John Allen Muhammad
| John Allen Muhammad | |
|---|---|
Muhammad during his time in the military
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|
| Born |
John Allen Williams December 31, 1960 Baton Rouge, Louisiana, U.S. |
| Died | November 10, 2009 (aged 48) Greensville Correctional Center, Greensville County, Virginia, U.S. |
| Cause of death | Execution by lethal injection |
| Nationality | United States |
| Other names | The Beltway Sniper The D.C. Sniper |
| Occupation | U.S. Army soldier |
| Criminal penalty | Death |
| Killings | |
| Victims | 10 killed, 3 injured (D.C. metropolitan area); 7 killed, 7 injured elsewhere |
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Span of killings
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February 16, 2002–October 23, 2002 |
| Country | United States of America |
| State(s) | Alabama, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Texas, Virginia, Washington State, and Washington, D.C. |
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Date apprehended
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October 24, 2002 |
John Allen Muhammad (December 31, 1960 – November 10, 2009) was an American convicted murderer from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He, along with his seventeen-year-old partner, Lee Boyd Malvo, carried out the Beltway sniper attacks of October 2002, killing 17 people. Muhammad and Malvo were arrested in connection with the attacks on October 24, 2002, following tips from alert citizens. Although the pair's actions were classified by the media as psychopathy attributable to serial killer characteristics, whether or not their psychopathy meets this classification or that of a spree killer is debated by researchers.
Born as John Allen Williams, Muhammad joined the Nation of Islam in 1987 and later changed his surname to Muhammad. At Muhammad's trial, the prosecutor claimed that the rampage was part of a plot to kill his ex-wife and regain custody of his children, but the judge ruled that there was insufficient evidence to support this argument.
His trial for one of the murders (the murder of Dean Harold Meyers in Prince William County, Virginia) began in October 2003, and the following month he was found guilty of capital murder. Four months later he was sentenced to death. While awaiting execution in Virginia, in August 2005, he was extradited to Maryland to face some of the charges there, for which he was convicted of six counts of first-degree murder on May 30, 2006.
Upon completion of the trial activity in Maryland, Muhammad was returned to Virginia's death row pending an agreement with another state or the District of Columbia seeking to try him. He was not tried on additional charges in other Virginia jurisdictions, and faced potential trials in three other states and the District of Columbia involving other deaths and serious woundings. All appeals of his conviction for killing Dean Harold Meyers had been made and rejected. Appeals for Muhammad's other trials remained pending at the time of his execution.
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Wikipedia