FREDERICK, Maryland – Police arrested two men at a highway rest stop in rural Maryland on Thursday, in the first big break in a hunt for culprits in 10 sniper slayings which have traumatized the suburbs around the nation‘s capital. Authorities announced little beyond the arrest of „two individuals“ found sleeping in a car. Government sources identified one of the men as former U.S. soldier John Allen Muhammad, a Gulf War veteran. Media reports said the other was John Lee Malvo, Muhammad‘s 17-year-old step-son. A spokesman for Montgomery County, Maryland, said it was too soon to tie the pair definitively to the sniper killings.
The shootings, which began on Oct 2, terrorized the usually tranquil Washington, D.C., suburbs. The sniper also critically wounded three people, including a 13-year-old boy. A Tarot „Death“ Card was left at the scene of the shooting of the boy. Maryland State Police spokesman Maj. Greg Shipley said a passing motorist had alerted authorities after noticing two men sleeping in a car that matched a description given out a few hours earlier by the task force investigating the seemingly random shootings which felled victims with just one bullet. WUSA-TV reported that a rifle had been found in the car.
For three weeks the shooter has eluded a massive law enforcement operation. There has been no apparent motive behind the killings. The 10 dead and three wounded have included blacks and whites, men and women, young and old.
The two men were found sleeping in the car, with number plates matching those given by the task force, along a highway in Frederick County, Maryland, about 80 km northwest of Washington. FBI agents had searched a property in Tacoma on Wednesday with metal detectors and other equipment, and made inquiries about two people who lived in Bellingham, another city in Washington state, until about nine months ago. The Baltimore Sun newspaper reported on Thursday that the tip that led police to Muhammad came from a Tacoma area phone. The newspaper said police had received a critical clue from a caller who said he was the sniper. He told police they should „check with the people in Montgomery“ to prove he was serious. They investigated shootings in Montgomery, Alabama, and found a shooting murder at which a fingerprint was found identified as being from Muhammad‘s stepson, the Baltimore Sun said. Police have not confirmed media reports that the sniper had left communications at at least two of the shooting scenes asking for $10 million to stop the slayings. Local and state police and federal agents had swooped down to arrest the two men, after cordoning off the area and closing off an 11-km stretch of the normally busy highway for hours before dawn. Shipley said the two were taken without incident. Muhammad was charged with violations of federal firearms laws not related to the sniper killings that started on Oct. 2. „A strong word of caution. Do not assume that the allegation, do not assume from this allegation, that John Allen Muhammad, also known as John Allen Williams, is involved in any of the shootings we are investigating,“ he said.
Reuters
