VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. -- A jury convicted John Allen Muhammad ofcapital murder Monday, concluding he used a rifle, a beat-up carand a teenager who idolized him to kill randomly and terrorize theWashington area during last year's sniper spree.
The jury will now decide whether the Army veteran should besentenced to death or life in prison. The penalty phase was tobegin in the afternoon.
Muhammad, 42, stood impassively as the verdict was read, lookingforward. Two jurors held hands, and two others were crying.
The jury deliberated for 6 1/2 hours before convicting Muhammadof two counts of capital murder. One accused him of taking part inmultiple murders, the other -- the result of a post-Sept. 11terrorism law -- alleged the killings were designed to terrorizethe population. Muhammad is the first person tried under theVirginia law.
Muhammad was found guilty of killing Dean Harold Meyers, aVietnam veteran who was cut down by a single bullet that hit him inthe head on Oct. 9, 2002, as he filled his tank at a Manassas gasstation. He was also found guilty of conspiracy to commit murderand use of a firearm in a felony.
The victim's brother Robert said he believes Muhammad deservesthe death penalty: ''I must say that I can't think of too many moreheinous crimes than this one.''
Fellow suspect Lee Boyd Malvo, 18, is on trial separately innearby Chesapeake for the killing of Linda Franklin at a Home Depotin Falls Church. He also could get the death penalty. Malvo'sattorneys are pursuing an insanity defense, arguing that the youngman had been ''indoctrinated'' by Muhammad.
In all, the two men were accused of shooting 19 people --killing 13 and wounding six -- in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana,Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C., in what prosecutors saidwas an attempt to extort $10 million from the government.
The verdict came after three weeks of testimony in which aseries of victims and other witnesses graphically -- and oftentearfully -- recalled the horror that gripped the Washington areaduring the sniper attacks.
Ten people were killed in the region and three were wounded,many of them shot as they went about their daily tasks: shopping ata crafts store, buying groceries, mowing the lawn, going toschool.
At the height of the killings, the area was so terrified thatsports teams were forced to practice indoors, people kept theirheads down as they pumped gas, and teachers drew the blinds ontheir classroom windows.
At one point during the spree, a handwritten letter was foundtacked to a tree near the Virginia restaurant where a man was shot,and it included the chilling postscript: ''Your children are notsafe anywhere at any time.'' A tarot card left near a shootingoutside a school declared: ''Call me God.''
''Hopefully, the jury's decision will help bring some comfort tothe families whose lives were senselessly taken and those who wereinjured,'' White House spokesman Scott McClellan said inWashington.
Prosecutors presented no direct evidence that Muhammad fired the.223-caliber Bushmaster rifle used in the killings, but said itdidn't matter. They described Muhammad as the ''captain of akilling team'' and portrayed him as Malvo's father figure, a sternand controlling man who trained the teenager to do his bidding.
''That is a young man he molded and made an instrument of deathand destruction,'' Prince William County Commonwealth's AttorneyPaul Ebert said in closing arguments.
Ebert said that Muhammad came off as a polite man, but that hiscalm demeanor masked a calculating and sinister side: ''He's thekind of man who could pat you on the back and cut yourthroat.''
The defense said the evidence did not prove Muhammad directedthe shootings or fired the gun in the Meyers slaying. AttorneyPeter Greenspun said in his closing statement that prosecutors had''pounded'' jurors with gory photos and heartbreaking witnesstestimony to persuade them to make an emotional decision.
The prosecution provided several key pieces of evidence linkingMuhammad to the shootings, including ballistics tests that linkedthe rifle found in his car to nearly all the shootings, andtestimony that his DNA was on the weapon. Prosecutors alsopresented a stolen laptop discovered in the beat-up blue 1990Chevrolet Caprice that contained maps of six shooting scenes, eachmarked with skull-and-crossbones icons.
Prosecutors said the car had been adapted so someone concealedinside the vehicle could fire a rifle through a hole in thetrunk.
The case took a strange twist on the first day of the trial whenMuhammad fired his court-appointed attorneys and began representinghimself. He delivered a rambling opening statement andcross-examined witnesses for one day before handing the defenseback to his lawyers.
For the next three weeks, witness after witness recounted theeffects of the attacks in chilling detail. William Franklinrecalled being splattered with his wife's blood outside a HomeDepot. A retiree described seeing a woman slumped over on a bench,blood pouring from her head. The only child shot during the spreetestified: ''I put my book bag down and I got shot.''
Virginia Attorney General Jerry W. Kilgore said the verdictsvalidate Virginia's law that subjects terrorists to the deathpenalty.
''The anti-terrorism law worked. It was written in response toand in the aftermath of 9-11, but it was written broadly enough toinclude individuals who terrorize a community,'' said Kilgore, aRepublican who presented the legislation, passed in 2002. ''Thesnipers terrorized an entire state. People were afraid to go to themall, afraid to take their kids to school, afraid to pumpgas.''
Meanwhile, at Malvo's trial Monday, an FBI agent testified thatthe suspect refused to identify himself and was defiantly silentwhen he and Muhammad were arrested in October 2002 at a highwayrest stop.
FBI agent Charles Pierce, leader of the team that arrested thepair, described how agents took Malvo and Muhammad by surprise atthe rest stop in Maryland, smashing two of the windows in theircar. Malvo was asleep in the front seat and Muhammad was in theback, Pierce said.
Pierce said he asked Malvo four times to give his name, andMalvo refused.
''I would characterize it as defiant silence,'' Pierce said.
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