Features

Handgun found near site of Alabama shooting linked to sniper case

By Bob Johnson
Saturday November 02, 2002

MONTGOMERY, Ala. โ€” A stolen handgun has been found near the scene of the Sept. 21 shooting that helped police zero in on sniper suspects John Allen Muhammad and John Lee Malvo. 

Police Chief John Wilson said the gun fits the make and model of a weapon believed used in the shooting outside a Montgomery liquor store that left one employee dead and another wounded. 

Someone found the weapon Wednesday along the route where a police officer said he chased a gunman after the shooting, Wilson said. The gun was underneath leaves in an area of abandoned apartments, he said. 

Wilson said the gun, stolen July 20 at an El Paso, Texas, gun show, will be tested to determine if it is connected to the Alabama shooting. 

Investigators also believe a rifle was used in the Montgomery shooting. Police have said ballistics tests showed that the rifle was also used in the sniper attacks. 

Muhammad and Malvo face state and federal charges in the sniper spree that left 10 people dead and three wounded in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C. They also have been charged in the Alabama shooting and a Sept. 23 slaying in Louisiana, and are suspects in a February killing in Washington state. 

Authorities closed in on the suspects after a man โ€” apparently the sniper โ€” called and suggested that they check out the Alabama shooting. 

Wilson said witnesses reported seeing the flash of a handgun during the shooting that killed store employee Claudine Parker and wounded co-worker Kellie Adams. There was no witness account of a rifle being fired, he said, but he expressed confidence that the crime would be solved.