JARRATT, Va. — John Allen Muhammad, the mastermind of the 2002 deadly sniper rampage that terrorized the nation's capital, was executed Tuesday evening.
Many of his victims' relatives watched as Muhammad was administered a lethal injection of drugs. The execution came more than seven years after the 48-year-old Gulf War veteran and his young accomplice, Lee Boyd Malvo, 24, killed 10 people and wounded six others. Malvo is serving a life prison sentence.
A prison spokesman says John Allen Muhammad died by injection at 9:11 p.m. Tuesday at Greensville Correctional Center.
Prison spokesman Larry Traylor says Muhammad had no final words. He says he didn't hear him utter a word the entire time.
MORE: Pending execution reopens wounds victims
A final appeal for a reprieve was denied hours before the execution, when Gov. Tim Kaine rejected Muhammad's request for clemency. Kaine's decision came a day after the U.S. Supreme Court also refused to halt the execution.
"Muhammad's trial, verdict, and sentence have been reviewed by state and federal courts," Kaine said in a written statement. "I find no compelling reason to set aside the sentence that was recommended by the jury and then imposed and affirmed by the courts. Accordingly, I decline to intervene."
The governor's ruling cleared the way for the final act in a tragedy that upended dozens of lives beyond the 10 who died.
Marion Lewis, 57, whose 25-year-old daughter, Lori Lewis Rivera, was killed by the snipers while she was vaccuming her car at a Maryland gas station, sought financial aid from a television news program just to make the trip from his home in Idaho, to the Virginia death house.
Rivera's murder, Lewis says, devastated the family. And he has been marking the days to Muhammad's execution.
"I was afraid he (Muhammad) was going to outlive me on death row," Lewis says.
Paul Ebert, 72, the Virginia prosecutor who won the death penalty conviction against Muhammad in November 2003, describes the case and the defendant as the most unusual of his 42-year career.
"I never had a case like this," Ebert recalls. "This guy had no conscience. There was no remorse. It's hard to get in the mind of someone like this."
Muhammad spent his final hours on Tuesday afternoon meeting with his attorney, Jon Sheldon, and unidentified members of his family. Muhammad has three children, but prison spokesman Larry Traylor declined to identify the family members who visited with Muhammad.
Traylor says Muhammad requested a final meal, but the contents of it were not disclosed.
Sheldon argued that Muhammad should not be executed because he suffered from severe mental illness. Sheldon has contended that evidence of that illness was not presented at trial.
"There can be no justification for executing someone with severe mental illness, especially when no judge or jury has had an opportunity to consider that evidence" Sheldon says.
Contributing: Kevin Johnson, USA TODAY; The Associated Press
Wed Nov 11, 2009 11:43 am
