Washington sniper's three-week terror spree
( 2002-10-25 16:02 ) (7 )

Police arrested two men in Maryland on Thursday and said a rifle found in their car was the weapons used to kill 10 people and wound three in the Washington area this month.

The shooting spree that began on Oct. 2 paralyzed the suburban neighborhoods around the U.S. capital. Four women, eight men and a teen-age boy have been shot.

Each person was hit with a single bullet fired from a high-velocity rifle in public places.

The gunman had threatened further attacks.

Following are details of the shootings released by police:

WEDNESDAY OCT. 2

5:20 p.m. - Bullet shot through front window of a craft store in Montgomery County, a Maryland suburb just north of Washington. No one injured.

6 p.m. - James Martin, 55, a program analyst buying groceries for his church, is shot and killed in the parking lot of a supermarket in Wheaton, Md, about a mile (1.6 km) from

first shooting.

THURSDAY OCT. 3

7:40 a.m. - James "Sonny" Buchanan, 39, is shot in the chest and dies as he mows a lawn near a shopping mall in Rockville, Maryland.

8:10 a.m. - Premkumar Walekar, 54, an Indian-born taxi driver, is shot and killed as he fills his car at an Aspen Hill, Maryland, gas station within a mile (1.6 km) of the

earlier shooting.

8:40 a.m. - Sarah Ramos, 34, of El Salvador who worked as a housekeeper, is shot in the head while sitting on a bench outside a Montgomery County post office. Witness sees a white

truck speeding from the scene.

10 a.m. - Lori Ann Lewis-Rivera, 25, a nanny from Idaho, is killed with a single bullet as she vacuums her van at a Kensington, Maryland, gas station.

9:20 p.m. - Pascal Charlot, 72, a retired carpenter who immigrated from Haiti, is shot dead near a bus stop in northern Washington.

FRIDAY OCT. 4

2:30 p.m. - Sniper shoots a 43-year-old woman in the back as she loads shopping bags into her car outside a craft store in Fredericksburg, Virginia, about 50 miles (80 km) south of

Washington. The woman, who was not identified by police, survives the attack and is taken to the hospital.

MONDAY OCT. 7

8:10 a.m. - A 13-year-old boy is shot in the chest as he walks into his suburban Maryland school moments after leaving his aunt's car. The boy, whose name is not made Public, undergoes hours of surgery and survives.

A Tarot "death" card is found in woods next to the school,

Police sources say a bullet casing is also found in the woods.

WEDNESDAY OCT. 9

8:20 p.m. - Dean Harold Meyers, 53, a civil engineer from Gaithersburg, Maryland, is fatally shot in the head at a gas station in Manassas, Virginia, about 30 miles (50 km) southwest

of Washington. Police say a white van is seen leaving the scene.

FRIDAY OCT. 11

9:30 a.m. - Kenneth Bridges, 53, of Philadelphia is shot and killed as he fills his car at a gasoline station near the I-95 highway in Fredericksburg, Virginia, about 40 miles (65

km) south of the capital.

MONDAY OCT. 14

9:15 p.m. - Sniper shoots dead Linda Franklin, a 47-year-old FBI intelligence analyst, in the parking lot of a store in Falls Church, Virginia, 7 miles (11 km) from Washington. The victim, an intelligence analyst not involved with the sniper investigation, is loading shopping bags into her car with her husband when she is shot in the head.

SATURDAY, OCT. 19

8 p.m. - A 37-year-old man is shot in the stomach as he and his wife leave a steakhouse in Ashland, Virginia, near the I-95 highway north of the Virginia capital, Richmond, and about 80 miles (130 km) south of Washington. The victim, who is not identified, is critically wounded.

Investigators find a written message at the scene and appeal to the sniper to contact them. Later, police ask the suspect to call them back, saying an earlier conversation was marred by a bad connection.

TUESDAY, OCT. 22

6 a.m. - Bus driver Conrad Johnson, 35, is shot aboard his commuter bus in Silver Spring, Maryland, and dies later in the hospital.

Police release a written warning from the sniper, which bears the message: "Your children are not safe anywhere, at any time."

WEDNESDAY, OCT. 23

FBI agents search a property in Tacoma, Washington, with metal detectors and also look for two people in Bellingham, another city in the state.

The task force investigating the sniper issues a federal arrest warrant for John Allen Muhammad, also known as John Allen Williams, for violating federal firearms laws. Media

reports identify a juvenile accompanying Muhammad as John Lee Malvo, 17.

THURSDAY, OCT 24

The two are arrested in Maryland about 60 miles (100 km) northwest of Washington at around 3:30 a.m. (0730 GMT), as they slept in a car that matched a description given by police investigating the shootings. A Bushmaster XM-15 .223 caliber rifle found in the car was forensically determined to be the murder weapon, a law enforcement official says.

Muhammad, an expert Army marksman and Gulf War veteran, and Malvo are not yet charged in the case, but both men appear in federal court in Baltimore.

The break in the case comes as police pursues leads in Alabama, where Malvo was linked to a robbery and murder outside a liquor store on Sept. 21, and in Washington state, near where

Muhammad had been stationed during his military career.