Paul D. Shinkman, wtop.com
![Beltway Sniper Beltway Sniper](https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2017/05/26/ap_060517076174-498064196c51f1412ec83ca0d1f63384944d85b2-s800-c85.jpg)
FORESTVILLE, Md. – John Allen Muhammad is dead and Lee Boyd Malvo will spend the rest of his life in prison, but the lasting effects of the Beltway Snipers, who held the region hostage in October 2002, are anything but concluded.
Sharing files is easier than ever Sharing with friends, co-workers, and family is easy when you add and update files in a shared library. And it works on both Mac and PC. Live share for windows download. Keep all your files in sync Use FolderShare to create a mirrored image of your most important folders - like your Favorites, Pictures, and Documents - so they're the same on all your computers. Not a problem - FolderShare can sync files up to 2 GBs in size.
The spate of killings that captured national attention are still under analysis as law enforcement officials hone techniques to prevent such a spree from happening again.
WTOP got an advanced look at the evidence used to convict the killers, including the vehicle they used as a rolling sniper nest, cryptic messages to police, the tools they used to communicate with one another, maps, bullets and their choice of snacks.
The artifacts are currently held at a nondescript warehouse in Forestville, Md., by museum specialist ELY, Inc.
Check out the gallery at right for a behind-the-scenes tour of the Beltway Snipers artifacts.
Each of these clues initially proved to be an enigma for law enforcement officials. For example, they had no way to trace the DNA found on the Dole CinnaRaisins bag found after the shooting at Benjamin Tasker Middle School because Lee Boyd Malvo didn’t have a police record yet.
Tarot death cards ordering police to “Call Me God” didn’t make sense at first, nor did the vehicle they used — an inconspicuous blue sedan that had previously been an undercover cop car in New Jersey.
When added together, however, and paired with an extraordinary public response, a law enforcement team eventually caught up with Muhammad and Malvo at a rest stop off Interstate 70 and ended their “reign of terror.”
That’s how Vanya Scott describes those three weeks in October 2002, while she was working as a museum curator in Kansas. Now she is the registrar for the National Law Enforcement Museum, scheduled to open its inaugural facility in Judiciary Square in 2015, which will house the snipers exhibit.
“These men held the people of the Washington D.C. region hostage with fear, and changed the course of their daily lives,” she tells WTOP. “It was just such a powerful thing they did, and kind of amazing two men were able to control the population that way.”
“It’s the randomness of it. Even though it was so well planned,” says Scott.
The National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, which established the museum, received the collection of crime artifacts from the Prince William County Police in July. It’s now tasked with organizing the artifacts and determining how they will be presented to the public as one of the museum’s first exhibits.
Intern Daniel Cruz is a criminology student at the University of Maryland and helps document the evidence.
“It’s hard to piece all this together, even now,” Cruz says, looking at the shelves of boxes that still need to be cataloged.
“We all wish we could have caught (the snipers) on day one, but they started from nothing,” he says of the law enforcement efforts. “It’s awesome to help put this together so the public understands that.”
Working on the exhibit is a personal endeavor for Cruz. Cara install windows 10. He attended Watkins Middle School in Montgomery County as a 5th-grader while the attacks took place nearby. He recalls the permeating “emotional background” everyone felt, including his parents who for the first time let him see their fear.
If that weren’t enough, his grandfather is David Reichenbaugh, a retired Maryland State Police lieutenant who led the assault on the rest stop parking lot off Interstate 70 where the snipers were sleeping in their car.
“It sounded more like a movie when he says it,” Cruz says, turning to the table of evidence.
“To see this come to life scares me.”
The Beltway Snipers exhibit will be among the first at the new National Law Enforcement Museum, and will be on display in 2015 or 2016. Learn more at the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.
Follow Paul and WTOP on Twitter.
(Copyright 2012 by WTOP. All Rights Reserved.)
Beltway Sniper
Breaking News Emails
![Sniper Sniper](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/the-beltway-snipers-1212083606409426-9/95/the-beltway-snipers-11-728.jpg?cb=1212386593)
Lee Boyd Malvo, the younger of the two Beltway snipers who went on a killing spree in 2002 that left 10 people dead, got a gift Thursday from a federal appeals court in Virginia — a sliver of hope that he might not die in prison.
In a 3-0 decision, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond ruled that the four life sentences that Malvo had been serving in Virginia must be vacated because the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that mandatory life-without-parole sentences for juveniles are unconstitutional.
Malvo was 17 when he and John Allen Muhammad fatally shot 10 people and wounded three more at random in Virginia, Maryland and Washington. Muhammad, who was 41 at the time of the spree, was executed in 2009.
“To be clear, the crimes committed by Malvo and John Muhammad were the most heinous random acts of premeditated violence conceivable, destroying lives and families and terrorizing the entire Washington, D.C., metropolitan area for over six weeks, instilling mortal fear daily in the citizens of that community,” Judge Paul Niemeyer wrote. “But Malvo was 17 years old when he committed the murders, and he has the retroactive benefit of new constitutional rules that treat juveniles differently for sentencing.”
Malvo’s case will now sent back to a lower court for resentencing. The judge can still give him a life sentence if he or she decides that the convicted killer is “permanently incorrigible.” But if the judge decides that Malvo’s actions were affected by “the transient immaturity of youth,” he could get a lesser sentence.
“We make this ruling not with any satisfaction but to sustain the law,” Niemeyer wrote. 'As for Malvo, who knows but God how he will bear the future.”
Charlotte Gomer, a spokeswoman for Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring, said he is considering his legal options, which include asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the Malvo case.
“We are going to review the decision closely and decide how best to proceed in a way that ensures this convicted mass murderer faces justice for his heinous crimes,' Gomer said.
Bob Meyers, whose brother Dean was filling up at a gas station in northern Virginia when he was shot dead by Malvo, told The Associated Press that he was dismayed by the ruling.
Beltway Sniper Case
“Is it fair that he gets out when there certainly was a permanent sentence for his victims — not just one victim, but so many victims?” Meyers asked.
In 2012, the Supreme Court struck down life sentences without parole for juveniles. Four years later, the justices said their ruling applied retroactively to cases on appeal. Pelicula quien quiere ser millonario.
In May 2017, Judge Raymond Jackson of U.S. District Court in Virginia cited the two Supreme Court rulings in ordering a new sentencing for Malvo.
Dc Sniper Attacks
Herring appealed to the 4th Circuit, which turned him down on Thursday.
Malvo was also sentenced to life in prison for six murders in Maryland that were part of the original shooting spree, and Thursday’s ruling has no effect on them. He was denied a new sentencing hearing by a Maryland judge last August.