- ~September 29 2002 @
Silver Spring MD - Mia Wachsmuth, 45, was on her nightly walk in her Tamarac neighborhood of Silver Spring. [This dense neighborhood of middle class single family homes is shown on some maps as Coalsville MD. It is near Martin Luther King Park and it is north of the Hillandale Liquor store shooting of September 14.]
A creepy beat-up blue sedan came down her block with two black men inside. The driver was a man who resembled John Muhammad and he spoke to her. "The car startled me and made me jump up on the grass," Wachsmuth said. The car slowly rolled away. Wachsmuth pulled out her cell phone and dialed 911. "The 911 operator walked me home over the phone," she said. "I was running and dodging in between parked cars in case they saw me. I was really scared."
About a half-hour later, a police officer arrived at Wachsmuth's front door. He searched the neighborhood and said he found the vehicle, a blue Chevy unoccupied and parked a few houses down.
Wachsmuth reported the date as being late September, several days before the October 2nd shootings. Also, it was the first night of "perfect weather" after a terrible heat wave broke.
[Temperatures on September 27 had been a humid 81 degrees with a muggy nighttime 70 for a low. But by September 29, after thunderstorms and showers cleared, the daytime temperature was 74 and nighttime temps dipped as low as 57]The date could not have been sooner than Sept 29, because M & M were in Gulfport MS until about 6pm Sept 28th. Travel time plus 10 hours for sleep/food/potty stops would put them back in DC about 10pm the 29th.
It sounds like M & M spent the night at someone's house in this Tamarack neighborhood. So the date couldn't be Sept 30th, or it would not be possible for police in Fairfax county VA to spot their Caprice a few hours later at 1:30am Oct 1st.