Cops: Sniper Suspects Tied to Ga. Killing
Nov. 7 -- The suspects in the string of sniper shootings that terrorized the Washington, D.C., area last month will be tried first in Virginia, where both could face the death penalty, officials said today, as police said evidence linked the pair to yet another killing.
U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft announced the legal plans today for trying John Allen Muhammad, 41, and John Lee Malvo, 17, just hours after police in Atlanta said the two were linked to a killing there.
Ballistics tests matched the gun used to kill a 41-year-old liquor store clerk in Atlanta shortly after midnight on Sept. 21 to the gun dropped at another killing blamed on the suspects in Montgomery, Ala., later that day, police said.
Million Woldemarian, an Ethiopian immigrant, was shot outside Sammy's Package Store on Martin Luther King Drive in southwest Atlanta as he investigated a suspicious car, police said.
Then, 150 miles away, after night fell, a woman was fatally shot and another wounded outside a Montgomery, Ala., liquor store during a holdup, police have said. The handgun later was recovered near the scene.
"It was good police work [that] linked the two shootings," Atlanta Police Chief Richard Pennington said. "We don't have any eyewitnesses. All we have is forensic evidence that was recovered."
Pennington said his department will work closely with the task force pursuing the sniper investigation in Maryland, Virginia and the nation's capital.
Facing Death Penalty in Virginia
Muhammad and Malvo are being investigated in more than 20 shootings across the country, including 15 in the Washington, D.C., area.
They were transferred today from a Baltimore prison to Virginia, where they will be tried individually in different counties.
Federal charges against Muhammad were withdrawn earlier in the day, clearing the way for Virginia to try the two first among the competing jurisdictions.
"We believe the first prosecutions should occur in those jurisdictions that have the best law, the best facts and the best range of available penalties," Ashcroft said, without specifying the exact facts that led authorities toward their course.
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