Pair lingered near attack sites (sniper)

Richmond Times-Dispatch ^ | 11/4/2002 | PAUL BRADLEY AND KIRAN KRISHNAMURTHY

[Utah Girl]

For three weeks, as a series of deadly sniper shootings terrorized the Washington area and police shut down highways, frantically searching for a phantom white van, suspects John Allen Muhammad, 41, and John Lee Malvo, 17, apparently did not bolt from the scenes of the attacks.

[stlrocket]

EXCLUSIVE - Third Sniper Identified!

WE KNEW IT ALL THE TIME!

[IamHD]

LOL

[FryingPan101]

Too funny.

[Ethrane]

I find it amazing that the sniper's plates were run SO MANY times over the period of shooting...

I would think there would be some sort of computer software that would look for repetitious "plate checks" in the vicinity of the shootings.

I mean, what's the odds that this one car seemed to be in the vicinity of all those shootings?

Were any other cars similiarly found?

Unbelievable...

[pgobrien]

Where can I find a $250.00 car that will criss cross the United States? Not only are these guys gay, black, muslim, serial killers....but shrewd appraisers of automobiles.

[Tarheel]

At one point earlier in this whole mess I read that Muhammad had worked as an auto or truck mechanic--sounded as though he was a 'shade tree' mechanic in his earlier life.

His first wife stated, on a LKL interview, that he was a welder when they got married. Those two skills would help him keep that vehicle going over those long trips.

The Tarheel

[justlurking]

I posted here that I suspected they were going to ground near the site of the shooting and waiting for the dragnet to be lifted. But, I did think it would be a hotel/motel, where someone would remember them.

What amazes me is they ran checks on the Caprice so many times without realizing they were finding it near almost every shooting. That would have been the first thing I would have looked for: finding repeating patterns in data is standard problem-solving methodology.

Many people posted that the "white van" was a self-fulfilling prophecy: they are ubiquitous on the road, and the probability of seeing one at any given moment is near 100%. The task force should have figured this out, too.

But, what really astonishes me was their inability to recognize the significance of the unusual phrases used in the note(s). Google would have told them the relevance in a matter of seconds.

[Utah Girl]

Hopefully, LE learned something from the sniper attacks. I work in computers, and I was appalled that the car was stopped so many times and the tags run through the databases, and nothing was ever flagged or raised any questions.

[L_Von_Mises]

I find it amazing that the sniper's plates were run SO MANY times over the period of shooting...

I would think there would be some sort of computer software that would look for repetitious "plate checks" in the vicinity of the shootings.

I was always under the impression that it set off a flag when your name was run through the computers so that if the next cop ran it he would know that something might be up. At least that is what I had been told by different cops in Mass.

I guess when all you are looking for is a white redneck in a white van nothing else matters.

[L_Von_Mises]

The charge came to $16.05. Stastny said Muhammad handed him some bills, a nickel and a penny - a one-cent tip.

On repeated occasions, the two were allowed inside even after claiming they were unable to pay the $3 guest fee, she said.

This behavior sounds familiar - Atta and his buddies at the strip club. The biggest thing the waitress remembered was how cheap they were. Probably just a coincidence.

[GoreLoser]

"We (cops in Richmond) had not been given any information to be on the lookout for that (Caprice) kind of vehicle."

So much for the LE-apologists' theory that the task force cops were really after a Caprice but just didn't make that information public so as not to tip off the snipers.

A database check should have been an obvious tactic but catching these morons wouldn't even have required that level of sophistication. On Oct. 4, the day after the 5 killings, the owner of the liquor store whose employee was shot on Sept. 14 called the detective who investigated that shooting with information linking it to the snipers. The owner said on TV that the detective didn't get back to him until much later and even then only went through the motions. His wife even resorted to calling the tip line to no avail -- not much of a surprise since we now know that the tip line was refusing to take calls from the snipers themselves.

Among the information available on Oct. 4 was a witness description of a Caprice leaving the scene of the Sept. 14 shooting, just as a witness had reported that a Caprice left the last of the 5 shootings on Oct 3. On Oct. 8, the cop in Baltimore stopped the snipers but let them go because the witness reports of a Caprice had not been given to the cops on the street, as the task force continued to focus on a phantom white van.

Giving the cops the benefit of the doubt, the snipers should have been nailed no later than Oct. 8. Four more people died and one was wounded after that. Reaction from the lamestream media ranges from: "Brilliant police work" to "The cops had a lot to do and at least they caught these guys."

What a travesty!

[aristeides]

And the story in Sunday's Washington Post had Muhammad leaving no tip at a sports bar at another point in the sniping spree.

If you don't want to be remembered, you don't leave no tip, still less a 1 cent tip.

Speaking of the 1 cent tip, Muhammad and Malvo were staying at an Econo Lodge across the street from the gas station of their shooting at Fredericksburg (having stayed at the Ramada Inn next door the previous night.) News reports the day after the shooting said police were checking the motels in the area. Presumably they must have seen the pair at that point.

Lots of dates in this article. The Oct. 1 sighting in Fairfax is new. This is probably the pair returning to the D.C. area after their trip down south to Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi. If so, they sure didn't waste time starting their sniping spree.

[Fred Mertz]

The charge came to $16.05. Stastny said Muhammad handed him some bills, a nickel and a penny - a one-cent tip.

Payback is a medevac! Good going Mr. Stastny.

[Grampa Dave]

[Grampa Dave]

Why hide?

The politically correct mob in charge of the investigation had all the street cops looking for evil white guys driving the mythical white van.

If the description of the Caprice had not been leaked out, they would probably still be killing innocent Americans, staying around the crime scene and leaving in their Caprice to be stopped again for another license check

[Grampa Dave]

If he had given a normal tip, John Muhammed might have been forgotten by Stastny.

One of my sons was a pizza delivery guy, and 15 years later he can still remember the guys who gave him a penny or tried to short change him.

So this 1 cent tip was a memory flag for Stastny.

[dirtboy]

That would have been the first thing I would have looked for: finding repeating patterns in data is standard problem-solving methodology.

Yeppers. A simple SQL query would have sorted that puppy right to the top of the list.

[Freee-dame]

On Thursday morning, Douglas was stunned to see a mug shot of Muhammad on television. "I saw the older gentleman, Mr. Muhammad, and said, 'Hey, I know that guy.'"

gentleman ! This term is so infuriating. We never saw a picture of Timothy McVeigh happily sitting on a sofa, nor should we have. Once a person is arrested for such a heinous crime, a "perp walk" picture or mug shot is the only one that should ever be shown.

[cinFLA]

They were safe. We were looking for an AWM, 20 to 30, driving a white van with a residence (house) in the area. And I am not even going to /sarcasim this post.