Original subtitles

-They needed a cheap car.

For some reason they were interested in...

In the Caprice, an old-style car.

So I hand them the keys, they go and they look at the car.

They're in and out of the car.

He was laying in the back looking around.

You know the trunk's open, the doors are open.

I don't, it was kind of strange

the way they were feeling the car out.

I kind of got the feeling that he didn't want me

to know any of his business.

So we did all the paperwork,

gave him the keys,

hopped in the car, took off.

- Hello, this is a call from... - Lee Malvo.

-...an inmate at the Virginia Department of Corrections,

Red Onion State Prison.

-41-year-old man, John Muhammad, and a Jamaican-born teenager

-Sniper team that terrorized the Washington metropolitan area.

-19-11 I have one down, there's blood all over.

-I'm at the Mobil gas station.

- the most intense manhunts in American history.

-The serial killer hunting down random citizens.

-We have fear levels here

that I think are higher than they were after September 11th.

-Please let me go! Let me go past!

-President Bush is talking about fighting Iraq,

and we have a warzone right here in his own country.

-Ohh, oh man, oh man.

-Muhammad decided to return to the United States.

So Lee travelled with Muhammad and Muhammad's children.

-Muhammad and his wife had separated.

She had primary custody, but he had stolen the kids,

and taken them to Antigua for about 18 months.

And so, when Lee travelled up with Muhammad

and Muhammad's children,

the saga began in the United States.

-Not know where your children are...

There are just no words that I can say to you

to describe that type of pain.

There were times when I felt that John was going to wait

until they went to sleep and shoot them in the head.

There were times when I felt that,

"How am I going to get them back?

I don't know where they are. Nobody's helping me."

-My sergeant came up and he said

that this man applied for welfare benefits.

-John went to file for food stamps and cash.

-There was something not right with this application.

They determined to take the children

into protective custody.

I call Mildred.

-He said, "We got your children,"

I was like, "What you talking about?"

-I said I have your children, and then on the other end...

-I screamed.

I was crying, I was yelling

-"They found my babies, they found my babies."

I said, "They found my children, they found my children."

-And you can almost hear that she's jumping up and down

-"We need for you to come back for an emergency custody

hearing, Can you come back?"

Yes, I can.

-Mildred walked in, she had the biggest smile.

And she just asked me...

"Will you go with me to the courtroom?"

I said, "Sure." I didn't think anything twice.

-The judge says...

-They gave him a document

he needed to sign to release the children.

He signed the document and flipped it back to the court.

Judge said, "Case dismissed."

-He hit the gavel.

Mildred and I, we were just tearful.

The attorney was happy. We're walking outside...

-I turn, and it's John.

He's walking towards me, I take off down the hallway.

Shoes go everywhere.

-And I looked up, and John passes right by me,

walking swiftly, right by me.

I'm up against the wall, just...

-John put his hand on the courtroom door,

looked at me and said, "Gotcha."

My attorney said, "Oh, hell no,

we gotta leave out of here tonight."

-The children are gone

because Mildred has permission to take them out of the state.

All of that John found out in one day

in ten minutes.

That he was divorced,

that his children were no longer under his care, legally.

Yeah. It was a lot.

-And, I said "John, you're not going to do

anything to Mildred are you?"

And he said "No"... he chuckled,

"No, Holmes, I'm not going to do anything to Mildred."

-Didn't see John again.

Didn't hear from him, nothing.

You know, we were cautious a few days,

but we never... We never saw him again.

We were going about our seemingly normal lives.

My niece had a beautiful baby girl and moved in with us.

Beautiful woman.

She wanted to learn restaurant operation.

She wanted to open up a restaurant.

And the baby, was just the... Just the center of our joy.

-I knew Keenya was gone.

But I'm praying, I'm asking Keenya to hold on,

hang in there.

She was gone. She was gone.

Keenya had been shot.

Didn't know who, didn't know why.

Um, all I knew was that she lied in that doorway

from answering the door.

When that, um, man put that sheet over her body...

my life was never the same.

-Good evening.

A long year has passed since enemies attacked our country.

We have seen the images so many times,

they are seared on our souls.

The attack on our nation was also an attack on the ideals

that make us a nation.

Our generation has now heard history's call,

and we will answer it.

Now, and in the future,

Americans will live as free people, not in fear.

We will not allow any terrorists to threaten our country.

May God Bless America.

And the light shines in the darkness,

and the darkness will not overcome it.

-It was a beautiful fall afternoon.

And as I was sitting here waiting for traffic to clear

to pull out on the road, I heard this just enormously loud,

echoing sound.

Realizing something's going on over there,

I drove back up the block to the Shoppers Food Warehouse

parking lot.

-16-13.

The victim was on the ground on the far side

by those other parking spaces.

I could see he was bleeding.

He wasn't breathing, he did not have a pulse.

He was already gone.

-I remember the feel of it at the time.

A year after 9/11,

things were different than they had been before.

Those things affect us.

-And good morning, welcome to "Today," I'm Matt Lauer.

- And I'm Katie Couric. - Thursday October 3, 2002.

-Now for the morning's top stories, let's go over

to Ann at the news desk. Ann, good morning.

-Good morning, Katie and Matt. Good morning, everybody.

A number of developments in the showdown over Iraq.

Today the Chief UN weapons inspector

briefed the security council to send weapons inspectors

back to Iraq.

-If the president determines that he has to act unilaterally

to protect American people, he can.

-Saddam must disarm.

Period

-It is now 7:14.

- Alright, Ann. - Thank you very much.

Meanwhile Al Roker has more on Hurricane Lilly

this morning from the Weather Center.

-We do have a tornado watch in effect

for a good portion of Louisiana,

and in fact, you can see we have very strong winds

coming on shore with a lot of rain,

heavy rain right now,

right there just to the south of Louisiana.

What we're expecting

is a storm surge too, it's actually...

-Many people wondered whether there was something

they should have done.

Here were two people who they accepted,

who they had an idea of who they were.

In October, I arrived in the YMCA in the morning...

and noticed a late model car where two men were sleeping,

one at the wheel and the other in the back seat

with his feet propped up over the passenger seat.

That hit me the wrong way.

In 20 years, I'd never seen anyone sleeping at the YMCA.

But I said to myself, "Just chill out."

What I learned was, they'd been readily accepted at the YMCA,

I simply hadn't noticed them.

Both of them were using the weight room.

Both of them quickly developed trusting friendships.

Some people knew them as John and Lee.

Some people didn't know their names.

But the older guy knew everyone's name.

If he met someone, he learned their name.

But is this person the person I think he is?

And the answer was "No."

-This is WAMU Washington, 88.5FM.

From American University,

your NPR news station in the nation's capital.

-From the WTOP 24-hour weather center

clouds around tonight, but probably little rain,

a slight chance of a shower or two.

-On that first day, Thursday, went into work, early update,

there's really no change from last night's incident.

The gentleman shot on his way to the grocery store,

there wasn't a lot to go on.

-Because we had a lot of people that heard these gunshots,

but nobody saw anything.

We didn't have that many homicides in Montgomery County.

We might have an average of 20 year... 20 a year, 25.

We would respond to suicides, people falling off ladders,

that sort of thing.

-So, when I talked to the Chief, I told him, I said,

"Nothing about him rang," you know,

"he should be a victim of violence

based on what he's involved in."

It seemed very, um, random.

-It was like, "Well, this must have some type of back story

that we're just going to figure out later.

Then it'll all come together."

-When I drove up,

I could see the lawnmower just kind of half on the curb,

like maybe it just cut off.

There was a little bit of commotion,

and a few people were around Sonny.

So when I went over there and kneeled down,

I could see the blood,

and I put my hand on his shoulder.

And I tried to say, you know, "Don't try to get up.

We got help coming on the way."

Tried to give him as much comfort as I could.

I do remember him taking his last breath,

which was, uh, that's something I won't forget.

I've never been beside somebody that died right in front of you.

-He may have had an accident while he was mowing the lawn.

-And you just kind of go, "Well, was this a crime,

is this a shooting, or is this an accident?"

-There was a EMS personnel, and he said to me,

"Doc, this man bled like I've never seen before."

I just kept shaking my head,

said, "This doesn't add up to a lawnmower accident."

We flipped him and saw the entrance wound.

A very high velocity bullet.

We were able to track it up through the chest.

A small bullet may carry a tremendous amount of energy.

And the energy, when it strikes tissue, dissipates

and ravages any soft tissue in its path.

-We started thinking army type, high-powered rifle.

-Okay, I get it now, this is clearly a homicide.

-I drove up here, and I wound down the passenger side window.

It was a very warm day, and my son was in the back.

-And I looked to my right, and there was a man, taxi man,

filling the car from under the license plate,

which I had never seen before.

And I looked at him, and he made eye contact with me,

and I sort of smiled and nodded.

I was a little bit embarrassed that I was staring at him.

And he sort of nodded back.

-And then I looked down to get my bag

and pull my credit card out.

-And then I heard a bang.

I got out of the car.

I was shaking.

I was really terrified.

-I believe we were still working off pagers at the time.

I get a page about the Mobil gas station shooting,

Mr Walekar.

He'd been shot.

Hurry

-Travelling to the Mobil station,

call came over the radio that we had a suicide

that occurred, um, in front of the chicken store.

When I got to the Mobil station, a lot of pandemonium.

We had people that heard a shot, but we had no eyewitnesses.

-I get another page, and they go,

they can't find a gun at the suicide.

-This is no suicide, that was a homicide,

she was shot in the head.

So, within the hour, I now have a homicide down in Bethesda,

I have a homicide that occurred

at the shopping center up the street,

and then the homicide that I was on at the Mobil station.

-Homicides back to back to back to back.

And so at this point, I go to the gas station.

-This is... there's the cab right through there.

-Media have begun to amass,

and we told them, "Let us figure out what we have,

and I'll be over as soon as we could."

-It is bone-chilling, this rampage of violence

that occurred here in Montgomery County in suburban Washington.

This is really mindboggling.

-They wanted to know what was going on.

They wanted the information, and they wanted it now.

They were not just hungry for information to do their job,

they were hungry for information just like the public was,

out of fear that they didn't know what was going on.

-We understand people wanna know about this,

but at this point, we have very little hard evidence.

We don't know who we're dealing with.

-We didn't have much to give them.

-But when Sarah Ramos was shot, there's a witness that comes up

and says that after the sound of the shot,

there was a white van that sped rapidly

form the scene of the crime.

And at that point, that's the only information that we have.

It's possibly an Isuzu, what they call a box truck.

Sort of like the U-Haul smaller ones

when you move your furniture.

Uh, damage to the left rear lift panel.

Small black lettering on the side.

If you're a business owner and you get deliveries

from a truck that sounds like this,

and it has or has not delivered today,

that doesn't matter, we'd like to hear from you.

-So that actually might be a good lead for you then?

-Yes.

-If you see a vehicle

that matches the description, call us.

Don't approach it, just get, you know,

get to the nearest phone and dial 911.

-The truth of the matter is they really don't know much

about the suspect or suspects involved here.

They don't know uh, a description,

they don't have a motive,

and they really don't know what to look for.

-Excuse me.

-We had early reports it was a truck?

-The chief... Chief is, doing his best

to keep the situation calm here,

what we have are 5 separate shootings...

- by this time tomorrow morning,

it, of course, will be a much weaker storm,

probably just a tropical depression

bringing a lot of heavy rain.

That's what's going on around the country,

here's what's happening in your neck of the woods.

-The Senate is debating whether to give the President

the go-ahead to use force

-My intent is to put together a vast coalition of countries

who understand the threat of Saddam Hussein.

-Saddam has got to understand

that the will of this country is strong.

-When you track the progression of John Muhammad,

it's almost like a summer storm.

It started with a drop.

Then another drop. Then a spray.

Then the rain.

Then the storm.

Then just madness.

That first day, I don't think any of us thought

this would be weeks and weeks.

So many innocent lives.

The question is, "Why?"

So, coming to Baton Rouge was my desire to know why...

John Muhammad.

It was almost like... he almost dropped the Muhammad

because he was a "Williams,"

part of a Williams family, that was deep.

-We're still wondering and trying to find out why...

to understand what went wrong.

I have a picture of him.

Every time I look at it,

it just brings tears to my eyes though.

I don't, uh, I don't look.

His mother, she had breast cancer,

back in the '60s, and she passed away.

John was about 3.

She was always hugging them, kissing them, telling them,

"I love you."

John's father was called Ernest.

He lived in New Orleans.

He worked on the train.

He would come to Baton Rouge sometimes,

on weekends and stay.

But after the mother passed, he wasn't there.

He wasn't there.

He wasn't.

He wasn't there.

I told him, "John, I'm going to be your mother now."

Excuse me...

I said, "I'm going to be your mother,

I want you to call me Mommy."

And he told me, "No," he never did call me Mommy.

-I think the world thinks that he was a monster.

Is there such a thing as a monster?

I first met him at my parents' home.

He was tall, dark, and handsome.

He liked to have fun, he liked to kid around.

What I heard from him, and also his brother, he was raised...

It was several families living in one house.

They got the last of everything.

They got hand-me-down clothes.

They didn't get an opportunity to get new things.

They always got the leftovers.

That's how they lived.

-Mnh-mnh. That's what I told you, we were poor.

I remember hearing my father say he made $2.00 at work all day.

Get $2.00.

They were working in fields, plantations.

-Descendants of slaves who were taken

and brought here as a commodity

on the banks of the Mississippi River,

and then deposited after it was all over

and say, "Now live your life."

-I can see that he was trying to find something to fit in.

And he never really found that when we were together.

It was still something missing.

-Five people shot and killed

within a 1-mile radius in the span of 16 hours.

-You're the police. You're supposed to find,

you're supposed to protect us, and we couldn't do any of that.

-I saw like a car moved off from behind these trees here.

It was a Caprice, a dark color Caprice.

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