Via: MSNBC
DC Sniper has been executed in Virginia.
RICHMOND, Va. – John Allen Muhammad was executed Tuesday night for the sniper attacks in 2002 that left 10 dead and spread such fear people were afraid to go shopping, cut grass or pump gas.
The three-week killing spree in Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C., was carried out with a teenage accomplice who is serving life in prison without parole. Muhammad, 48, died by injection at 9:11 p.m. EST after he exhausted his court appeals and Gov. Tim Kaine denied clemency.
Muhammad’s attorneys earlier had asked Kaine to commute his sentence to life in prison because they said he was severely mentally ill.
“I think crimes that are this horrible, you just can’t understand them, you can’t explain them,” said Kaine, a Democrat known for carefully considering death penalty cases. “They completely dwarf your ability to look into the life of a person who would do something like this and understand why.”
Muhammad had been sentenced to death for killing Dean Harold Meyers at a gas station in northern Virginia. He and his accomplice, Lee Boyd Malvo, also were suspected of fatal shootings in Alabama, Arizona, Louisiana and Washington state.
Muhammad was offered a choice for his last meal, which he accepted and requested that details not be released to the public, NBC News reported.
Prosecutors chose to put Muhammad and Malvo on trial in Virginia first because of the state’s willingness to execute killers. He and Malvo were also convicted of six other murders in Maryland and both were sentenced to six life terms.
