The "Beltway Sniper Incident" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Talking on the phone with my daughter, Brynn, who lives near Frederick, MD.   I was asking her if she remembered about the Beltway sniper incident that happened 10 years ago.  It was that morning that I happened to be leafing through the Lancaster Sunday News and saw a very familiar face staring back at me.  The youthful face of Lee Boyd Malvo staring right into the camera.  Those were really scary days for my wife and I as we thought daily about our daughter, pregnant with our first grandchild, and our son-in-law Dave, who lived right in the midst of it.  Brynn called often, telling us she was OK and not to worry.  Not to worry?  She must have been scared to death for the couple of weeks during October in 2002 when sniper John Allen Muhammed and Lee Boyd Malvo were picking out random targets and killing them. Brynn and Dave, who lived in a development in Urbana, MD, which is only a stone's throw from Frederick, said that they were so scared that they didn't even go out for groceries.  They would call the store and order their groceries delivered to the house.  They would drive as far away from the area as possible to buy their gasoline. Many gas stations put up tarps around the awnings over the fuel pumps so people would feel safer.  Many people fueled their vehicles inside the guarded fence of the Naval Base of the National Naval Medical Center. Finally, the incident came to a close on October 24, when Muhammad and Malvo were found sleeping in their car at a rest stop off of Interstate 70, near Frederick, not far from the home where our daughter and son-in-law lived.  Brynn and Dave could once again live a normal life and head to work without fear of the sniper.  Carol and I could also sleep better realizing that the culprits had been caught.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.  PS - In 2003 Muhammad was sentenced to death and Malvo was sentenced to life in prison.  In 2009 Muhammad was executed.  Malvo is incarcerated at Red Onion State Prison in the remote super max facility tucked among Virginia's Appalachian coal mines.