I remember John Allen Muhammed and Lee Boyd Malvo's three weeks of terror in Virginia

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John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo, known as the "Beltway Snipers," terrorized Virginia, Maryland, and the Washington, DC area in October 2002.

Residents altered their lives to be safe during three weeks of terror. Schools and churches were closed, and people were at risk of going outside because of random shootings from a hole in the back panel of their car.

Before they were captured, the pair had killed ten and wounded three people in the DC area. They had killed seven and injured seven others in other places. They were arrested in Maryland on October 24, 2002.

At the time, Muhammad was 41 years old, and Malvo was 17. Muhammad was sentenced to death and executed in 2009 for the murders. Malvo was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

In recent news

If you are wondering why this is news, it is because WTOP News reported that Malvo, now 39 years old, was recently transferred from Red Onion State Prison, a supermax prison in Wise, Virginia, where he had been incarcerated for 20 years. His new home is now the Keen Mountain Correctional Center, a lower-level security prison in Oakwood, Virginia.

Malvo’s resentencing is set to begin on December 2, 2024, in Montgomery County Circuit Court in Christiansburg, Virginia. Initially, he spent time in a Fairfax County jail and has been on trial in Chesapeake and Spotsylvania, Virginia. Therefore, much information about him has been in recent Virginia news.

Memories

Reading about Malvo's recent transfer brought back memories of what happened during the reign of terror in Virginia for three weeks in October 2002. I was a teacher at the time. Schools and churches were closed because no one knew where the snipers would be.

• Man killed while crossing a parking lot in Wheaton, Maryland
• Five more murders, four in Maryland and one in D.C.
• Woman wounded while loading her van at Spotsylvania, Virginia mall
• A 13-year-old-boy wounded at a school in Bowie, Maryland
• Man murdered near Manassas, Virginia, while pumping gas
• Man shot dead near Fredericksburg, Virginia, while pumping gas
• FBI analyst killed near Falls Church, Virginia
• Man wounded outside a steakhouse in Ashland, Virginia
• A bus driver, the final victim, was killed in Aspen Hill, Maryland