Posted on 10/29/2002 12:43:01 AM PST by twntaipan
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/93311_tacoma29.shtml
Muhammad, Malvo linked to crimes here
Police say guns loaned to pair were used in shootings
Tuesday, October 29, 2002
By MIKE BARBER, LEWIS KAMB AND CANDACE HECKMAN
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTERS
TACOMA -- Handguns provided by a friend of two men accused of being the D.C. snipers were used to kill a young mother here in February and to blast a synagogue here in May, authorities said last night.
The guns were loaned to John Allen Muhammad by an acquaintance who allowed the former Fort Lewis soldier and his young companion, Lee Boyd Malvo, to stay at his home, authorities said.
Accusations of a link between the two and the Tacoma crimes came as federal agents were still sifting through sales records at a Tacoma gun shop where Muhammad is thought to have obtained a rifle used in at least 11 of the 13 sniper incidents in and around Washington, D.C., in the past three weeks.
Officials in Louisiana, meanwhile, have requested DNA samples from Muhammad and Malvo to check for a connection to a series of killings in the Baton Rouge area, the Baltimore Sun reported last night.
Muhammad, 41, a former Tacoma resident, and Malvo, a 17-year-old Jamaican he called his stepson, have been charged in connection with eight of the Washington-area shootings, and have been charged with murder in a Sept. 21 robbery-homicide in Alabama.
Federal officials yesterday confirmed that Malvo is legally known as Lee Boyd Malvo, but had informally adopted the first name of his partner. Authorities are still unsure about his age, saying he may be 19.
The two were arrested last week as they slept in their car at a Maryland rest stop only hours after federal agents searched a home they frequented in Tacoma and took records from the Bellingham high school Malvo briefly attended.
"The investigation continues at a high level despite the recent arrests of John A. Muhammad and Lee Malvo," said Tacoma police Chief David Brame, speaking at a news conference last night along with Matthew Horace of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
Brame said a Tacoma man who became friends with Muhammad through a mutual interest in firearms contacted police after the two men were arrested last week.
The man, whom he would not identify, said he was concerned because Muhammad had once borrowed his guns. Muhammad and Malvo had stayed at the man's residence between February and April, and lived there full time between May and July, Brame said.
The man, who is not a suspect in any crimes, gave police three handguns and two rifles for testing, Brame said.
The Washington State Crime Lab says one of those guns, a .45-caliber pistol, was used to kill 21-year-old Keenya Nicole Cook on Feb. 16 when she answered the door of her aunt's Tacoma home. Court records place Muhammad in Tacoma last Feb. 12, when he was ticketed for shoplifting.
On Feb. 16, Isa Nichols returned home after running an errand to find her niece's body just inside her open front door. Cook had been shot in the face. Her 6-month-old daughter was found, unharmed, on a diaper changing table.
Cook's mother, Pamala Nichols, 45, said that as soon as she heard that John Muhammad was linked to shooting so many people on the East Coast, she thought he had something to do with her daughter's murder. Police have said they suspected her killer was someone familiar to her.
"I am so happy that they have been able to put a link to all of this. I knew that he didn't like my sister-in-law," Nichols said yesterday.
Isa Nichols, Cook's aunt, was friends with Muhammad's ex-wife, Mildred. Isa Nichols had helped Mildred regain custody of her children last year, after John Muhammad took them in a bitter divorce.
Family members have said that Isa Nichols called police last week after seeing Muhammad's photograph on television.
"We now consider John Allen Muhammad and Lee Malvo as suspects in the Keenya Cook homicide. I have directed that the Keenya Cook homicide receive our highest priority and I have assigned a team of detectives to the case," Brame said.
The second gun, a .44-caliber Magnum, was used to fire two rounds through a window at the Temple Beth El synagogue at 5875 S. 12th St. between May 1 and 4.
One bullet lodged in the ark, which holds the Torah, the sacred writings of Judaism. No one was in or near the synagogue when the shots were fired.
The ATF has been actively investigating the crime since it occurred, Brame said.
"We're as surprised as anybody would be," Rabbi Mark Glickman said last night. Glickman said he and his congregation had thought the shots were a random shooting because there were no threats associated with them.
"At the time we were just glad the Torah scrolls didn't get damaged," he said.
The revelation that the shot may have come from a weapon wielded by Muhammad, and may have been deliberately aimed at the ark in the holiest room in the synagogue, is disturbing not just to the congregation but to many Jews, said Brian Goldberg, executive director of the Anti-Defamation League Northwest chapter.
"Unfortunately, that synagogue has been the victim of a lot of hate crimes lately," he said.
Still, worshippers haven't been so scared that they quit coming, said Lenny Reisberg, president of the Temple Beth El board of trustees.
"We're a pretty resolute group of people," he said.
The Tacoma crimes are the only ones in Western Washington linked to the two D.C. sniper suspects, although state and local authorities are still reviewing unsolved murder cases statewide to see whether either the men or their method of operation matches anything on file.
The state attorney general's Homicide Investigation Tracking System, a unit of retired detectives with access to nearly 8,000 unsolved slayings, began looking into the case almost immediately, said Gary Larson, spokesman for Attorney General Christine Gregoire.
Larson said yesterday there was no new information about the review. Local authorities, however, said Muhammad has not been linked to any other unsolved homicides.
Federal agents continued their efforts to show how the .223 Bushmaster assault rifle used in the East Coast slayings came into Muhammad's possession. Though the rifle was found in the car where Muhammad and Malvo were sleeping, investigators have yet to find a record of its sale.
Federal agents believe Muhammad bought the weapon at Bull's Eye Shooter Supply, a large Tacoma gun shop. But the shop owner, Brian Borgelt, has been unable to locate records that would show who bought it, authorities said.
Borgelt said yesterday that he still has the box that the rifle was shipped in from the manufacturer in June, and ATF agents were back at the shop for a third straight day yesterday, trying to find a sale record.
Borgelt's store has been under investigation by the bureau for several years. Agents said that two years ago they audited Bull's Eye and could not find sales records for 150 guns. Gun dealers are required to keep records of all purchases and sales.
Borgelt confirmed yesterday that his store had been audited, but said such audits were not unusual.
"If we had prior violations that exceeded the industry standard, we would not be in business," he said.
Because of a large number of guns Borgelt could not account for in that audit, and because they were finding that a large number of guns used in crimes were being traced back to his store, ATF agents said they wanted to take action against him. But, the agents said, the ATF operates under tight restrictions and has been very slow to move against dealers suspected of violating the law.
Normally, several ATF agents said, the bureau's regulatory division will not take action until a gun dealer has been indicted or convicted on a criminal charge.
In fact, one former senior ATF official said, "I don't know of any dealer ever losing his license without being indicted by law enforcement."
Other federal agents are also trying to piece together the trail of Muhammad and Malvo, to determine whether they might have committed other crimes and to find out how they may have supported themselves.
Over the weekend, Washington, D.C., police Chief Charles Ramsey said police were reviewing a number of bank robberies, according to news reports -- including one in which the description of a robber resembled one of the men.
"We're looking at some robberies," Ramsey told The Washington Post. "They had to eat somehow."
Seattle FBI spokeswoman Robbie Burroughs yesterday said no links to bank robberies in the Northwest have been found.
In Bellingham, several people who knew Muhammad have come forward to say that they reported suspicious or bizarre behavior to police within the last year, well before the East Coast crime spree.
Although those who made the reports believe they weren't followed up appropriately, Bellingham police and federal authorities said there's no way they could have predicted such a bizarre crime spree.
Bellingham police followed up on all three reports made to them regarding Muhammad and alerted federal authorities to two of them, said Dac Jamison, Bellingham's chief of detectives. But there was no proof Muhammad had committed a crime or was about to commit one, or was carrying a weapon illegally, he said.
"If we realized they were snipers, would we have done anything differently? Obviously we would have," Jamison said.
According to Jamison:
Singh told authorities that months earlier, when Muhammad and Malvo were drifting through Bellingham, Muhammad had shown him a blueprint for a silencer for a gun and had railed about killing police officers and shooting gasoline tanker trucks to make them explode.
Citing a law enforcement source, The Associated Press said the FBI did not try to interview Muhammad, concluding the silencer issue was a matter for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and threats against police were a local matter.
In another instance, the Rev. Al Archer, director of Light House Missions in Bellingham, said he contacted the FBI about Muhammad in mid-October 2001. Bellingham police said they never saw the complaint.
Archer said he never heard back from the FBI. The country was on high alert for terrorist attacks and the FBI and other federal agencies were overwhelmed with tips.
Archer said he was suspicious of Muhammad because he was living in a homeless shelter but was receiving phone calls from travel agents and taking trips to Jamaica, New Orleans and possibly Antigua.
"That doesn't happen a lot in a mission," he said.
P-I reporters Chris McGann, Sam Skolnik and Hector Castro contributed to this report. P-I reporter Mike Barber can be reached at 206-448-8018 or mikebarber@seattlepi.com
© 1998-2002 Seattle Post-Intelligencer
With all three weekends indicating a southern direction safe house, where were they??
I remember that; it was discussed on FR. I didn't realize that's where his ex-wife was living. There were media reports right after these two were arrested that authorities wanted to find her, then all of a sudden, a total black-out on her. Have you heard more? Maybe the plan was to kill her, but it still seems that he was trying to get caught.
One theory was that one of the victims was his/their real target and the rest of the killings and shootings were cover. It may be that he had not gotten to her yet.
Had she been killed by Mohammed and Malvo, he would've regained custody of the children--remember that he had kidnapped them and took them to Antigua, but after he came back to the states, she, with the help of law enforcement, was able to get the children back. He had even gone so far as to hire a lawyer (one J. Mills, who portrays Mohammed as the victim) to get custody of the kids.
Perhaps, Lee Malvo was Muhammad's young gay bitch???
Question: How common is it for a friend to lend out his weapons????
Thanks for the info about his ex-wife. There were several people killed that I've wondered about--Buchanan, the son of the retired policeman; Bridges, with ties to Farrakhan; Johnson, from Jamaica; and Franklin, an FBI analyst.
Interesting. If we can get the riff-raff cleaned out of our government (I know it's a never-ending process), then how much safer we and our descendents will be!
Oops, room for an O.J. jury.
You really need to brush up on the history of NOI and American muslims -- particularly as it pertains to Jews. I suggest you read Daniel Pipes' "Militant Islam Reaches America," which details the history of the NOI from its earliest roots, as well as the violence directed at Jews by both NOI and Muslim groups. A sample:
An effective division of labor exists in American Islam. While the Nation of Islam is the leading font of anti-Jewish ideology in the United States, mainstream Muslims have a near monopoly on violence against Jews....Far right fanatics can only claim the June 1984 murder of Alan Berg, a Jewish talk-show host in Denver; in contrast, Muslim assaults on American Jews have included many lesser incidents (such as a series of attacks on Chicago-area synagogues) and a long list of major ones."
Farrakhan has openly and publicly called Judaism a "gutter religion" and Adolf Hitler a "very great man" --- word for word, he's beat out the Aryan Nation for well-funded and in many, instances, publicly-supported, hatred of Jews. I would suggest that given the facts -- and not some pre-conceived Clinton/Reno FBI mantra -- it is entirely appropriate to look for suspects in anti-Semitic crimes among the members of the NOI and American Muslim groups.
All the responses to this article didn't seem to pick up on this part of the story.
My Link to the Seattle Times gives more detail on this.
The Washington State Crime Lab says one of those guns, a .45-caliber pistol, was used to kill 21-year-old Keenya Nicole Cook on Feb. 16 when she answered the door of her aunt's Tacoma home. Court records place Muhammad in Tacoma last Feb. 12, when he was ticketed for shoplifting.
On Feb. 16, Isa Nichols returned home after running an errand to find her niece's body just inside her open front door. Cook had been shot in the face. Her 6-month-old daughter was found, unharmed, on a diaper changing table.
Cook's mother, Pamala Nichols, 45, said that as soon as she heard that John Muhammad was linked to shooting so many people on the East Coast, she thought he had something to do with her daughter's murder. Police have said they suspected her killer was someone familiar to her.
I have the feeling that if some good Freeping is done to backtrack the travels of this hate filled Nation of Islam Stone killer, John Muhammad. We will find a trail of bodie for at least a decade. Most will be blacks who presented a problem to the Nation of Islam, so the Nation of Islam had their butcher, John Muhammad make a house call to handle the Black causing a problem.
I still want to know where he lived while serving in the Oregon National Guard. The left wing Politically Correct Oregonian fishwrap is avoiding this story as only a Politically Correct fishwrap can.
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