John Allen Muhammad

John Allen Muhammad in his time in the military.

John Allen Muhammad (born: John Allen Williams ; born December 31, 1960 in New Orleans , Louisiana , † November 10, 2009 in Jarratt , Virginia ) was an American serial killer who, in 2002, together with his accomplice Lee Boyd Malvo - also John Lee Malvo called - who committed the so-called Beltway Sniper Attacks .

Life

Muhammad was born as John Williams in New Orleans in 1960. The father was rarely at home, the mother had breast cancer and died when Muhammad was three years old. Relatives raised him. He became a father for the first time as a teenager, at 21 he married his first wife Carol, with whom he had a son. The family lived in a trailer. In 1987 he got divorced and a year later he married his second wife Mildred, with whom he had three children. He served as a soldier in the Second Gulf War, where he was trained as a mechanic, truck driver and metal worker. He received the Expert Rifleman's Badge from the US Army , which is the US Army equivalent of the Bundeswehr's gold rifle cord .

After retiring from the army, he unsuccessfully opened a car repair shop and karate school in 1994, and his marriage to Mildred fell apart because of his infidelity. In 2000 he kidnapped his children from school and took them to Antigua . There he met 15-year-old Lee Boyd Malvo, who had been abandoned by his parents. The mother only saw her children again after 18 months.

He kept the four children afloat by selling forged documents and US visas. In 2001 they traveled to Washington together. Because of a complaint from Mildred, the youth welfare office took the children from him and transferred custody to his ex-wife, only Malvo stayed with him. In 1987 he converted to Islam, became a member of the Nation of Islam group and changed his name to John Allen Muhammad.

The attacks of September 11, 2001 radicalized him. He became an avowed admirer of Osama bin Laden and condemned the “hypocrisy” and “slavery” of the USA, as his accomplice Malvo stated in his later trial, and saw himself as a fighter in his personal “ jihad ”.

Deeds

He trained Malvo to be a sniper. Together they rebuilt a car so that they could shoot from the trunk while lying down. Muhammad had Malvo shot indiscriminately at passers-by with a Bushmaster semi-automatic rifle, regardless of age, gender or skin color. In front of bus stops, gas stations and supermarkets, they were mostly killed with just one aimed shot. Ten people died and three were injured, including a 13-year-old who was shot in the stomach in his schoolyard. Her latest victim was 35-year-old bus driver Conrad Johnson. He was shot dead on the stairs leading into the bus on October 22nd.

At one of the crime scenes, Malvo left his fingerprint, which the authorities had known through his immigration. John Allen Muhammad and John Lee Malvo were found in a parking lot on October 24, 2002 and were arrested asleep in their car.

Trial and Execution

In October 2003, the trial of Muhammad for the murder of Dean Meyers began in an auto repair shop in Manassas , Virginia. The trial was relocated to Virginia Beach from Prince William County, where the crime took place. Muhammad was given the right to defend himself, after which he dismissed his defense lawyer. Immediately after his opening speech, however, he was represented by a lawyer again.

Muhammad was charged with murder, terrorist activities, conspiracy and the illegal use of weapons and faced a death sentence. The prosecution said the killings were part of a strategy to extort US $ 10 million from government agencies. Furthermore, there is much to suggest that Muhammad could be charged with involvement in up to 16 assassinations. According to the law, an indictment of terrorist activities is valid in the event of two proven attacks within three years.

Prosecutors called more than 130 witnesses and produced more than 400 pieces of evidence to prove that Muhammad was responsible for the series of assassinations using the youthful Malvo as an executive tool. However, the prosecution could never conclusively prove that Muhammad himself killed a victim. Instead, the individual pieces of evidence fit into a picture that clearly shows Muhammad at the center of the murders.

The evidence also included the gun that was found in Muhammad's car. Ballistic studies showed that not only eight of the ten murders in Washington County, but two more in Louisiana and Alabama, were carried out with the weapon. The converted car was also used as evidence by the public prosecutor. A laptop was also found in the car, which contained maps with crime scene markings.

Witnesses recognized that Muhammad or the vehicle was present at several crime scenes. There was also a recorded phone call from the police in which a man asked for money to end the series of attacks. The voice could be identified as the voice of Muhammad by an official.

The defense of Muhammad reminded the court that in the absence of direct evidence, the maximum penalty could not be imposed solely on circumstantial evidence. Malvo's fingerprints were found on the Bushmaster rifle in Muhammad's car, as well as genetic material from Muhammad himself on the rifle. But the defense claimed that Virginia’s so-called “trigger law” does not allow Muhammad to be executed because the triggering of the murder weapon is a requirement for the death penalty . No one could confirm that Muhammad pulled the trigger when Meyers was shot.

On November 17, 2003, the Virginia jury unanimously found Muhammad guilty on all four counts:

• Guilty of the murder of Dean H. Meyers by shooting,
• Guilty of murder under Virginia State's counterterrorism laws,
• Guilty of manslaughter with intent to terrorize the government and the public,
• Guilty of conspiracy to commit murders and illegally use guns.

In the next stage of the sentencing process, after two days of deliberation, the jury unanimously recommended that Muhammad be sentenced to death. On March 9, 2004, the judge followed the jury's recommendation and sentenced John Allen Muhammad to death.

On April 22, 2005, the Virginia Supreme Court upheld the death penalty, stating that Muhammad could be sentenced to death because the murder was part of a terrorist act. At the same time, the court rejected the defense's view that Muhammad could not be sentenced to death because, unlike his juvenile accomplice Lee Boyd Malvo, he had not pulled the trigger.

On November 10, 2009, he was executed by lethal injection at the Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt, Virginia .

Film adaptations

The case of Muhammad and Malvo was filmed for television in 2003 under the title DC Sniper: 23 Days of Fear (German: Sniper - The Sniper of Washington ) directed by Tom McLoughlin . Bobby Hosea played John Allen Muhammad here.

He was portrayed by Isaiah Washington in the 2013 drama Blue Caprice .

Web links

• DC Sniper: 23 Days of Fear in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Blue Caprice in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Image of the converted vehicle

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original dated November 14, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Report from www.orf.at from November 11, 2009 
2. ↑ Report on News.de ( Memento from November 18, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) (from November 11, 2009)