Muhammad introduced Malvo as sniper

• Article
• Comments ()
• Click-2-Listen

By

VIRGINIA BEACH -- A former Army buddy of John Allen Muhammad's yesterday testified that Mr. Muhammad introduced Lee Boyd Malvo to him as a sniper early last year.

"John introduced him to me ... and he said he was a sniper," auto mechanic Robert Holmes testified in the Muhammad sniper trial. "Lee just smiled."

Mr. Holmes, who lives in Tacoma, Wash., also testified that Mr. Muhammad tried several times to make a silencer for a Bushmaster rifle he had acquired over the summer last year.

"Imagine what damage you could do with a silencer," Mr. Holmes quoted the defendant as saying.

He said he met Mr. Muhammad in 1985 at Fort Lewis, Wash., during their stints in the Army, but his friendship with Mr. Muhammad gave way to suspicion last year about his actions and relationship with Mr. Malvo, which finally prompted Mr. Holmes to call the FBI.

Mr. Holmes' testimony about Mr. Muhammad's personal past and that of a Baptist pastor who runs a homeless shelter in Bellingham, Wash., caused the usually stone-faced defendant to fight back tears. The two men were the only witnesses to testify yesterday, the 18th day of the trial.

Earlier yesterday, the jury was taken from the courthouse to the Virginia Beach City Jail to view the 1990 Chevrolet Caprice in which Mr. Muhammad and Mr. Malvo were arrested with the Bushmaster rifle on Oct. 24, 2002.

On Thursday, Prince William County prosecutors presented a model of the car, the back end of a similar Caprice and a videotape to show how a sniper could climb from the back seat into the trunk and fire a weapon through a hole cut into the trunk's lid.

Yesterday, the 12 jurors and their three alternates were taken into a small, enclosed port in the jail and spent 10 minutes examining the Caprice. Prince William Circuit Court Judge LeRoy F. Millette Jr. allowed one newspaper reporter to be present and give details of the examination to all other reporters.