In 1987, Williams joined the Nation of Islam. While in the Army, he was trained as a mechanic, truck driver, and specialist metalworker. He qualified with the Army's standard infantry rifle the M16, earning the Expert Rifleman's Badge. This rating is the Army's highest of three levels of marksmanship for a basic soldier. He was discharged from military service following the Gulf War, as a sergeant, in 1994.
As a member of the Nation of Islam, “Muhammad” helped provide security for the Million Man March in 1995 – Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan has publicly distanced himself and his organization from Muhammad's crimes. Muhammad kidnapped his children and brought them to Antigua around 1999, apparently engaging in credit card and immigration document fraud activities. It was during this time that he became close with Lee Boyd Malvo, who later acted as his partner in the killings. Williams changed his name to John Allen Muhammad in October 2001.
Lee Boyd Malvo was born February 18, 1985, in Kingston, Jamaica to Leslie Malvo, a mason, and Una James, a seamstress. Lee's parents never married and separated when he was a toddler. Leslie Malvo rarely saw his son after that and subsequently his mother raised Lee by herself and was quite poor. Lee and his mother left Jamaica when he was about fourteen years old, moving to the island of Antigua.
Una James eventually left Antigua for Fort Myers, Florida, travelling on false documents she’d purchased after meeting Muhammad, where she lived illegally. She left Lee with Muhammad. Her son was supposed to join her a few months later.
In 2001, Muhammad, who claimed Malvo as being his stepson, moved to Bellingham, Washington, and tried to enroll him and his three children in a school. He was caught by the authorities, however, who returned the three children 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 $1,500 bond the next year and met up with Muhammad again.
Murders
While the two of them lived at a homeless shelter in Bellingham, Malvo enrolled in high school but made no friends. On a trip to Tacoma, Washington, they tried to kill one of his ex-wife’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.
The Chevy Caprice became a rolling sniper’s nest. During this time, they are believed to have committed another murder – and seven more by the end of October. Malvo shoplifted a Bushmaster XM-15 rifle from a firearms shop. Muhammad took up target practice at a gun range nearby.
The massive investigation into the sniper attacks was led by the Montgomery County Police Department, and headed by Chief Charles Moose, with the F.B.I. and many other law enforcement agencies playing a supporting role. Chief Moose had specifically requested the help of the F.B.I. to try to catch the sniper.
On October 2, 2002, the duo began what became a full-scale spree of random shootings across Virginia, Maryland, and D.C. Over the course of twenty-three days they shot and killed ten people and injured an additional three. They were actually pulled over at one point, but since Muhammad had no outstanding warrants, were let go.
At the peak of the rampage, people were afraid to leave their houses. The F.B.I. had nearly 400 Agents assigned to the investigation, including teams of new agents in training who were working the toll-free hotline.
The following is a timeline of murders committed during the shooting spree:
October 2: James Martin, fifty-five, killed while crossing a parking lot in Wheaton, Maryland
October 3: Five more murders: four in Maryland and one in D.C.: James Buchanan, thirty-nine; Premkumar Walekar, fifty-four; Sarah Ramos, thirty-four; Lori Ann Lewis-Rivera, twenty-five; and Pascal Charlot, seventy-two.
October 4: Caroline Seawell, forty-three, wounded while loading her van at Spotsylvania Mall.
October 7: Iran Brown, thirteen, wounded at a school in Bowie, Maryland.
October 9: Dean Meyers, fifty-three, murdered near Manassas, Virginia, while pumping gas.
October 11: Kenneth Bridges, fifty-three, shot dead near Fredericksburg, Virginia, while pumping gas,
October 14: F.B.I. Analyst Linda Franklin, forty-seven, killed near Falls Church, Virginia.
October 19: Jeffrey Hopper, thirty-seven, wounded outside a steakhouse in Ashland, Virginia.
October 22: Conrad Johnson, thirty-five – the final victim – killed in Aspen Hill, Maryland.
Arrest and Trial
Early in the morning of October 24, their dark blue 1990 Chevy Caprice, which had been widely publicized on the news, was spotted at a rest-stop parking-lot off I-70 in Maryland. Within the hour, law enforcement swarmed the scene, setting up a perimeter to check out any movements and make sure there was no way to escape. They found both of the killers asleep inside the car.
What the F.B.I. and other police forces found in the car was both revealing and shocking. The car had a hole cut in the trunk near the license plate so that shots could be fired from within the vehicle. The Caprice was, in effect, a rolling sniper’s nest.
Execution
The execution for Muhammad was scheduled for November 10, 2009, and although there was an appeal, it was denied. Muhammad was put to death by lethal injection. He declined to make a final statement.
Malvo pled guilty to six murders in Maryland while being interviewed, and confessed to more in other states while testifying against Muhammad. Malvo was sentenced to six consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole.
Tsutomu Miyazaki
The Little Girl Murderer
(Victims 4+)
Background
Tsutomu Miyazaki was born on August 21, 1962 in Tokyo, Japan. Born prematurely, he had deformed hands which were permanently bent and fused directly to the wrists, necessitating him to move his entire forearm in order to rotate the hand. Due to his deformity, he was not accepted when he attended Itsukaichi Elementary School, and consequently kept to himself. Although he was originally a star student, his grades at Meidai Nakano High School dropped dramatically. He had a class rank of 40 out of 56 and did not receive the customary admission to Meiji University. Instead of studying English and becoming a teacher as he had originally intended, he attended a local junior college, where he studied to become a photo technician.
Murders
In 1988 and 1989 Miyazaki mutilated and killed four girls between the ages of four and seven, sexually molesting their corpses. He drank the blood of one victim and ate a part of her hand. These crimes which, prior to Miyazaki's apprehension and trial, were named, ‘The Little Girl Murders,’ were later known as the Tokyo/Saitama Serial Kidnappings. The murders of the little girls shocked Saitama Prefecture, which had few crimes against children. During the day, Miyazaki was a mild-mannered employee; outside of work he randomly selected children to kill. He terrorized the families of his victims, sending them letters which recounted, in graphic detail, what he had done to their children. To the family of victim Erika Nanba, Miyazaki sent a morbid postcard assembled using words cut out of magazines: "Erika. Cold. Cough. Throat. Rest. Death." He allowed the corpse of his first victim, Mari Konno, age four, to decompose in the hills near his home, then he chopped off her hands and feet, which he kept in his closet, and were recovered upon his arrest. He burnt her remaining bones in his furnace, ground them into powder, and sent them to her family in a box along with several of her teeth, photos of her clothes, and a postcard reading: "Mari. Cremated. Bones. Investigate. Prove."