Case Summary: The Beltway Snipers In Washington

The Beltway Snipers were a series of coordinated shootings that took place over three weeks in October 2002 in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington D.C. Ten people were killed and three other victims were critically injured in several locations throughout the Washington D.C., metropolitan area and along Interstate 95 in Virginia. The rampage was perpetrated by John Allen Muhammad (then aged 42) and Lee Boyd Malvo (then 17), driving a blue 1990 Chevrolet Caprice sedan. Their crime spree began in February 2002 with murders and robberies in the states of Alabama, Arizona, Florida,Georgia, Louisiana,Texas, and Washington which resulted in seven deaths and seven injuries, bringing the ten-month shooting spree total to 17 deaths and 10 injuries.

The first killing was on October 2 2002 at 5:20 p.m. A victimless shot was fired through a window of a Micheal Craft STore in Aspen Hill, About an hour later, at 6:30 p.m., James Martin, a 55-year old program analyst at NOAA, was shot and killed in the parking lot of a Shoppers Food Warehouse grocery store, located in Glenmont. The day after on October 3 in the morning, four people were shot within the span of two hours in Aspen Hill, and other nearby

On November 17, 2003 by verdict of his jury, Muhammad was convicted in Virginia on all four counts in the indictment against him; capital murder for the shooting of Dean H. Meyers, a second charge of capital murder under Virginia’s anti-terrorism statue, homicide committed with an intent to terrorize the government or the public at large, conspiracy to commit murder, and the illegal use of a firearm. The jury unanimously recommended that Muhammad be sentenced to death. On March 9, 2004, a Virginia judge sentenced John Allen Muhammad to death. On November 10, 2009, Muhammad was executed by lethal injection and pronounced dead at 9:11 PM. He declined final words and also to have his last meal published, it is said that is was chicken and red sauce, and some