D.C. sniper executed in Virginia

By Kevin Johnson USA TODAY
JARRATT, Va. — John Muhammad was executed Tuesday seven years after carrying out sniper attacks that terrorized the nation's capital for weeks and left 10 people dead.
Muhammad, 48, died in five minutes at 9:11 p.m. from a lethal injection at the Greensville Correctional Center. He said nothing as relatives of his victims looked on behind mirrored glass.
One of those in attendance was Milton Perry, a co-worker of bus driver Conrad Johnson, 35, who was shot in the chest at a bus stop in Maryland.
"I'm here because Conrad was the real deal," he said.
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A Gulf War veteran and Muslim convert, Muhammad never revealed why he stalked and shot people getting gas or shopping at stores.
His accomplice, Lee Malvo, 24, said Muhammad hoped to extort $10 million from the government to set up a camp where children would be trained as terrorists.
The death penalty was ruled out for Malvo, who was 17 at the time of the murders and committed some of them, after the U.S. Supreme Court decided in 2005 that juvenile offenders cannot be executed.
For three weeks in October 2002, Muhammad and Malvo created panic in Washington and its suburbs.
Many fretted that the shootings were an al-Qaeda plot, coming as they did so close to the one-year anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks. People avoided going outside and avoided self-serve gas stations.
Police got a break when they found Malvo's fingerprint at one of the shooting scenes and learned he was with Muhammad, and that Muhammad owned a blue Chevrolet Caprice. A truck driver spotted the car Oct. 22 at a highway rest stop in Maryland and police arrested the sleeping killers inside.
The car had been modified so someone could shoot from inside the trunk.
Muhammad and Malvo were convicted of six Maryland murders, for which they received life terms. In Virginia, a jury in 2003 sentenced Muhammad to death for the murder of Dean Harold Meyers, 53, killed while pumping gas at a Sunoco station in Manassas.
Defense lawyers argued that Muhammad was not mentally competent to stand trial. Courts disagreed.
Muhammad, divorced with five children, spent his final hours meeting with members of his family. He ate a last meal of chicken with red sauce.
His lawyer, Jon Sheldon, said that in the hours before his death Muhammad remained "obsessed in his belief that the government was conspiring against him because of his race."
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