Victims, relatives to witness sniper execution

RICHMOND — Emotions run deep and vary widely for those wounded by the D.C. snipers and for the relatives of those killed, days before the mastermind of the 2002 attacks is scheduled to be executed.

John Allen Muhammad, 48, is set to die by injection Tuesday in a Virginia prison, seven years after he and young accomplice Lee Boyd Malvo terrorized the Washington area for three weeks.

Muhammad was convicted of killing Dean Harold Meyers at a Manassas, Va., gas station during the spree in which 10 people were fatally shot in October 2002. The killings happened in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia.

Some family members cannot wait to see Muhammad take his final breath. Others plan to make the trip to Virginia but never step foot on prison grounds. And there are those who plan to spend the night at home with their families, satisfied that Muhammad is paying for what he’s done but indifferent as to how it will happen.

Meyers’ brother, Robert Meyers, and wife Lori plan to be in the witness booth.

“The reason why this life is going to be taken has everything to do with choices [Muhammad] made and the process that those choices took him through,” said Meyers, 56, of Perkiomenville, Pa

Meyers also said he owed it to his brother to be there and that he also wanted to be there for other victims’ families.

Meyers, 53, was a Vietnam veteran, civil engineer, and the youngest of four brothers. He was shot in the head while filling up at the Northern Virginia gas station. Malvo, then 17, later bragged to police that Meyers “was hit good. Dead immediately.”

“We’re expecting justice being done, but not from a vengeful standpoint,” Robert Meyers said. “It is more about the payment of his debt to society, because that was decided by others.”

On Wednesday, Muhammad’s attorneys released a May 2008 letter in which their client proclaims his innocence.

The rambling, handwritten letter was made available because of requests for a statement from Muhammad, his attorneys said. The letter was filed in federal court in connection with Muhammad’s unsuccessful attempt to block his execution, the attorneys also said.

In the letter dated May 8, 2008, and rife with misspellings, Muhammad writes of discussions with a new team of attorneys and of assurances that “exculpatory evidence” that he claims was withheld from his trial “will prove my innocent and what really happen … .”

The letter adds: “So all you police and prosecutors can stand-down-‘rushing’ to murder this innocent black man for something he nor his son (Lee) had nothing to do with … .”

Malvo, now 24, is serving a life sentence. Muhammad fostered a father-son relationship with Malvo but the two were not related.

Jonathan Sheldon, one of Muhammad’s attorneys, said the letter has been filed in U.S. District Court since May 2008.

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