their three children.

For the families of those killed, the day is a long time coming.

Cheryll Witz is one of several victims' relatives who were going to watch the execution. Malvo confessed that, at Muhammad's direction, he shot her father, Jerry Taylor, on a Tucson, Ariz., golf course in March 2002.

"He basically watched my dad breathe his last breath," she said. "Why shouldn't I watch his last breath?"

The shootings terrorized the Washington region, with victims gunned down while doing everyday chores like shopping or pumping gas. People stayed indoors. Those who had to go outside weaved as they walked or bobbed their heads to make themselves less of a target.

The terror ended on Oct. 24, 2002, when police captured Muhammad and Malvo as they slept at a Maryland rest stop in a car they had outfitted so a shooter could hide in the trunk and fire through a hole in the body of the vehicle. Malvo is serving a life sentence in Virginia.

Death penalty opponents planned vigils across the state, and some were headed for Jarratt, about an hour south of Richmond, for the execution.

Beth Panilaitis, executive director of Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, said those who planned to protest understand the fear that gripped the community, and the nation, during the attacks.

"The greater metro area and the citizens of Virginia have been safe from this crime for seven years," Panilaitis said. "Incarceration has worked and life without the possibility of parole has and will continue to keep the people of Virginia safe."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091110/ap_on_re_us/us_sniper_execution;_ylt=Asn9Bl5JhgjdG1U75USn.GtH2 ocA;_ylu=X3oDMTJtY20zZDE0BGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMDkxMTEwL 3VzX3NuaXBlcl9leGVjdXRpb24EY3BvcwM2BHBvcwM2BHNlYwN 5bl90b3Bfc3RvcmllcwRzbGsDdmFnb3ZjbGVhcnN3

[Jolie Rouge]

D.C. sniper Muhammad executed for 2002 attacks
By Dena Potter, Associated Press Writer
20 mins ago

JARRATT, Va. – John Allen Muhammad, the mastermind behind the sniper attacks that left 10 dead, was executed Tuesday night as relatives of the victims watched, reliving the killing spree that terrorized the Washington metro area for three weeks in October 2002.

He looked calm and stoic, but was twitching and blinking as the injections began, defiant to the end, refusing to utter any final words. Victims' families sat behind glass while watching the execution, separated from the rest of the 27 witnesses.

"He died very peacefully, much more than most of his victims," said Prince William County prosecutor Paul Ebert, who witnessed Muhammad die by injection at 9:11 p.m. at Greensville Correctional Center, south of Richmond. Muhammad, dressed in a blue shirt, jeans and flip-flops, had no final statement.

Muhammad was executed for killing Dean Harold Meyers, who was shot in the head at a Manassas gas station during the three-week spree across Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C.

Nelson Rivera, whose wife, Lori Ann Lewis-Rivera, was gunned down as she vacuumed her van at a Maryland gas station said when he watched Muhammad's chest moving for the last time, he was glad. "I feel better. I think I can breathe better and I'm happy he's gone. Because he's not going to hurt anyone else," he said.

Dean's brother, Bob Meyers, said watching the execution was a point of closure but that he was "overcome by the sadness that the whole situation generates in my heart."

"Honestly it was surreal watching the life being sapped out of somebody intentionally was very different," he said on CNN's "Larry King Live."

J. Wyndal Gordon, one of Muhammad's attorneys, described his client in his final hours as fearless and still insisting he was innocent. "He will die with dignity — dignity to the point of defiance," Gordon said.

The shootings terrorized the region, as victim after victim was shot down while doing everyday chores: going shopping, pumping gas, mowing the lawn. One child was shot while walking into his middle school.

People stayed indoors. Those who did go outside weaved as they walked or bobbed their heads to make themselves a less easy target.

The campaign of terror ended on Oct. 24, 2002, when police captured Muhammad and his teenage accomplice, Lee Boyd Malvo, as they slept at a Maryland rest stop in a car they had outfitted for a shooter to perch in its trunk without being detected. Malvo is serving a life prison term.

They also were suspected of fatal shootings in other states, including Louisiana, Alabama and Arizona.

The U.S. Supreme Court turned down Muhammad's final appeal Monday and Gov. Timothy M. Kaine denied clemency Tuesday.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_sniper_execution;_ylt=AsNPH1H1g8NqdSKVZCgs3jSs0 NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTMxa2JkcDVsBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMDkxMTExL 3VzX3NuaXBlcl9leGVjdXRpb24EY3BvcwMxBHBvcwMyBHB0A2h vbWVfY29rZQRzZWMDeW5fdG9wX3N0b3J5BHNsawNkY3NuaXBlc m11aGE-


DC sniper said to be 'fearless' before execution
Tue Nov 10, 7:15 pm ET

JARRATT, Va. – Sniper John Allen Muhammad is meeting with relatives in the hours before his execution and one of his attorneys described the convicted killer as fearless.

Attorney J. Wyndal Gordon said Muhammad had no regrets and would die with dignity Tuesday night in Virginia. Gordon also insisted that Muhammad was innocent.

Gordon says Muhammad met with one of his sons before the execution and then reminisced with the attorney about the time he spent with his son before Muhammad went to prison.

A sister of one of Muhammad's ex-wives says Muhammad returned from the first Gulf War a changed man. Sheron (shuh-RON) Norman says the nation should do a better job of caring for its veterans.

The 48-year-old Muhammad is set to die at 9 p.m. for three-week killing spree in 2002 that left 10 dead.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091111/ap_on_re_us/us_sniper_execution_last_hours


DC sniper calls himself 'this innocent black man'
By Steve Szkotak, Associated Press Writer
Wed Nov 4, 7:59 pm ET

RICHMOND, Va. – Attorneys for John Allen Muhammad released a May 2008 letter on Wednesday in which the mastermind of the deadly 2002 sniper attacks in the Washington, D.C., area proclaims his innocence.

The rambling, handwritten letter was made available because of requests for a statement from Muhammad, his attorneys wrote on the Web page of their law firm. The letter was filed in federal court in connection with Muhammad's unsuccessful attempt to block his execution, the attorneys said.

Muhammad, 48, is scheduled to die by injection on Nov. 10 at a Virginia prison.

In the letter dated May 8, 2008, and rife with misspellings, Muhammad writes of discussions with a new team of attorneys and of assurances that "exculpatory evidence" that he claims was withheld from his trial "will prove my innocent and what really happen ...."

The letter adds: "So all you police and prosecutors can stand-down-'rushing' to murder this innocent black man for something he nor his son (Lee) had nothing to do with ...."

Lee Boyd Malvo was Muhammad's teenage accomplice, who is serving a life sentence. Muhammad fostered a father-son relationship with Malvo but the two were not related.

Jonathan Sheldon, one of Muhammad's attorneys, wrote in an e-mail to The Associated Press that the letter has been filed in U.S. District Court since May 2008. "It just had not come to public attention, like much of our filings," he wrote.

The letter, written under the heading "Attorney Client Privilege," was apparently filed during an attempt by lawyers to spare Muhammad from the death penalty.

In their filing, the lawyers said Muhammad was regularly whipped with hose pipes and electrical cords and beaten with hammers and sticks by family members during a brutal childhood.

Muhammad was convicted of killing Dean Harold Meyers at a Manassas, Va., gas station during a three-week spree that killed 10 in October 2002. The killings happened in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia.

Tuesday, Muhammad's attorneys asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stop his execution.

Muhammad's lawyers also have asked Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine for clemency, saying Muhammad is mentally ill and should not be executed.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_sniper_execution_letter

[Jolie Rouge]

See also http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2009/11/remembering-that-tingle-between.html

[Jolie Rouge]

DC sniper left letter behind before execution
Nov 12, 2009 7:57 AM CST

JARRATT, VA (CNN) - The man executed for being the mastermind behind a multi-state killing spree left behind a final letter to be read aloud after he had been put to death.

The family of John Allen Muhammad held a news conference about the letter Tuesday. The family's attorney spoke for them.

"This morning, the family would just like to express remorse and everything that's going on today," said Charlene Patterson. "I just want you all to know that we are. We have a letter. Right now, we're not prepared to disclose anything in that letter because it would be extremely inappropriate at this time."

Family members of the victims say they hoped for an apology.

Muhammad died by lethal injection Tuesday night at a Virginia correctional facility.

He was convicted of killing a Virginia man during a three-week killing spree in 2002.

It stretched through at least three states, including Louisiana.


http://www.wafb.com/global/story.asp?s=11491097

[Jolie Rouge]

DC sniper's ex-wife, children cope with execution
1 hr 44 mins ago

WASHINGTON – One of sniper mastermind John Allen Muhammad's ex-wives says it was "very difficult" to watch her children grieve as their father was executed.

Mildred Muhammad told The Associated Press on Thursday that she and her three teenage children watched news coverage of his Virginia execution in complete silence at their Maryland home Tuesday. She says the children asked to see their father but he did not meet with them.

Mildred Muhammad maintains she was the real target of the 2002 sniper attacks that killed 10 in the Washington, D.C., region. Her ex-husband was executed for killing Dean Harold Meyers at a gas station during the spree that terrorized Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C., over a three-week period.

His funeral is scheduled next week in Baton Rouge, La.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091112/ap_on_re_us/us_sniper_ex_wife