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Gazette reporter David Abrams is covering the trial of John Allen
Muhammad in Virginia Beach, Va. He will be posting to this site a few
times each day to update readers continuously on the events of the
trials. Muhammad and fellow suspect Lee Boyd Malvo are charged with the October 2002 shootings that killed 10 people and wounded three; for background, see www.gazette.net/sniper. For The Gazette's regular coverage, please click on the links in the righthand column of this page. |
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Monday, Nov. 3
5 p.m. The court is in recess until 9:30 a.m. Wednesday because the courthouse is closed for Election Day on Tuesday. Commonwealth's Attorney Paul Ebert told the judge today that he expects the prosecution to rest its case by Monday. He also said the penalty phase of the trial — which takes place after the jury presents a guilty verdict — would last about three days for the state. --- Eight books were found in the Caprice, including two copies of “The Tao of Health, Sex and Longevity: A Modern Practical Guide to the Ancient Way.” Folded inside one of the copies was a printout from a Barnes and Noble store about a mile away from Benjamin Tasker Middle School in Bowie. The printout was a search request for another book, “How Not To Eat Pork, Or, Life Without The Pig,” by Shahrazad Ali.
4:35 p.m.
There were the walkie-talkies, the digital voice recorder and the laptop computer mentioned in the opening arguments. There were the earplugs and the list of Baltimore-area schools (hidden in the headrest of the passenger seat). In addition, there were several other items that have been referenced before, such as Save A Lot and Piggly Wiggly receipts from the time and place of the shooting in Baton Rouge, La. Police also found the finger of a glove that had been cut off. They found a solar charger device on the dashboard that appeared to be wired into the car's battery. There were slips of paper with the phone numbers of Rockville police, the Montgomery, N.C., sheriff's office and the sniper task force tip line. Various tools, such as Allen wrenches. A Big Lots shopping bag (prosecutors allege that materials found at the site of the Ponderosa shooting in Ashland, including a ransom note, came from a Big Lots store nearby). A Sharp electronic organizer, which is similar to a Palm Pilot. A NASCAR map of the United States and Canada, with a map of the Washington, D.C., area with some locations circled. Two dirty sweat socks with another rifle scope inside. Flashlights, batteries, books. And the list goes on. Defense attorney Peter Greenspun tried to knock off some of the items, and may have previewed a defense strategy. Greenspun noted that an inventory of the car referenced a black duffel bag and a gray backpack. "What happened to those bags?" Greenspun asked McGill. "There's obviously an error as to the color listed on those items," McGill answered, referring to a blue Dunlop duffel bag and a green military-style duffel bag. As to the Big Lots shopping bag found in the car, Greenspun asked McGill, "Do you know how many Big Lots stores there are in the United States?" McGill said he did not. The prosecution's case centers on the evidence found in the car. Greenspun asked McGill if anything was removed from the car before a warrant was issued. McGill said only that there were several items on the ground outside the car when he got there. Other law enforcement officials have testified that some items were removed prior to the warrant when the suspects were arrested. They also said that they were concerned the car could be rigged with booby traps.
2:52 p.m.
Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Richard Conway pulled the rifle out of a long box and handed it to a witness, ATF forensics expert Timothy Curtis. "Where have you seen that before?" Conway asked. "In the vehicle at the rest area that night," Curtis responded. The rifle was found in a compartment fashioned in the back seat of the car. A hinge mechanism was installed so the seat could flip up and allow access to the trunk. Curtis' first job was to make sure the rifle was safe to handle. "When I first saw it in the vehicle, it was in the fire position," he said. He proceeded to release the magazine, turn the safety to the "safe" position and remove a live .223 caliber round from the chamber. There was a bungee cord attached to the butt of the rifle. Agents thought it could be attached to the car and some sort of "booby trap" explosive device. They later learned that the cord was unattached. Two live rounds were found in the magazine. Montgomery County police crime scene investigator David McGill proceeded to catalog a number of items found in the car: a pair of jeans; a pair of mittens with no fingertips; a Dunlop sports duffel bag that appeared to have been altered; and Muhammad's wallet, containing his driver's license and a prepaid AT&T 120-minute phone card from Wal-Mart. Police also found a green military-style duffel bag with a silver unlocked padlock. Inside were various toiletries, vitamins, a rifle magazine, a rifle scope and a global positioning system. Another glove was found stuffed in the hole of the trunk. It was a right-hand glove that prosecutors suggested matches the left-hand glove found at the scene of the Conrad Johnson shooting. The judge called for a break after asking Conway if McGill was nearly done testifying. "Oh, he's here for a while," Conway told the judge.
12:35 p.m.
"On my command, we initiated our movement, which was a run up to the vehicle," FBI hostage rescue team commander Charles B. Pierce testified. Sniper teams surrounded the area, ready to respond to whatever happened. The smaller team came from the woods, heavily armed and wearing black flight suits. Two took the trunk, two the driver's side front door and two the passenger side rear door. Their adrenaline was flowing, and they did not know what to expect. "We knew that Mr. Muhammad had experience as a military-trained engineer," Pierce said. Could the car be rigged with explosives? They had no idea who was in the car, if anyone. The darkly tinted windows made it impossible to see inside. The tint also hampered the first attempts to shatter the glass with retractable batons. "I took a couple of extra whacks to get the glass broken," testified Neil Darnell, another FBI agent, who took the rear passenger seat, where Muhammad was seated facing the window he smashed. Malvo was asleep in the front seat. Muhammad appeared awake, Darnell said. Asked his name, Muhammad responded, "John." Asked his full name, he said, "John Williams." "I asked him who the individual in the car was, and he said it was his son," Darnell testified.
12:09 p.m.
Whitney Donahue had stopped at a rest stop near Myersville on his way home to Greencastle, Pa., from his job as a grocery store refrigerator mechanic, which required hundreds of miles of driving a day. He was listening to WMAL AM 630 and heard a lookout for a dark blue or burgundy 1990 Caprice. He then noticed a similar car parked at the Maryland Welcome Center. He read the tag aloud to himself: "NDA 21Z." "As I read the tag off, I said, 'Oh, man,’" Donahue testified. Donahue called police from his cell phone, but it didn't work at first. Bad reception. "I could hear them, but they couldn't hear me," he remembered. "They hung up on me." He moved to the other side of the Welcome Center and called again, finally reaching a Frederick County dispatcher. The dispatcher wanted him to be sure of the car and asked him to check again. He got out of his truck and, not wanting to be caught looking, walked to some trees between himself and the Caprice. He enlisted the help of another motorist to verify the tags. "I really wasn't wanting to get shot," Donahue said. He approached the other motorist. "Hey buddy," Donahue said. "Come here and let me talk to you." He asked the man to "toot" his horn if the car had the license plates he thought he saw before. The man drove off, honking his horn. Donahue got back on his phone, and law enforcement officials were on their way. In all, Donahue spent more than two and a half hours on his phone that night. Donahue testified that he was concerned about the sniper attacks just like everyone else, but he also felt like all eyes were on him up until he saw the Caprice. He remembered several instances where his white Ford Econoline van captured a lot of attention. He got caught in traffic during the dragnets that followed the Linda Franklin and Conrad Johnson shootings. He said people were afraid of him. "Women would run in fear, and run for the door," he said. On one service call to a Fresh Fields in Tysons Corner, Va., he was stopped in the parking lot filling out paperwork. There was a reaction inside the store, where a clerk was talking to her manager. "She was trying to get him to call police because my van was parked out in front of the store and she was upset," Donahue said. He told her he was just there to fix the ice machine.
11:21 a.m.
Once again, the author of the note was frustrated by his inability to communicate with police. "You departed from what we told you to say, and you departed from the time. Your incompetence has cost you another life," the note reads.
11:01 a.m.
Inside the duffel bag was some gray foam padding similar to an egg crate, as well as a salt or pepper shaker and a "multitool" pocket knife.
10:28 a.m.
She went back to sleep. Later that morning, as she got ready for work, she saw something that worried her. "I turned on the T.V., and I saw a Ride On bus, and it had crime tape around the bus," Denise Johnson testified this morning. She tried to call her husband on his cell phone, but there was no answer. She called his boss, who had no information. "I received a call from my mother-in-law, who said Conrad got shot," she said quietly, trying to hold back tears. She tried to call the hospital, but her husband was in surgery. He was still alive. But Denise Johnson said she arrived there "minutes after he passed." Conrad Johnson was a bus driver for almost 10 years. He had two sons, ages 15 and 7. He was shot in Aspen Hill off Grand Pre Road roughly an hour after he left his house, as he stood in the doorway of his bus preparing to start his morning route. The bullet punched through the right side of his chest, tearing his diaphragm and destroying his pancreas. It did not exit. A series of operations at the hospital could not stop his internal bleeding. As with nearly every victim of the sniper, a "lead snowstorm" effect can be seen on an X-ray. The high-velocity bullet fragments on impact, tearing through organs and tissue. --- The jury saw another surveillance photo that places John Muhammad near the scene of a sniper shooting. Video cameras at the Outback Steakhouse on Georgia Avenue in Aspen Hill show the defendant waiting for a table at the restaurant on Oct. 21, 2002, the night before the Johnson shooting. Other witnesses placed Muhammad and Lee Malvo at the Silver Spring YMCA the day of the Johnson shooting. Muhammad was wearing all black, with a hooded sweatshirt.
--- Click here for Friday's coverage.
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