Sniper Hunt Culminates in 2 Arrests, Ballistics Match

Sniper Hunt Culminates in 2 Arrests, Ballistics Match

By STEPHEN MANNING
Associated Press Writer

FREDERICK, Md. (AP) -- One of America's most extraordinary manhunts culminated Thursday in the arrests of an Army veteran and a teenager, asleep at a roadside rest stop — perpetrators, authorities believed, of a bloody, three-week sniping spree that left 10 people dead and multitudes paralyzed by fear.

John Allen Muhammad, 41, and 17-year-old John Lee Malvo were not immediately charged, but law enforcement sources told The Associated Press investigators were certain they were the culprits.

A law enforcement source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a gun found in the suspects' car is a ballistic match for the .223-caliber rounds used in the killings. The bullets were the fatal calling card in a series of sniper attacks that began Oct. 2, with the killing of James D. Martin in a grocery store parking lot in Wheaton, Md. 

The weapon found in the Chevrolet Caprice was a Bushmaster, according to a law enforcement source. Bushmaster received an inquiry Thursday from the federal Bureau of Tobacco, Alcohol and Firearms about a specific AR-15 that was sold last June to a distributor in Washington state, said Allen Faraday, a company executive in Windham, Maine.

The AR-15, the civilian form of the M-16 military assault rifle, is a semiautomatic rifle that costs about $900 to $950, Faraday said. The rifles are sold through distributors, not to the public directly.

Police also found a scope and a tripod in the car, a law enforcement source said.

The suspects, it seems, might have been tripped up by their own arrogance; authorities said they received a call on the task force tip line taking responsibility for the sniper attacks and for something in "Montgomery." 

Evidence from a Sept. 21 liquor store heist in Montgomery, Ala., which left one employee dead and another injured, then led police to Malvo and Muhammad.

But who were these two, and why might they have unleashed terror on Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia?

According to The Seattle Times, Muhammad is a veteran of the Gulf War who converted to Islam. Malvo, described in some media reports as his stepson, is a citizen of Jamaica. The Times quoted federal sources as saying the two had been known to speak sympathetically about the hijackers who attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

But there was no indication, authorities said, that they were linked to al-Qaida or any terrorist group. 

The two were arrested without incident by members of the sniper task force at a rest stop in Frederick County, 50 miles northwest of Washington. The time was 3:19 a.m.

Three hours earlier, Montgomery County Police Chief Charles Moose had announced that Muhammad and Malvo were being sought and issued a nationwide alert for the blue, 1990 Caprice with New Jersey plates. A motorist and an attendant spotted the car and called police.

All told, 13 people were shot in the serial snipings. Three survived, among them a 13-year-old boy, gunned down as he arrived at school. The sniper left notes claiming to be God, and warning that children were not safe "anywhere, at any time."

Thousands of children stayed home from school, and motorists avoided filling their tanks at gas stations where they might be vulnerable to a shot. 

Some residents greeted Thursday's news as if it was the first glimmer of sunrise after the darkness that stretched three weeks.

"I feel a lot safer today," said Mary Beth Roberts of Stafford County, Va. "Everyone's smiling and getting out more."

She was shopping at the Michaels craft store in Fredericksburg, Va., where a 43-year-old woman was critically wounded on Oct. 4; a regular customer, Roberts felt safe to return only after news of the arrests.

Police, who had been under enormous pressure to stop the shootings, turned their attention to gathering evidence that Muhammad and Malvo were responsible. The first item was Malvo's fingerprint, found at the scene of the Alabama robbery on a magazine about weapons, according to Montgomery Mayor Bobby Bright.

Bright did not specify whether the print was found before or after the telephone call claiming responsibility for the sniper attacks and the liquor store holdup, but it was the crucial break.

A composite sketch of the suspect in the liquor-store shootings was made and "there are some very good similarities" to Malvo, Montgomery Police Chief John Wilson said. He said the gun used in Alabama was not the same as the one in the Washington, D.C.-area shootings, however.

Police traced Malvo to a house in Tacoma, Wash., that was searched Wednesday. He had been living in the house with Muhammad, a source told the AP.

FBI agents carted away potential evidence, including a tree stump from the yard that investigators planned to examine for bullets or bullet fragments. Larry Scott, a spokesman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, said the stump would be brought to the agency's lab in Rockville, Md.

Pfc. Chris Waters, a Fort Lewis soldier who lives across the street from the Tacoma home, said he called police after hearing gunshots in the neighborhood nearly every day in January.

"It sounded like a high-powered rifle such as an M-16," he said. "Never more than three shots at a time. Pow. Pow. Pow."

The Seattle Times reported that Muhammad was stationed at Fort Lewis outside Tacoma in the 1980s, served in the Gulf War and was later stationed at Fort Ord, Calif.

Muhammad's training in the Army was as a machinist, a senior defense official told the AP. The official said Muhammad had no sniper training in the Army. Another official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, told the AP that Muhammad was discharged in the mid-1990s.

Muhammad changed his name last year from John Allen Williams, years after he converted to Islam, investigators told the Times.

FBI agents visited Bellingham High School, 90 miles north of Seattle, on Wednesday. Mayor Mark Asmundson said Muhammad and Malvo had been in the area until about nine months ago.

Malvo attended high school in Bellingham last year. Police Chief Randy Carroll said his force had known about Malvo since December 2001, when the high school reported the youth arrived at the school without transcripts or other papers.

At one point, he lived with Muhammad as father and son at the Lighthouse Mission, a homeless shelter, Carroll said.

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EDITOR'S NOTE — Curt Anderson, Roberts Burns and Ron Fournier, all in Washington, contributed to this report.

(Copyright 2002 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)