John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo

John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo, aka the Beltway Sniper, the D.C. Sniper and the Washington Sniper, were a pair of spree killers who in 2002 went on a killing spree on the U.S. East Coast in October, 2002.

Background
John Allen Muhammad was born John Allen Williams on December 31, 1960 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. At the age of 17, he enlisted in the Louisiana Army National Guard and volunteered for active duty in 1985. In 1987, he joined the Nation of Islam and changed his surname to Muhammad in 2001. During his time in the Army, he served as a mechanic, truck driver and specialist metalworker and earned the Expert Rifleman’s Badge, the highest possible marksmanship medal for a basic soldier in the U.S. Army. He was married twice. When his second wife, Mildred, divorced him, a bitter custody battle over their three children ensued, culminating with him taking them and moving with them to Antigua in the Caribbean.

Muhammad tried to establish himself as a businessman there, but ended up making a living selling false identity papers to locals who sought entry into the U.S. Around 1999, Muhammad met Una Sceon James and her son, Lee Boyd Malvo, in Antigua. Una, who became a close friend of Muhammad, later moved to Fort Myers, Florida using false documents and left Malvo in his care. In 2001, Muhammad, who claimed Malvo to be his stepson, moved to Bellingham, Washington and tried to enroll him and his three children in a school and was caught up by the authorities, who returned them to their mother. Malvo was reunited briefly with his mother in Miami, but they were arrested by the Border Patrol. Malvo was released on a $1500 bond the next year and caught up with Muhammad again.

While the two of them lived at a homeless shelter in Bellingham, Malvo enrolled in high school, but made no friends. Muhammad could afford frequent flights around the U.S. One of those trips was to Tacoma, where they tried to kill one of Mildred’s friends, but ended up killing her niece instead. After a trip to Muhammad’s relatives in Louisiana, the two bought a 1990 Chevy Caprice and began a series of robberies and shootings in Louisiana, Alabama and Maryland. During this time, they are believed to have committed another murder followed by seven more by the end of September. In 2002, Malvo shoplifted a Bushmaster XM-15 rifle from a firearms shop. Muhammad took up target practice at a gun range near the shop.

Shooting Spree, Arrest and Conviction
On October 5, 2002, the duo began what became a full-scale spree of random shootings across Virginia, Maryland and D.C. Over the course of 23 days, they shot and killed 10 people and injured an additional three. One of those days, they were pulled over, but, since Muhammad had no outstanding warrants, were let go. At the peak of the rampage, people were afraid to leave the house. It was initially believed that the shootings were the work of a single man. The day after the last shooting, the police, acting on a phone tip, searched a house in Tacoma where Muhammad and Malvo had once lived. In January the same year, neighbors had complained that he had used the backyard for target practice. When the yard was searched, police found bullets and shell casings which were matched to those of the victims of the Beltway shootings. A nationwide alert for Muhammad and Malvo’s car was issued. On October 24, they were found sleeping in the car and arrested. A month-long trial with hundreds of pieces of evidence, including a series of pictures implicating the two as being terrorists, took place. In the end, Muhammad was sentenced to death on September, 2003 and executed by lethal injection on November 10, 2009. Malvo was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole in October, 2003, a sentence he is currently serving at the Red Onion State Prison.

Modus Operandi
Muhammad and Malvo killed the victims with the .223 semi-automatic Bushmaster XM-15 assault rifle stolen by Malvo. The victims were all completely random and of different ages and sexes and were killed with single shots from a distance of 50-100 yards. The shots were fired from their car, which had been fitted with a small hole from which they aimed. They left tarot cards as calling cards on several crime scenes. One notable one, the Death card, had the phrase “Call me God” written on the front, and “For you mr. Police”, “Code: Call me God” and “Do not release to the press” on the back. At some point, they also left a ransom note demanding ten million dollars.

Profile
To date, the true motive of the Beltway shootings remain something of a mystery. According to Mildred Muhammad, it was meant to be an elaborate plan to later kill her so Muhammad could gain custody over their children. On the other hand, some prosecutors argued that it was meant to be an act of terrorism, using various jihad-related images in their possession as proof. According to Malvo’s testimony, the shootings were meant to be a three-phase plan. The first phase was to plan the shootings, the second, which was intended to take place in Baltimore, was killing a pregnant woman by shooting her in the stomach, then killing a police officer and place explosive devices at his funeral to kill attenders. The third phase was extorting money from the U.S. government and using the funds to create a sanctuary in Canada for homeless black orphans and teach them the handling of firearms, a skill they would then use to commit shootings across the U.S.

Known Victims
Muhammad and Malvo can also be linked to 11 murders prior to the Beltway shootings:
 * 2002: The Beltway shootings:
 * October 2: James Martin, 55
 * October 3:
 * James Buchanan, 39
 * Premkumar Walekar, 54
 * Sarah Ramos, 34
 * Lori Ann Lewis-Rivera, 25
 * Pascal Charlot, 72
 * October 4: Caroline Seawell, 43
 * October 7: Iran Brown, 13
 * October 9: Dean Harold Meyers, 53
 * October 11: Kenneth Bridges, 53
 * October 14: Linda Franklin, 47
 * October 19: Jeffrey Hopper, 37
 * October 22: Conrad Johnson, 35
 * Keenya Cook
 * Jerry Ray Taylor
 * Paul La Ruffa
 * Rupinder Oberoi
 * Muhammad Rashid
 * Million Woldemariam
 * Claudine Lee Parker
 * Kellie Adams
 * Hong Im Ballenger
 * Wright Williams, Jr.
 * Billy Gene Dillon
 * John Gaeta

On Criminal Minds
The first reference to Muhammad and Malvo on Criminal Minds was in L.D.S.K., when the BAU dealt with a sniper. When the profile is given, the screen shows images of a Death Tarot card, not unlike the one the Beltway Snipers left behind. Another noteworthy reference was in Lo-Fi, when a member of a terrorist group left behind the same kind of Death Tarot card that the Beltway Snipers left behind at a crime scene.