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Arrests Spark Reports
Sniper Killer Caught

By Brian Snyder
10-24-2
 

FREDERICK, Md. (Reuters) - 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.
 
"We got our guys," one investigator was quoted as saying by NBC-TV. Washington's WUSA-TV said the men "are considered suspects, according to our sources."
 
But a spokesman for Montgomery County, Maryland, said it was too soon to tie the pair definitively to the sniper killings. "People are jumping ahead. Give us time to do our job," he said, adding the two were being questioned in Rockville, Maryland, headquarters of the sniper task force.
 
A U.S. government source said Muhammad served more than a decade in the armed services and was an Army mechanic in a combat support unit.
 
"He was not a member of the elite ranger battalion at Fort Lewis (near Tacoma, Washington state) and would not have received any sniper training such as that given to special forces troops," the official told Reuters.
 
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.
 
"Shortly after 3:30 this morning (EDT), a tactical response team arrested two individuals from that vehicle who were sleeping in the vehicle who were taken into custody without incident," Shipley told a pre-dawn news conference.
 
"Attempts to verify their identities are being made right now," he said.
 
WUSA-TV reported that a rifle had been found in the car. Shipley could not say whether weapons had been found, adding that a federal search warrant had been requested that would allow police to scour the car.
 
For three weeks the shooter has eluded a massive law enforcement operation, dodging police dragnets set up with minutes of the attacks. 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.
 
MASSIVE POLICE MANHUNT
 
Police Chief Charles Moose, head of the sniper task force, had announced late on Wednesday, only about four hours before the arrest, that police were searching for Muhammad and an unidentified minor.
 
"We believe that Mr. Muhammad may have information material to our investigation," he had said.
 
Moose also said police were looking for a burgundy or blue 1990 Chevrolet Caprice with New Jersey number plates.
 
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 50 miles northwest of Washington.
 
Shipley said one of the men was aged about 40, the other about 20.
 
Moose had said Muhammad was believed to be traveling with an unidentified minor. Local media had said he was traveling with his 17-year-old stepson.
 
FBI agents had searched a property in Tacoma on Wednesday with metal detectors and other equipment on Wednesday, 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.
 
CRYPTIC MESSAGES
 
Moose had also issued a message to the sniper at his news conference late on Wednesday.
 
"You asked us to say 'we have caught the sniper like a duck in a noose'. We understand that hearing us say this is important to you," Moose said. "However we want you to know how difficult it has been to understand what you want."
 
Police have not confirmed media reports that the sniper had left communications 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 a seven-mile stretch of the normally busy highway for hours before dawn. Shipley said the two were taken without incident.
 
Moose had said 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.





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