Man Arrested In Sniper Case Attended School in Fort Myers (Pic of House)

The younger of two men arrested Thursday morning in connection with the Washington, D.C.-area sniper shootings is believed to have attended public school last year in south Fort Myers.

John Lee Malvo, 17, was arrested at a rest stop in Frederick County, Md., and is one of two suspects in recent sniper attacks that have left 10 individuals dead and three wounded. Lee County school officials confirm that a teenager named Lee Boyd Malvo attended Cypress Lake High from Aug. 13 to Oct. 16, 2001, and authorities presume that individual is the same person arrested Thursday.

Police also arrested John Allen Muhammed, 41, and have said he too is linked to the sniper attacks. Authorities believe the pair may both have lived in central Fort Myers.

"We have been contacted by a law enforcement agency for information and files on this former student," said John Dattola, director of public information and community relations for the School District. "We will comply with this request and give them the information."

Dattola later said the agency was the FBI, which will review cumulative information about Malvo's course selections, grades and other academic material.

A guidance counselor at Cypress Lake High recognized the student's name from morning news reports, then contacted Principal Nancy Graham, who in turn notified district officials. Graham would not release the counselor's name, and several staff members contacted late Thursday declined to comment.

Malvo and Muhammed are believed to have rented a home at 2510 Broadway in Fort Myers from owner Antoine Eveque. Through a Creole/English translator, a woman who answered the telephone at Eveque's home said he was not available to answer questions.

The Lee County Sheriff's Office street index showed one call to 2510 Broadway since 1999. Deputies were called to the house on March 2001 but law enforcement took no action against anyone.

Betty Page moved into 2510 Broadway in October 2001, likely renting the home right after Malvo and Muhammed left. She never knew the men or whomever rented the three-bedroom, two-bathroom home before her, but her residence garnered much media attention Thursday and stirred emotions in the neighborhood.

"I said, 'Wow, it's a small world,' "Page said about her connection to Malvo and Muhammed.

"This is crazy because they lived kitty-corner from me, but I have never had trouble with my neighbors," said Veda Fremou, 47, who has lived across the street from 2510 Broadway for five years.

Fremou said people would come in and out of the house last year, around September, [ - that's September 2001 - ] at all times of the night. However, Fremou said they weren't loud and she didn't necessarily suspect anything suspicious happening there. She did recall a semi-truck parked at the house sometime last year.

By late morning Thursday, school officials still were uncertain whether the John Lee Malvo who was arrested is the same person as Lee Boyd Malvo. Dattola said much of the district's doubt was eliminated by the late afternoon, but he would not elaborate on what information led officials to believe Lee Boyd Malvo is indeed John Lee Malvo. The FBI telephoned the district around 3 p.m. with its request for student records.

At about the same time, Graham was prepping her school's roughly 1,900 students by announcing over the intercom system that an individual arrested in connection with the sniper shootings likely attended class there. Few teenagers knew Malvo because he only attended class for 39 days, but word traveled quickly as students exited class to a throng of media contingents. ...snip...

Sniper boy Jamaican

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/html/20021025T000000-0500_34180_OBS_SNIPER_BOY_JAMAICAN.asp

JOHN Lee Malvo, the 17 year-old arrested in connection with the Washington sniper killings, is almost certain to have been a Jamaican boy said to have been abandoned by his mother in Antigua and "adopted" by the man suspected of being the shooter.

"Malvo was a Jamaican boy abandoned by his mother and adopted on the streets by (John Allen) Muhammad while he lived in Antigua," said Julian Rogers, the head of news and programming at Observer Radio in the Antiguan capital of St John's. "He lived here with Muhammad and Muhammad's three children."

Last night the Jamaican foreign ministry confirmed that a youngster named Lee Boyd Malvo had emigrated to "another Caribbean island" in 1998, at the age of 13, which would make him the same age as the boy who has been at the centre of one of America's most sensational crimes and manhunts ever.

Lee Boyd Malvo, Jamaican birth records show, was born in Kingston on the 18th of February, 1985 to Una James of St Elizabeth. His father, Leslie Samuel Malvo, was added to the record in 1990.

"Local school records show no evidence of disruptive behaviour and point to the attainment of an academic standard that was satisfactory," the foreign ministry said.

Officials last night declined to name the school which Malvo attended or the area where it is located.

Last night the Associated Press quoted Leslie Malvo as expressing surprise about the developments surrounding his son, whom he has not seen since age 13.

"This morning I woke up and heard the news and I said, 'That sounds like my son'," said Malvo, 55, a building contractor. "He was a nice kid so I don't know how he got mixed up in this."

Malvo was interviewed near his home in the Kingston neighbourhood of Waltham Park Road.

Bishop Choyes Codner of Bethel Born Again Church of God on Oakland Road, also in Waltham Park, yesterday recalled a woman in the area named Una James, who emigrated more than a decade ago, but he had questions whether it was the same woman.

The Una Thomas of Codner's memory was in her late 30s or 40s, and he did not recall her having a young child.

"That woman would now be in her 50s or 60s," Codner told the Observer. "If she had a child who is now 17 that child would have been an infant and I never saw her with a young child."

Malvo and Muhammad, 41, a US army veteran, were arrested early yesterday morning in a car at a rest stop 50 miles northwest of Washington, DC, an area that has been gripped in fear from three weeks of sniping by a shadowy gunman who left 10 people dead.

Among those killed was a Jamaican-born bus driver, Conrad Johnson, 35, who was shot early Tuesday morning as he stood on the step of his bus in a neighbourhood in Montgomery County, Maryland.

It was unclear last night what were the circumstances under which Malvo went to Antigua or Muhammad's precise connection with the eastern Caribbean island. There were suggestions, though, that Muhammad, who served with the US forces in the Gulf War, was born in the United States to an Antiguan mother.

Muhammad was apparently called John Allen Williams before he converted to Islam and changed his surname. Sources in Antigua last night quoted government officials as saying a person named John Allen Williams has an Antiguan social security number, but this could not be immediately confirmed.

He at first lived in the village of English Harbour, on the island's south, near to Nelson's Dock Yard, one of the Caribbean's premier yachting centres.

Muhammad later moved to Rose Street in a community called Ottos, just outside the capital. Muhammad's three natural children, people in the area said yesterday, attended the Granville Primary School in the community.

Malvo attended the Seventh-day Adventist School. There were no indications of how he performed at school.

The whereabouts of Muhammad's children were unclear last night and no one was certain what were his movements after he left Antigua sometime in 2000. But Antiguans who saw Muhammad's face on cable television claimed to have seen him on the island in recent months.

Samuir Doumith, who manages Antigua Home Office Depot, on Old Parham Road, just outside St John's, believed he saw Muhammad in his store as recently as two months ago.

"He asked about rattan furniture," Doumith was quoted as saying.

Employees of one local bank recall him doing business at their branch, but said there was nothing suspicious about him.

-snip-

Suspect left danger signs in Bellingham (FBI had Terror Tip on Sniper Muhammad, October, 2001!)

"....."On the surface he was squeaky clean," Archer said. "He was almost too good to believe. I kind of quit believing."

After he got to know Muhammad better, Archer grew so suspicious of his odd behavior that he suspected him of being part of a terrorist organization, and he called the FBI. But that was in October 2001, in the aftershock of the World Trade Center massacre, and Archer doesn't think he got the feds' attention.

"I felt they probably threw the note in the trash," he said.

At Stuart's, 1302 Bay St., suspicions were never aroused to that extent. Quirky people are hardly a novelty there, employees said.

...

Although Muhammad spent time at the homeless shelter, he sometimes flashed a wallet thick with currency, and showed off expensive-looking watches and gold bracelets, Parks said.

At the mission, Archer said, Muhammad would stay for a few days and then leave, saying he was traveling to Denver and New Orleans, among other places. The odd part was that Muhammad was traveling by airplane. Archer learned that when an airline ticket agent called the mission asking for Muhammad.

"At the mission, not many airline agents call and ask for residents," Archer said.

Muhammad's frequent flier status seemed odd to other people. One of them was Greg Grant, a real estate agent in Bellingham who owns and manages an apartment complex about two miles south of Sumas on Highway 9. Last year, Grant said, he would often drive residents of Lighthouse Mission - including Muhammad on several occasions - to the apartments to do yard work and other chores, then back to the mission once the work was done.

Once, Muhammad told Grant that he had to travel a long distance, possibly to Jamaica or the Cayman Islands in the Caribbean, to sign some papers on a land sale, Grant said. Grant said he wondered why Muhammad would fly to do that when the job could be handled by mail.

In the post 9-11 climate, Archer felt it was worth a call to the FBI.

"I felt like he was part of an organization. I felt like he had some connection with terrorists. ... I said he's got connections somewhere with somebody who's got money," Archer remembered telling the FBI.

He also contacted Bellingham police with his concerns.

"We both agreed there was something not right, but there was nothing they could nail him with," Archer said. ...."

Reporters in Antigua said yesterday that Muhammad lived on the island between 1999 and 2000, apparently having gone there with his three children -- Selena, John and Taliba -- after the break-up of his marriage.
He at first lived in the village of English Harbour, on the island's south, near to Nelson's Dock Yard, one of the Caribbean's premier yachting centres.

Nice find, especially in light of this...
Muhammad's frequent flier status seemed odd to other people. One of them was Greg Grant, a real estate agent in Bellingham who owns and manages an apartment complex about two miles south of Sumas on Highway 9. Last year, Grant said, he would often drive residents of Lighthouse Mission - including Muhammad on several occasions - to the apartments to do yard work and other chores, then back to the mission once the work was done.
Once, Muhammad told Grant that he had to travel a long distance, possibly to Jamaica or the Cayman Islands in the Caribbean, to sign some papers on a land sale, Grant said. Grant said he wondered why Muhammad would fly to do that when the job could be handled by mail.
LINK

Could James Muhammad have been flying back to Antigua while living in the homeless shelter in Bellingham, WA?
BTW, do you remember that Richard Reid, the Shoe Bomber, "had a ticket for a round trip to Miami and then to Antigua, and told officers that he intended to visit his family on the West Indian island..." ?
Who is the Shoe Bomber?
Curious.
And like Johnnie Jihad, Reid was recruited by the Jamaat al-Tabligh, the same guys who murdered Daniel Pearl.
And Sheikh Gilani, the Pakistani founder of the Tablighi Jamaat and Jamaat al-Fuqra who was arrested in connection with Pearl's murder, is said to have Caribbean connections.

You are fast. I was just going to post a separate thread on THIS: In interest of keeping the flow going, I will stick to this thread. The ANTIGUA, CARRIBEAN CONNECTION BY THE SNIPER SUSPECT, plus the fact of him being financed while hanging out in lowclass area dumps around the USA, is extremely interesting:

Title: Trouble Underfoot

December 24, 2001 Right after the Reid Shoebomber Arrest.... (Opinion Journal):

"Passengers appear to have foiled another airborne terrorist attack. Richard Reid, a k a Tariq Raja, a k a and Abdel Rahid, has been charged with "intimidation or assault of a flight crew causing interference with their duties" and is likely to face further charges in connection with a Saturday incident in which he apparently tried to light a bomb in his shoe while airborne over the Atlantic. After a stewardess noticed Reid lighting a match, the Associated Press reports, "two flight attendants and at least a half-dozen passengers aboard the Boeing 767 jetliner grabbed the man and used belts to strap him into his seat while two doctors used drugs from the airplane's medical kit to sedate him." The flight, en route from Paris to Miami, was diverted to Boston. The FBI confirms that "the explosives devices detected in preliminary tests on Reid's sneakers were functional and could have caused serious damage if detonated," the AP says. Reid was traveling on a British passport, but reports suggest he may be a Muslim from Sri Lanka. According to another AP dispatch, Reid "had tried to board the same flight on Friday but missed it because police pulled him aside for questioning": Police interrogated Raja because he was acting "a bit strangely," the Interior Ministry spokesman said. Raja also attracted attention because he had a one-way ticket, his passport was new and he had no luggage other than one small carryon bag. He said he was traveling to Antigua to visit family, police said. After questioning, Raja was given the green light to board because his documents were in order, the Interior Ministry spokesman said. Although authorities say they've found no indication that Reid/Raja/Rashid was connected with al Qaeda, the London Evening Standard reports that the plastic explosive known as C4 "widely used" by the terror network, whose training manuals "go into detail on how it is used most effectively and even how it can be manufactured."

And from: Jamaica Observer, October 25, 2002

""Malvo was a Jamaican boy abandoned by his mother and adopted on the streets by (John Allen) Muhammad while he lived in Antigua," said Julian Rogers, the head of news and programming at Observer Radio in the Antiguan capital of St John's. "He lived here with Muhammad and Muhammad's three children......The whereabouts of Muhammad's children were unclear last night and no one was certain what were his movements after he left Antigua sometime in 2000. But Antiguans who saw Muhammad's face on cable television claimed to have seen him on the island in recent months. Samuir Doumith, who manages Antigua Home Office Depot, on Old Parham Road, just outside St John's, believed he saw Muhammad in his store as recently as two months ago. "He asked about rattan furniture," Doumith was quoted as saying. Employees of one local bank recall him doing business at their branch, but said there was nothing suspicious about him. "

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