The Beltway Snipers
Corey I. Robinson
Administration of Justice
Professor James Sheerin
December 7, 2009
Introduction Washington, District of Columbia is our nations illustrious capital city, and, being the home of the president of the United States of America should be considered to be a safe place. That however is not the case now, nor was it in 2002, when an unusual team terrorized a city, and a nation for weeks. These men, John Allen Muhammad, and Lee Boyd Malvo, will forever live in infamy, Known by all as the Beltway Snipers. In this paper I will discuss how their killing spree showed how police agencies, Judges, and District Attorneys all over the eastern United States worked in unison to bring these monsters to justice. I will also profile their investigation from initial suspicions of a serial killer, to the arrest, the trial and conviction of Muhammad and Malvo.
Muhammad Before The Killings Johnathan Allen Muhammad was a seemingly normal child and a normal man, the key word is seemingly in this situation. He was born on December 30, 2009 in Louisiana. He was raised by his aunt for most of his life. His mother died when he was four years of age. After finishing high school John married Carol Kaglear. Shortly after, he joined the Army National Guard, specifically a unit based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.(A&E Television, 2009) His military career was a roller coaster for him. He was disciplined twice in the National Guard, the incident that got him discharged sometime in the early 1980's, was an altercation in which he punched a non-commissioned officer. In 1985, Muhammad was then awarded the Army's highest award for marksmanship for a normal soldier before he was discharged in 1994 as a sergeant following the Gulf War. Muhammad joined the Oregon National Guard in 1995. John tried small business ownership two separate times. One time was an auto mechanic shop, and the other was a karate school. They both failed miserably,