Twenty-two days in October: The Beltway serial sniper

[Mel]

Article featured in Avatar - Volume 3, Issue 4 (October 2009).

Twenty-two days in October: The Beltway serial sniper
by Jessie

October 2, 2002. What would later be known as the largest manhunt in United States history began on a cool autumn day in Western Maryland. Barely one year after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, fear still ruled many of our lives. I was an eighth grade student and although I walked just one block to reach my school, I would be driven the short distance for much of October.

The Montgomery County Police Department, Bureau of Alcohol and Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), the Secret Service and police departments from nearby jurisdictions would all assist in the investigation.

“Your children are not safe, anywhere, at any time.” From October 2 until October 24 residents of Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia were terrorized by an entity which would later be known as the Beltway sniper. Victims ranged in ages from 13 to 72. Some were shot dead, others survived. Men, women, and children of every race, religion and socioeconomic status were targets.

In total sixteen people were victimized; two in Alabama, ten in Maryland, five in Virginia, and one in the District of Columbia. Six women, nine men, and a thirteen year old boy.

“Call me God.” Written on the back of a Tarot card symbolizing death, found at one of the crime scenes, were these words. And the sniper was playing God. Murdering on what seemed a whim, there was no identifiable motive. Was it terrorism? Was it someone out for revenge?

The fear we felt was unknown to many of us; this was happening in our backyard. This didn’t happen here, but in New York. This didn’t happen this way, but with airplanes, with bombs and with buses. There was no visible enemy and no one was stepping forward to take blame. Was it one person or an army of angry people? Citizen or outsider? Man or woman?

A white box truck. When you are looking for something it is all around you. We were on the lookout for a white box truck, and they were everywhere. Anyone in a parking lot was a target. Anyone, anywhere, was a target. Children of our quiet and safe rural communities played indoors, their schools on lock down, later to be closed. Gas stations hung tarps around pumping stations, and anxious patrons jogged circles around their cars in hopes of salvation.

The aftermath. As quickly as it began it ended. Twenty-two days later, on October 24, 2002 one man, John Allen Muhammad and one minor, Lee Boyd Malvo, were arrested at a rest stop off of Interstate 70 in Maryland. They were not in a white box truck, but a blue 1990 Chevrolet Caprice. A Bushmaster .223-caliber weapon was found in the car and the shots had been fired from a hole in the car’s trunk.

On September 16, 2009, a Virginia judge set Muhammad’s execution date for November 10, 2009. Malvo has been sentenced to life in prison without parole in two jurisdictions in Virginia and six consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole in Maryland. There are still multiple unsolved murders in the states of Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Louisiana, and Texas that may be connected to Muhammad and Malvo.