Muhammad found guilty

VIRGINIA BEACH — John Allen Muhammad was convicted yesterday of masterminding and carrying out the sniper shootings that terrorized the Washington area last year and now faces two possible sentences: life in prison or the death penalty.

“This is a case where the death penalty is the only appropriate punishment,” said prosecutor Richard A. Conway, Prince William County assistant commonwealth’s attorney, in the opening statement of the punishment phase of the trial, which began in the afternoon after the jury’s verdict was read at 11:56 a.m.

“We reserve the ultimate punishment — the death penalty — for the worst of the worst, and folks, he still sits there right in front of you without a shred of remorse,” Mr. Conway said.

The jury could begin deliberations on punishment as early as Thursday, and defense attorney Jonathan Shapiro punctuated his opening statement during sentencing with pleas for Muhammad’s life.

“Your decision will put John Muhammad in a box of one sort or another. One is made of concrete, and one is made of pine,” Mr. Shapiro said. “It is not necessary to extinguish one more life.”

As the court clerk read the verdicts, the 42-year-old Army veteran, dressed in the same beige sports jacket he has worn throughout the trial, stood expressionless with hands folded in front of him.

He swallowed and looked slightly shaken as he sat down after being found guilty of all four charges he faced: two counts of capital murder — one for masterminding an act of terrorism and one for killing more than one person in three years — conspiracy to commit murder and use of a firearm in a felony.

After three weeks of testimony, the jury of seven women and five men needed about seven hours of deliberation Friday and yesterday to find Muhammad guilty of the fatal shooting of Dean Harold Meyers, a 53-year-old Vietnam veteran fatally shot at a Manassas gas station on Oct. 9, 2002.

Relatives of shooting victims sat in the courtroom for the verdict, along with several law-enforcement officials who had helped with the sniper investigation.

Muhammad and fellow suspect Lee Boyd Malvo, on trial in nearby Chesapeake, have been linked to the 13 sniper shootings that killed 10 and wounded three in the Washington area in October 2002. They also have been linked to nine other earlier shootings in five states. Both trials were moved because of pretrial publicity.

Mr. Malvo is on trial in the Oct. 14, 2002, fatal shooting of Linda Franklin, 47, at a Falls Church Home Depot.

Prosecutors say the men were trying to extort $10 million from the government, and that Muhammad was intent on harming and possibly killing his ex-wife, Mildred, who lived in Clinton, Md., because she had custody of the couple’s three children.

Isa Nichols, the prosecution’s first witness during sentencing yesterday, was a business associate and friend of Mrs. Muhammad and said that after Mrs. Muhammad was given custody of her children, she tried to keep her location a secret from her ex-husband.

“Mildred felt he was going to destroy her,” said Mrs. Nichols, who also testified about the Feb. 16, 2002, fatal shooting of her 21-year old niece, Keenya Cook, who lived with her. Prosecutors said Muhammad took part in Ms. Cook’s slaying, using a friend’s handgun, but they did not present ballistics evidence to prove a link.

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