Washington sniper’s killings were a smokescreen for murder of ex-wife
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
THE witness room on death row at the Greensville correctional centre in Virginia will be crowded for John Allen Muhammad’s execution on Tuesday, writes Tony Allen-Mills. But his former wife Mildred will not attend the final act in the life of the Washington sniper.
Muhammad, who randomly murdered 10 people in 2002 during a 23-day shooting spree, is scheduled to die by lethal injection.
Muhammad, an African-American convert to Islam who toured the US capital in a battered Chevrolet with a teenage sidekick, Lee Boyd Malvo, claims he intended to demand a $10m ransom to stop the shootings. But his ex-wife has written a book in which she puts forward a different motive.
When the couple’s marriage broke down she won custody of their three children and, in her book, she says her ex-husband warned her: “You have become my enemy, and as my enemy I will kill you.”
Mildred Muhammad’s belief that the sniper killings were a smokescreen that would have led to her front door is supported by Dr Park Dietz, a psychiatrist who examined Muhammad. “The other shootings were designed to provide him cover so that he wouldn’t be suspected when she became a victim,” he said.