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.
Dear Gem,
Darlling I didn’t see your post until this morning. I was off and on the blog yesterday and retired early last night.
Hun, it seems that all this rage, sadness, anger, disappointment, etc. is all like an onion, in thin layers. We clean off one layer and it smarts our eyes and for a while it doesn’t stink, but then we clean off another layer and we get a fresh layer that smarts our eyes again.
We clean it out layer by layer and it hurts each time. In your life (and mine) because there has been so many years of this and the onion has grown quite large, we have big onions to peel. I know I would get in a ‘steady state” of peace and then something would peel lback another layer and off I would go again.
sometimes I still see things that “trigger me” but as each layer gets peeled and cleaned and the stink goes away, there are longer and longer periiods of time between when I am at peace.
You tried to be “good” to your daughter in ways that you thought she would appreciate, but you have to go back to the basics and REMEMBER THAT BAMBOO POLE.
I think (just my opinion) that even if she got desperate and “apologized” it would be a superfiscial WORD without meaning. It is obvious she HATES YOU, just as Witty’s son does her and as my P-son does me. There is nothinig we can do to change that. It IS WHAT IT IS.
As I see it, we can go on grieving about this and keeping up a FALSE HOPE, or we can accept that our relationships with these children of the lie is NON EXISTENT. It is not! It is a fantasy on our part and we must ACCEPT it.
ACCEPTENCE is the end of grief, it is the final lstage. Just as it took me a long time to ACCEPT the fact my husband was dead, wasn’t coming back, it wasn’t his fault, it wasn’t my fault, it just WAS. It just IS. Of course I went bck and forth from sadness to BARGAINING (and I think bargaining is the stage we stay in the longest when the CORPSE STILL WALKS AROUND. In the case of my husband he wasn’t almost dead, or partly dead, he was DEAD and I couldn’t make him alive, I had to accept it eventually.
With our children they are still breathing so we keep up this TOXIC HOPE that somehow they will get better, or we blame ourselves, or SOMETHING to keep this drama going within ourselves rather than FACE THE FACT that they are DEAD TO US.
I know this sounds harsh Gem, and I don’t mean it that way, but as long as you ALLOW yourself to go back over the doubts, the BARGAINING, and get stuck in that phase, it will HURT AGAIN.
When you find yourself feeling “weak” REMEMBER THE BAMBOO POLE, remember the iron, remember it all….and rememeber that IT IS WHAT IT IS. (((((HUGS))))) I will try to call Lily’s phone again today. No answer lately. Keep praying fo rher.
Oxy, Mama Bear Gem, Wit, and all
I was thinking because it hurts me to see you guys saying that your children hate you…the pain that thought must make you feel…….
Since the opposite of love is not hate but indifference and love is something that a p cannot feel maybe that’s where some of the pain comes from in us.
It’s not hate that we see in them but rather an indifference…I mean they are truly disgusted with us because we are no longer usable or sometimes they are disgusted with us because we are usable and subject to things they would never be subject to.
See, I either love you with all my heart or I hate you with all my heart …I kinda love you or I kinda hate you…but they don’t have that,,,
they smile at you if you are usable or they look evil at you if you are not or your somehow in the way of one of their plans.
I was always left unable to clarify the look he would give me,,,I’d say “like he hated me or something” the “or something” was because somehow it was not hate but I couldn’t figure it out…..
I think it was anger or indifference to my feelings, I was to be a means to something he wanted other wise there was no smile, just an anger for my messing with his plans…even if I didn’t know I was.
I’m just not sure they are able to hate…They get angry and get even, they hurt us or do something to us that they know will upset us. I do think they get jealous or something. You will pay and be used if you have or can do something that they want or want to do.
Just a thought
Oh, yes, darling, mine HATE ME—tried to have me killed when I cut off his monoey supply (so he could inherit) and on and on, my Psperm donor hated me, it was NOT indifference.
Yes, you are right, they can’t love, and indifference is (in normal people) the opposite of love (rather than hate being) but OH, CAN THEYEVER HATE.
Remember the old saying about “if you love something set it free if it comes back…?” Well their ending is “if it doesn’t come back, HUNT IT DOWN AND KILL IT!”
Is all about CONTROL and while they cannot love, the can OWN you, or feel that they do, and just like you would want your slave to obey you, they want us to obey them, to be under their control Even if they do not “want” us and discard us, they sxtill want to control.
And, yes it did hurt, but like any other relationship when you work at it, it can be ACCEPTED. It hurt whem my husband was killed (accidentally) but you know, I have accepted it and I still have great memories of our eyars together. I have good memories of my P-son when he was a little guy and we used to have so much fun and he was so bright and funny.
Now tht “little boy” is dead and gone, he is passed, and the MAN who got his “organs” is a STRANGER who hates me because I have “got his number” and he no longer can lie to me and get me to do what he wants. He cannot stand anyone to NOT give in to him, to not be manipulated. My P sperm donor was the same way CONTROL, BRUTE FORCE OR MURDER IF NECESSARY, but don’t lose control.
In the end, I WON because I never gave in. I never quit fighting. He never beat me down. He never coweed me. He knocked me unconscious but I never cowed down or let him own my soul. Sure he scared me, he overpowered me physically…and for a while I felt guilty for what he did TO me, but no longer. I have reached indifference with HIM—after over 40 years of NC and a couple of years ago his death, but yes, my dear, they CAN hate, and to me it is the worst kind of hate there is because they are INDIFFERENT TO HUMAN SUFFERING (at best) and at worst THEY ENJOY IT.
heavenbound,
it’s hate. believe me.
They hate their mothers so much. And they hate all women because they project their mother-hatred to all women.
When they are yelling or beating you, that’s not hate, they’re just doing that for fun. That’s pure joy. They are ACTING like they are angry.
The hate is a cold hatred. They don’t express it except by plotting and conniving and being diabolical. When they tell you that they love you, THAT’S HATE. They are hating you for being weak and believing them, but most of all they hate you for no rational reason.
Their emotions are so mixed up that nothing you see is real. I believe it’s because they have so much fear somewhere that they won’t allow themselves to feel their feelings so they substitute other feelings and then I think that various layers of feelings get substituted until nothing makes any sense at all.
My xP once told me how he hates democrats, but he pretends to be one around his friends so he can trick them into seeing the flaws in their logic (he’s delusional). He accuses me of being a liberal democrat (I’ve never professed any political affiliation or platform, I only hate hypocrisy) and he tells me he must berate me until I give up my left leaning ways and see things his way. (LOL)
Then he says he hates the democrats for having flawed thinking but when he finds a “weak” one, he is able to convince them to change sides by pretending to be a “confused democrat”. He says when he gets one to change sides, he hates them even more for being weak.
Can you see the logic here? It applies to love and war. They are all F’d up.
BTW, I told him that I wouldn’t be agreeing with him because I don’t want him to think I’m weak.
ps; That Look you are talking about is like staring into the eyes of SATAN HIMSELF, many of them have THAT LOOK. The best I can describe it is the photo of Charlie Manson looking right at the camera and leaning a bit forward as they were taking him in handcuffs after his arrest. SATAN himself. I have seen THAT LOOK on all of my Ps, and a few times on the faces of others, but NOT many and I actually wonder if that look is actually a P-trait I know they don’t look that way every minute but when they are angry, enraged or hate.
I was spell checking hypocrisy and ran across this definition on wikipedia.
OMG, I never thought about the deeper meaning of the word hypocrisy. No wonder Jesus went on and on about hypocrites. He was talking about P’S!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypocrisy
here’s part of it:
Hypocrisy is the act of pretending to have beliefs, opinions, virtues, feelings, qualities, or standards that one does not actually have. Hypocrisy is thus a kind of lie. Hypocrisy may come from a desire to hide from others actual motives or feelings.
Hypocrisy is not simply an inconsistency between what is advocated and what is done. Samuel Johnson made this point when he wrote about the misuse of the charge of “hypocrisy” in Rambler No. 14:
Nothing is more unjust, however common, than to charge with hypocrisy him that expresses zeal for those virtues which he neglects to practice; since he may be sincerely convinced of the advantages of conquering his passions, without having yet obtained the victory, as a man may be confident of the advantages of a voyage, or a journey, without having courage or industry to undertake it, and may honestly recommend to others, those attempts which he neglects himself.[1]
This quote at the end of the wiki article is so true.
Although hypocrisy has been called “the tribute that vice pays to virtue,”[4] and a bit of it certainly greases the wheels of social exchange, it may also corrode the well-being of those people who are continually forced to make use of it.[5] As Boris Pasternak has Yurii say in Doctor Zhivago, “Your health is bound to be affected if, day after day, you say the opposite of what you feel, if you grovel before what you dislike… Our nervous system isn’t just fiction, it’s part of our physical body, and it can’t be forever violated with impunity.”
This is what I’m observing in the xP. The life of lies he has led has begun to make him paranoid. It so sad. Oh well.
I know the p i was with has no concern for his mother and her well being but one time I referred to all women as, well, basically trash and included his mother in the reference as well as myself, to show that some men disrespected women, including him and his father…he screamed to never call his mother that and put his fist through a solid wood door. (I know, I could not believe he could do that to a solid door either) Everyone that saw the door was so shocked. I knew he was strong but jeez….why did he get that angry over someone he couldn’t care less about?
Der Heavenbound,
Why did he get that angry about someone he couldn’t care less about? Because he must be IN CONTROL, and his mother was his PROPERTY…so he could dis her but you couldn’t.
Skylar, yes, jesus did go “on and on’ about the hypocrits and called them “like whited tombs, beautiful on the outside and inside filled with rotten mens bones.” (paraphrased)
The hypocrits ARE the Ps, they are the judges and polliticians who pretend to be out to do right and help th epeople while they are stealing from the gov’t and the people. they are the BTK killer who went to church every week, they are the counselor or minister who beats his wife, they are the minister/doctor/lawyer/teacher that seduces a patient/student/client and so on.
Of course we all tell “little white lies” about “does this pair of pants make my butt look big?” OF COURSE NOT DEAR! LOL But a genuine hypocrit is a terrible thing—they crucified Christ so what do you think they will do to you!?
ps, speaking of the crucifiction of christ, there are also those like Pilot who will just “sit and watch evil” and “wash their hands of the guilt” since it is the P (hypocrits) doing the evil.
He who watches evil and does nothing I think is pretty much as bad as the one doing the evil;. Remember the Kitty Genovese case? Not sure how to spell her name, like 20+ people watched her get killed and no one called the cops. It took half an hour for her attacker to kill her and people just shut their windows to block out her screams for help.
Studies were done about this case, and it was determined that when there are MANY PEOPLE witnessing a horror, everyone will depend on SOMEONE ELSE to take action, and in the end, ,NO one does. If there are only 1-2 people present you are much more likely to get help and assistance.
Odd kind of thing, but it makes a kind of reverse sense I think as an explination. But she’s still dead.