Morning Murder Minute
Boy, these items have gotten a lot less…frantic. And that’s a good thing. This morning’s Post reports that the famous rifle was used in the Alabama slaying after all. Early reports were that it was a different gun. Early reports also stated that the police found a handgun in the blue Caprice, which turns out not to be true. (There was .338 ammo, which sounds like a handgun load, but no handgun.)
Wilson said witnesses saw John Allen Muhammad, 41, and John Lee Malvo, 17, the two suspects in the sniper shootings, at the scene of the Montgomery shooting. But they said Muhammad had a handgun and Malvo was holding a magazine — and neither appeared to have a rifle, Wilson said.
That, Wilson said, has led him to suspect that a third person may have been involved and possibly fired the Bushmaster XM-15 rifle that authorities found in Muhammad’s Chevrolet Caprice last week.
“It’s frustrating. Just at the time you figure it out, it grows another leg,” he said.
Law enforcement sources said they have found no evidence to suggest that a third person was involved in the Washington area sniper shootings, but investigators have not ruled out the possibility.
This last would mean that police never encountered more than two people during the ten freaking times they peacefully interacted with the blue Caprice during the spree. Unqualified Offerings will not not not not not mention the name of a man with a long criminal record, jailed after a sniper incident, who may at least theoretically have met Muhammad and Malvo at some point.
A baleful chronology of Caprice sightings also appears in the Post.
Annoyingly, a rather good story in yesterday’s print edition of the Post about Mildred Muhammad’s neighborhood in Clinton, and recent sightings of John Muhammad in that area, is either not online or not findable by UO. That story connects a lot of the remaining dots. It quotes Muhammad’s divorce lawyer as having discussed with his client the imperative of finding Mildred to get the court’s custody and visitation orders reversed. It gives Muhammad a motive for coming to this area and taking his violence to a grandiose level. It notes that the FBI spirited away Mildred Muhammad, her children and the relatives with whom she was staying last Wednesday night before the arrest. They have not returned. It was a good story. This site apologizes for not showing it to you.
