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Beltway Sniper's execution looms

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The Associated Press

Published: November 10, 2009

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Monday denied John Allen Muhammad's request to stay his execution, clearing the way for Virginia to put to death the man who terrorized the Washington region as the Beltway Sniper.

Muhammad is scheduled to die tonight by injection at a Virginia prison for the slaying of Dean Harold Meyers at a gas station during a three-week spree in 2002 across Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia.

Muhammad and his teenage accomplice, Lee Boyd Malvo, were also suspected of fatal shootings in other states, including Florida, Louisiana, Alabama and Arizona. Malvo is serving a life sentence.

Muhammad still has a clemency petition before Virginia Gov. Timothy Kaine.

Muhammad's attorney, Jonathan Sheldon, says "Virginia will execute a severely mentally ill man, who also suffered from Gulf War syndrome, the day before Veterans Day."

Charles Moore of Gainesville thinks Muhammad deserves to die, and he's frustrated that Malvo will not be on a gurney beside him.

"The only thing that would give me closure would be if I knew that Lee Boyd Malvo was being punished properly," said Moore, 80.

Malvo, who was 17 at the time of the shootings, was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for killing Linda Franklin, a 47-year-old FBI analyst who was shot as she and her husband loaded supplies at a Home Depot in Falls Church, Va.

Moore, a retired bioengineer at the University of Florida, said his daughter used to call him every morning "to tell me to get out of bed and start chasing my wife around the house or something."

He struggles with Parkinson's disease now and says he can't afford the trip to Virginia to watch the execution. He's not really sure he would make the trip if he could, though.

"When my daughter was first killed, if I would have had a gun, I would have been willing to kill him, but right now I don't know how I feel," Moore said. "I don't want him turned loose on society, that's for sure."

CLEARWATER CASE

John Allen Muhammad's killing spree may have included the wounding of a man on a Clearwater golf course, but authorities would have to give Lee Boyd Malvo, his accomplice in the shootings, immunity from prosecution to prove it, police say.

Albert Michalczyk, then 72, was shot once in the chest on the Glen Oaks golf course in May 2002. In 2006, Malvo reportedly confessed to four additional shootings, including the Glen Oaks incident.

Malvo would only talk to police in jurisdictions that promised not to prosecute him. Michalczyk's shooting remains unsolved

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