Son of Infamous 'D.C. Sniper' John Allen Muhammad Lives in Dad's Shadow

April 2, 2010— -- To the families of the 10 people killed in the 2002 Washington-area sniper attacks, Nov. 10, 2009, marks the day they found the closest thing to justice the system could offer: the so-called D.C. sniper, John Allen Muhammad, was put to death by lethal injection.

But to Lindbergh Williams, a 27-year-old animal control officer in Baton Rouge, La., Nov. 10 has a very different meaning. That day, Williams visited death row to get to know the infamous killer who was also his father.

"It was weird," Williams told "Nightline." "We stood there and just looked at each other for about -- I want to say a good three minutes. No words said. No anything."

Muhammad carried out a weeks-long shooting spree that terrorized Washington, D.C., in October 2002. Ten people died. After multiple appeals, Muhammad was executed by the state of Virginia. He was 48.

Williams said his two-hour meeting with his father was like two strangers looking in the mirror. "I think we both were doing the same thing like, 'That's my nose.' 'You have my ears.' So, we were both checking each other out," he said.

Williams said it was his last chance to connect with his father.

"We only have a couple more hours before I would never be able to talk to you again," he recalled saying to Muhammad. "I'm here as a son. Is there anything you want to tell me? Is there a story that happened to you when you were my age that you want to tell me? Any questions like that? Is there anything that you just need to get off your chest? If you just want to sit here and cry for two hours, that's why I came here."

Williams is part of a tiny fraternity of children, including the offspring of Charles Manson and the "BTK killer" in Kansas, who are forever marked by their infamous fathers.

"Children never ask to be born. Imagine having never asked to be born, and then knowing that 50 percent of your DNA is from someone that probably never should have been born," said forensic psychiatrist Dr. Michael Welner, who is a consultant for ABC News.

Welner says the relationship Williams shares with his father is complex.

"He can't help looking the way he looks, he can't help being associated with his father, so he has to go through life knowing that as hard as he tries to detach himself from John Muhammad, he's always going to be challenged," said Welner.

Williams doesn't share his father's name, but he's known, around the Baton Rouge neighborhood where he lives and where his father grew up, as "Little John."

"When I walk to the corner stores, I get 'Hey, Little John.' I get it all the time," he said. "I can't deny it."

Williams lives in the same trailer that his father did when he was a young man -- a strange place to call home for someone trying to escape his father's shadow.

Williams, who raises pitbulls, doesn't believe in the old adage "like father, like son," and doesn't believe his beloved dogs are predestined to hurt people.

"You don't come into the world with bad intentions. You do not touch the face of the Earth and say, 'OK, my mother was a pitbull. My father was a pitbull. I might as well go in the ring and continue the legacy,'" he said. "I'm a firm believer that your environment doesn't make the person or make the man."