John Allen Muhammad, the D.C. Sniper, will die by lethal injection tomorrow.
John Allen Muhammad and his teenaged accomplice, Lee Boyd Malvo, terrorized the Washington, D.C. area for three weeks in October 2002. In the end, 10 people were dead and three were wounded. The victims, selected at random, were shot while doing mundane chores like pumping gas and loading Halloween decorations into a car.
I’m sure you remember the terror of the killings. But you may not realize that the killing spree was an escalation of a child custody battle.
Psychological abuse
Mildred Muhammad, the ex-wife of John Allen Muhammad, spoke at the Battered Mothers Custody Conference in Albany last January. Her story was compelling—and heartbreaking.
Mildred was married to Muhammad for 12 years, and they had three children together. Muhammad served in the Gulf War and when he returned, he became abusive.
“His behavior turned to possessiveness,” Mildred said. “I couldn’t do anything right. He was trained in psychological warfare—he was a combat engineer—and he used me as his guinea pig.”
Muhammad didn’t hit her, but inflicted psychological abuse. “Every emotion I displayed, he used against me,” Mildred said. Finally, in 1999, she asked for a divorce.
Kidnapped children
Before, during and after their divorce, Muhammad threatened to kill Mildred. He drained their bank account and kidnapped the children, taking them to Antigua for 18 months. Mildred was forced to hide in a women’s shelter for eight months in the Tacoma, Washington area.
She could not afford legal representation. So while in the women’s shelter, Mildred taught herself the law so she could represent herself. Eventually the children were located. Mildred went to court, won her case and was awarded full custody. Then she fled across the country to Maryland.
Muhammad found her. And, Mildred says, that’s why he went on the killing spree. Muhammad planned to kill her, and the rest of the murders were an elaborate ruse to cover up her murder. She would just be another of the random victims, and he could show up as the grieving ex-husband, and claim the children.
Want to win
When John Allen Muhammad was brought to trial, the prosecutor put forth Mildred’s contention that the killing spree was intended cover up the eventual death of his ex-wife. The court, however, ruled that there was insufficient evidence to support the argument.
But after all the stories I’ve heard from Lovefraud readers, I think it’s totally plausible. Sociopaths want to win. Nothing else matters to them. I believe John Allen Muhammad was willing to kill 10 innocent people, at random, just to get his way.
If ever there was a case that demonstrated the lengths a sociopath will go to in order to win, this is it.
No conscience
According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Muhammad’s lawyers filed an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court last week, claiming that the killer is mentally ill and delusional.
But Paul Ebert, the Virginia prosecutor who won Muhammad’s death sentence, said, “This guy had absolutely no conscience. He killed people just like they were flies.”
Mildred also does not believe that her ex-husband is mentally ill.
Support for other victims
Mildred has written a book about her ordeal called Scared Silent. She has also founded an organization in Maryland to support survivors of domestic violence called After the Trauma.
“I started After the Trauma because of my own personal domestic violence experience and thought of all the other women in similar situations who need day-to-day assistance, as I did,” Mildred writes on her website. “After the Trauma is women who are transitioning from a domestic violence situation and are ready to take the next step into ”˜freedom.’”
Like many of us here at Lovefraud, Mildred Muhammad has been through an incredible ordeal. And like many of us, she emerged on the other side stronger, and willing to help others along the path to healing.
jillsmith, please don’t go away!
Kim,
P.S. I was responding to the earlier post when you were telling me how I appear to everyone. To generalize like that is a big dig. You don’t know how I appear in general, to everyone. That was meant to legitimize your claim. You make it sound like everyone has talked about me. They haven’t. I no longer buy this kind of stuff.
Then, after my goodbye above, I read your next comment, going overboard in the other direction, complimenting me. It makes no sense. I think it must have been sarcastic and no I don’t think this because I have “serious issues with my self-estem”. I say it because it’s confusing as hell. I just wanted to do this last post to explain that my above post to you was not in response to your most recent comment. I was still writing my comment, so I didn’t see it until later. I really liked you. You were actually my favorite person on this board and I learned a lot from you, so I am so confused. But, I’m going to leave it a mystery and leave. Bye this time.
O h my God, Jill. I’m so sorry! I REALLY didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. We had had a similar conversation with another poster earlier, and maybe I was talking to her. I don’t know. I wasn’t even refering to the Oxy/Skylar incident. It had more to do with the Tilly thing. Remember? It had to do with you thinking people were refering to you, when they weren’t. I don’t know. I hurt your feelings. I’m sorry.
I do think you’re incredible, and Yes, that was pretty assertive. You go girl.
This is the post of yours I was referring to, Kim:
kim frederick says:
“No, Jill Smith. No one thinks it’s insincere. It’s just that if it’s happening all the time, if you are constantly apologizing, it makes people uncomfortable. It says something about you. It says that you doubt yourself. That you need approval. That what other people think of you is of prime importance. I think it makes good people uncomfortable because it gives them too much power. I’m not trying to be mean, just honest.
I’m certainly not saying you are a bad person”You’re not. But I think you have some real self esteem problems.
Also, this excessive kindness, ie vulnerability, is the kind of thing a P would hone in on and then eat up. Jill, I like you very much, so I hope I’m not hurting your feelings. I just think you need to toughen up—:)”
SOOOO……………since I’m make people so uncomfortable and it was stated like a fact and everyone else on the thread agrees, goodbye.
Jill, who said you made good people uncomfortable?
You make me happy. I think the quote was misread.
Please reconsider. I wish I could be more supportive to you.
all I can say is this: Look, we have Ps all over the world.Then there are the garden-variety P’s (read Cleckly’s book, the mask of sanity) we need to learn to understand them because they aren’t gong away. I have the thinnist skin in the world, both figuratively and literally, and we all need to thicken it up. Love and kindness is critical to that, but so is reality and some real life experience with people who aren’t so nice (but in a safe environment)
So you know everyone here can relate to your situation, and we all want to be there for you and your son. Try to give some flexibilty to people when they don’t say the right thing. Talk about it. Ask them for more leeway with your situation. If you try that and it doesn’t work, then I don’t blame you for being mad, but you have to try first.
I’m so tired
OH and I’ll keep toughening up. I’m plenty tough. I’m tough and smart enough to recognize when something is unhealthy and DO something about it. I don’t just need approval. I speak my mind all the time. If anything, I’m TOO opinionated, but that’s fine because it’s ME. I don’t think someone else has a right to psychoanalyze me and tell me what I feel. You know NOTHING of what I feel and cannot assign emotions to me. To tell me that I need approval like a fact and that I doubt myself. MEAN, MEAN, MEAN!
Jill,
Everyone else does not agree…I don’t
Skylar and EB did agree. Read. Bye.
No Jill, No sarcasm. I meant all the good things I said.
I never said everybody. I was speaking entirely from my own point of view. I think I was telling you what I most to need to hear myself. I feel like I have alot of these same issues. I am SO SORRY.
When I said “good people”, well I guess I like to think of myself as good people, but I only meant me. And yeah. It makes ME uncomfortable, and I was trying to figure out why…
Okay. I’m done explaining, but I hope you understand that I’m sorry.