How Did John Allen Muhammad's Death

After the events that transpired during 9/11 and with war looming no one thought trouble would come from within our country again, John Allen Muhammad made that possible by terrorizing the Washington D.C. area in 2002 with his protégé Lee Boyd Malvo. With nothing in his life and with his family gone, for some odd reason, John Allen Muhammad thought the answer to his dilemma would be to have him and his protégé kill random people. They murdered ten people and wounded a few others from John’s make shift sniper nest in the trunk of his car before being caught by police after their near four week killing spree (Biography, John). John Allen Muhammad was born John Allen Williams in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in 1960. After high school he married Carol
Kalglear, had a child named Lindbergh, and was a part of the National Guard, soon after he fell into some trouble in the National Guard by ignoring orders and assaulting an officer (Biography, John). Then In 1985 he and wife were separated, joined the Army with excellence in Marksmanship, and got remarried to Mildred Green with three kids. After nine years in the Army, he left to go into business as a mechanic that failed, then went into business as a karate instructor that failed as well. In 1999 he and Mildred got a divorce, she filed for a divorce after the divorce because he made threats towards her. (Biography, John). His children went to the custody of Mildred, but John felt different about the custody and took his children to Antigua, where it is believed he met with Lee Boyd Malvo (Biography, John). Malvo was originally born in Kingston, Jamaica on February 18, 1985, his father (Leslie Samuel Malvo) was not in his life as a child, so it was up to his mother (Una James) to look after her son. Lee and his mother went to Antigua in 1998, where he met Muhammad (Biography, Lee). When he made his way to the United States, John mentored Malvo in marksmanship for hours (Biography, Lee). The first victim was shot at Clinton, Maryland and the victim was a restaurant owner by the name of Paul J.
LaRuffa. On September 5, 2002, as he was entering his car he was shot six times and was robbed of his brief case full of money and his laptop. One of his employees claimed that he had been shot by a young perpetrator, LaRuffa survived the shooting and nearby the scene there was evidence of Malvo’s DNA (Clark Prosecutor). Soon after the incident in Clinton, Claudine Parker and Kelly Adams were shot outside the Zelda Road ABC Liquor Store in Montgomery, Alabama. Parker died from a gunshot through the spinal column and through her lung and Adams was shot through her teeth damaging her vocal card, as well as some severed nerves in her left shoulder. Malvo went to the two women and started going through their purses, a police car came to scene to find Malvo and gave chase, he managed to escape the police car. After Malvo escaped, Police found a catalog and a .22 caliber revolver with his finger prints on them (Clark Prosecutor). Despite all the damage she underwent, Kelly Adams survived her shooting, police were able to deduce that both women were shot with a Bushmaster rifle One of the next killings was on October 22, 2002 at 5:20 pm a Michael’s art supply store, in Aspen Hills, Maryland, no one was killed or injured, but about an hour later a 55 year old program analyst named James Martin, was shot and killed at a Shoppers Food Warehouse grocery store in Glenmont,
Maryland (Crime Library). On October 6, 2002, Tanya Brown was dropping off her son Iran Brown at Tasker Middle School in Bowie, Maryland, and as he was walking Iran was shot in the chest, the weapon that was identified by authorities was a Bushman rifle. Even though Iran had been shot through the chest damaging his stomach, spleen, and pancreas, he managed to survive. At the crime scene police found a pen containing Muhammad’s DNA and a tarot card with “Call me God” written in the front and “For you Mr. Police. Code: Call me God. Do not release to the Press” (Clark Prosecutor). On October 19, 2002 in Ashland , Virginia, Jeffery Hopper and his wife were leaving a restaurant when he got shot. Jeffery had been shot through his abdomen and had to go through several surgeries involving several organs, but he managed to pull through. Near the crime scene was a forest where investigator managed to find a candy wrapper, a shell casing, and a plastic sandwich bag with a message written on it. What was written on it was the same statement on the tarot card, however there was more writing on the sandwich bag stating that Muhammad/ Malvo wanted to start negotiating with police about stopping the killings (Clark Prosecutor). They also stated that because of the police’s failure to cooperate six lives were lost and in order for the killing to stop they wanted ten million dollars deposited in a Bank of America account and the last words they wrote were that their children were not safe at any time or place (Clark Prosecutor). The investigation had begun for authorities when John Martin was shot outside a Michael's craft store and after the incident, four more people were killed in a similar way as John Martin a few miles away from where he shot. Authorities were able to link the five shootings “and a massive multi-agency investigation was launched by the Montgomery County Police Department in Maryland”. Over 400 F.B.I agents were assigned to the case, with the help of new agents answering calls about possible tips of the shooter, crime scene investigators analyzing the crime scenes, and behavioral analysts began to make a profile of the shooter for investigators ( FBI, Part 2). One of the shell casings found at one of the shootings was processed by a joint effort of the F.B.I and the A.T.F, and flown to Washington D.C. for analysis, the A.T.F handled ballistics and finger print examination. From the bullet casing and the magazine dropped in Montgomery, Alabama, authorities were able to identify Lee Boyd Malvo as a suspect, as his fingerprints were in the system from an earlier crime in Washington State. (FBI, part 2). Upon review with Malvo’s record, John Muhammad’s name was mentioned in it, authorities had another suspect. Now looking at Muhammad’s record, the ATF found a registration for a .223 Bushmaster high-powered rifle, which was a violation of the restraining order his wife had against him. With that information, police were able to see that Muhammad had a Blue Chevy Caprice registered in his name, along with license plates from New Jersey, authorities then gave the car information to the media which led to their location (FBI, part 2). On October 24, 2002 at 11:45, authorities made their move on the Beltway Snipers’ car, which was parked near a rest stop in Maryland, and surrounded the area for no possible way to escape (FBI, part 1). While they were asleep, Maryland S.W.A.T. approached the vehicle and arrest Malvo and Muhammad. Inside of the Caprice they found the Bushmaster used in the shootings with Malvo’s finger prints on them and a make shift sniper nest in the trunk of the car, with a hole cut into the license plate of the car of the bullets to make their way through the Caprice (Clark Prosecutor). In October 2003, Muhammad was taken to be tried in Prince William to Virginia Beach.
The prosecutor in charge was Doug Gansler, Muhammad waived his right to counsel and decided to represent himself, soon after giving his opening statement he requested his right to counsel. The prosecution decided to bring up charges including murder, conspiracy, terrorism, conspiracy, and illegal use of a firearm (Clark Prosecutor). The evidence the prosecution provided included more than 130 eye witnesses and 400 pieces of evidence that shows that Muhammad made Malvo commit the shootings. The defense argued to drop the capital punishment charge on Muhammad for lack of evidence that Muhammad pulled the trigger because the finger prints that were on the rifle belonged to Malvo. Muhammad argued that because he did not pull the trigger that killed Dean Meyer, then moved to remove the death penalty charges. He goes on to argue that “the trial court should have dismissed the indictment for its failure to indict him for murder in the second degree rather than capital murder because of the lack of allegations that he was the triggerman.” On November 17, 2003 Muhammad was convicted of all four charges and after a five-hour deliberation, the jury decided to issue the death penalty (Clark Prosecutor). In 2005 the Virginia Supreme Court decided to grant the jury’s suggestion to give Muhammad the death penalty, because his actions were considered an act of terrorism. The jury also deduced that
Muhammad was the “triggerman in the killings,” despite the defense’s argument it was Malvo who was the triggerman (Clark Prosecutor). Several states wanted to try Malvo for the crimes he committed in their states during his trial in December 2003, at Church Falls, Virginia for the murder of F.B.I analyst Linda Franklin. Malvo entered a plea agreement for the murder of Franklin and two others and received two life sentenced. He later testified against Muhammad, on October 10, 2006, Malvo plead guilty to all murders in Maryland, he was sentenced to six lifetime sentences without the possibility of parole (Murderpedia).

During Muhammad’s trial in Maryland, Lee Boyd Malvo took the stand and began to tell the real plan that he and Muhammad had. After a lot of counseling, Malvo was convinced to testify against Muhammad saying he was the triggerman, the reason he did not want to testify against him was to spare him from the death penalty. Malvo told the court their plan that consisted of three phases, the fist phase was planned, mapped, and practiced in the Washington D.C. area so they can escape from the crime scene with ease. Their plan was to kill six Caucasian citizens within thirty days and move onto to a different location, this did not go as planned because they were unable to move as they pleased because of traffic and no clear shots (Crime Museum). The second phase was to go to Baltimore, when they arrived there, they would shoot a pregnant woman in her stomach, then to kill a Baltimore police officer, at the police officer’ s funeral, they would use IEDs(Improvised Explosive Devices) to kill as many officers in one area. The third phase was to “extort several million dollars from the U.S. government,” with the money they would get from the government. They would then go to Canada and “recruit other effectively orphaned boys to use weapons and stealth, and send them to commit shootings across the country (Crime Museum). During the trial, Malvo also confessed that he and Muhammad committed murders in California, Arizona, and Texas, making the death toll seventeen. “Neither Alabama, Arizona, Louisiana or Washington State moved to try Muhammad, given his death sentence for murder in Virginia (Clark Prosecutor). During his appeal process in Virginia, Muhammad also makes a complaint that he should not be tried in the U.S. because he is on trial “for capital murder under the terrorism statute.” He argument was that the entire country would deem themselves the victims before he was given a fair trial. He also made an arugement that the death penalty to which the jury decieded to issue was unconstitutional (Clark Prosecutor). At the end of it all, Lee Boyd Malvo was under federal charges, however they were dropped. He did get charged for two capital crimes and the illegal use of a firearm. He plead insanity and that he was under Muhammad’s control to all the charges that were against him. He was sentenced to several life sentences and was incarcerated to the Red Onion State Prison in Virginia (Biography, Malvo). John Allen Muhammad was sentenced to death and spent the remainder of his life at Suddex I State Prison in Virginia until he was executed by lethal injection on November 10, 2009 (Biography, Muhammad).