John Allen Muhammad (December 31, 1960 - November 10, 2009) was a convicted murderer from the United States. He, along with his seventeen-year-old partner, Lee Boyd Malvo, carried out the 2002 Beltway sniper attacks, killing at least 10 people. Muhammad and Malvo were arrested in connection with the attacks on October 24, 2002, following tips from alert citizens. Although the pairing's actions were classified as psychopathy attributable to serial killer characteristics by the media, whether or not their psychopathy meets this classification or that of a spree killer is debated by researchers.
Born as John Allen Williams, Muhammad joined the Nation of Islam in 1987 and later changed his surname to Muhammad. At Muhammad's trial, the prosecutor claimed that the rampage was part of a plot to kill his ex-wife and regain custody of his children, but the judge ruled that there was insufficient evidence to support this argument.
His trial for one of the murders (the murder of Dean Harold Meyers in Prince William County, Virginia) began in October 2003, and the following month he was found guilty of capital murder. Four months later he was sentenced to death. While awaiting execution in Virginia, in August 2005, he was extradited to Maryland to face some of the charges there, for which he was convicted of six counts of first-degree murder on May 30, 2006.
Upon completion of the trial activity in Maryland, he was returned to Virginia's death row pending an agreement with another state or the District of Columbia seeking to try him. He was not tried on additional charges in other Virginia jurisdictions, and faced potential trials in three other states and the District of Columbia involving other deaths and serious woundings. All appeals of his conviction for killing Dean Harold Meyers had been made and rejected. Appeals for Muhammad's other trials remained pending at the time of his execution.
Muhammad was executed by lethal injection on November 10, 2009, at 9:06 pm EST at Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt, Virginia, and was pronounced dead at 9:11 pm EST. Muhammad declined to make a final statement.
Read more about John Allen Muhammad: Early Life, Beltway Sniper Attacks, Criminal Case, Civil Case, Testimony of Lee Boyd Malvo, Execution
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