Free Republic

<p>VIRGINIA BEACH, Virginia (CNN) -- A 14-year-old Maryland boy who was shot and nearly killed by a sniper last fall told a packed courtroom Wednesday that the terrifying experience "brought me closer to God."</p> <p>Iran Brown, who was 13 when he was gunned down in front of the Benjamin Tasker Middle School in Bowie, testified in the murder trial of John Allen Muhammad, who police and prosecutors say was one of two men responsible for sniper attacks in the Washington, D.C., area last October.</p>

FAIRFAX, Va. (AP) - The teenager accused in a string of sniper killings last year said he wounded a 13-year-old boy in order to make the police chief hunting him "emotional," a prison guard testified. Joseph Stracke, a captain at the Supermax prison in Baltimore, testified at a pretrial hearing Thursday that Lee Boyd Malvo spoke proudly of the shootings allegedly committed by him and fellow suspect John Allen Muhammad. The conversation occurred Oct. 26, two days after Malvo's arrest. Stracke said he asked Malvo why he shot Iran Brown, 13, outside a Bowie, Md., middle school. "To make Chief...