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Nearly 24 years after the D.C. sniper attacks terrorized the region, a new museum exhibit is publicly displaying key evidence from the shootings and the massive manhunt that followed.
“Without Warning: Ending the Terror of the D.C. Snipers” opened Thursday at the National Law Enforcement Museum in Washington, D.C. The exhibit includes the Bushmaster rifle used in the attacks, a tarot card and notes left at shooting scenes.
Its centerpiece is the blue 1990 Chevrolet Caprice where John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo were sleeping when authorities arrested them.
The shootings began in October 2002 and spread fear across Washington, Maryland and Virginia. Thomas Canavan, executive director of the museum and chief operating officer of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, said ordinary activities—including pumping gas, walking to school and running errands—suddenly carried a sense of risk.
A crucial tip at an Interstate 70 rest stop
Once investigators identified the Caprice and its New Jersey license plate, law enforcement officials debated whether to release the information publicly.
Thomas Manger, who led the Fairfax County Police Department in 2002 and later served as U.S. Capitol Police chief, said officials worried the suspects would switch vehicles or plates if they learned police were closing in.
Within hours of the license plate being leaked by law enforcement, however, a truck driver called 911 after spotting the Caprice at a rest area off Interstate 70 near Myersville, Maryland. State and federal authorities arrested Muhammad and Malvo without incident.
The arrests came after a rapid break in the investigation. Manger said authorities began narrowing their focus 20 days after the shootings started, and the suspects were in custody three days later.
The secret firing position inside the Caprice
Investigators initially searched the vehicle without finding a gun. Only after dismantling the back seat did they discover the firearm and understand how the shootings had been carried out without witnesses seeing the shooter or identifying where the shots originated.
A hole large enough for the barrel of the Bushmaster XM-15 E2S had been cut into the rear of the Caprice above and behind its license plate. According to Manger, the shooter could lie prone with part of his body in the trunk and the rest in the back seat.
The car and rifle are now displayed alongside an account of the shootings, the investigation and the operation that led to the arrests.
Muhammad was executed in 2009 for the murder of Dean Harold Meyers in Prince William County, Virginia, following a trial moved to Virginia Beach. He was also convicted in Montgomery County, Maryland, in 2006 of six murders and received six life sentences without parole.
Malvo was convicted in Chesapeake Circuit Court in 2003 of murdering Linda Franklin in Fairfax County and was sentenced to life without parole.
In October 2004, he entered an Alford plea in Spotsylvania County for the murder of Kenneth Bridges and the attempted murder of Caroline Seawell. He received another life sentence without parole for the Spotsylvania County murder. Malvo also received six life sentences without the possibility of parole in Montgomery County.