SubscribeThe consequences of fear and death?
John Allen Muhammad was executedby lethal injection last night in Virginia’s death chamber. For three weeks in October 2002, the man known as the DC sniper and a young companion terrorized the Washington area. Ten people died and three people were wounded as Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo crisscrossed the District, Maryland and Virginia indiscriminately firing bullets at people they did not know.
Fear gripped those of us who live in the area. I remember it. As the number of deaths grew, so did the caution-taking, worrying and praying. I varied my route to and from work. I stayed on the looked out for a white van, which early on was described by police officials as the vehicle driven by the snipers. I instructed my children to duck and hide if they saw a white van slow down near them, if they were outside. But I mostly kept them inside when they weren’t in school. School officials across the area kept students inside also, especially after a 13 year-old boy was shot and wounded while in the drop-off lane of his school.
I gave up on night grocery store or shopping mall runs. Walk zigzag, my husband urged me. He also insisted on pumping gas for all the cars, after the snipers began firing at customers at gas stations. “He had me crouching down to pump gas,” my husband recalled. The panic rose when Muhammad and Malvo killed Pascal Charlot less than two miles from my home. The grip on the psyche of an entire region was crippling.
Relief flooded the region when the two were arrested while sleeping at a rest stop in Virginia.
It was surreal for me and much more harrowing for the families of the victims. And now after seven years, the mastermind of a reign of mayhem and fear has been executed by the state of Virginia. ”Good riddance,” said someone I know. “He got what he deserved.”
Bob Meyers, the brother of one of the victims, Dean H. Meyers, witnessed the execution of the man who gunned down his brother at a gas station in Prince Williams County. I found his quote very instructive. “There are no winners here. We are not celebrating,” he said. “It was a sad day for everyone.”
I struggle to know what I believe about the death penalty from one horrific crime to the next. Intellectually and spiritually, I am against it. It’s not easy to say who should die or who should live, no matter what they have done. However, emotionally I have read about cases so heinous that I have said that person ought to get the death penalty.
Without a doubt, there’s a lot more that I could say about this topic. But for now, I’m remembering with relief a fearful time that has now passed.
What do you think about the death penalty?
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