Fox8.com reports that one of the gunmen responsible for the DC area sniper attacks in 2002 has confessed to shooting a Louisiana man in the neck before the spree. Lee Boyd Malvo admitted that he and John Allen Muhammad shot 58-year-old John Gaeta of Albany at a mall as a kind of warm-up for the spree killings. Gaeta, who survived the attack, has been talking to the media about his ordeal.
In the process of trying to change the tire [that had been secretly slashed by Muhammed], Gaeta said two men approached him, not once, but twice asking if the mall was still open and then if he needed help with his flat. What Gaeta didn’t know is that one of the men, hung around . . .
The bullet struck Gaeta’s neck on the right side, missing an artery and jugular vein and crossed his spinal cord, Gaeta said without having any effect. In fact, he said he hardly felt pain.
“I knew that if I just stood up or resisted, he would shoot me again so I just fell to the ground, and I just laid there.. was just real still,” said Gaeta, who pretended to be dead.
Hammond detectives said Malvo expressed remorse for what he did and called the shooting “senseless” because Gaeta was not considered to be a hit like the other shootings.
Howzzat? Wikipedia explains. Ish.
According to Craig Cooley, one of Malvo’s defense attorneys, Malvo believed Muhammad when he told him that the $10 million ransom sought from the US government to stop the sniper killings would be used to establish a Utopian society for 140 black homeless children on a Canadian compound.
And in case you’ve forgotten . . .
Malvo shoplifted a Bushmaster XM-15 from Bull’s Eye Shooter Supply, a dealer for Bushmaster Firearms, Inc., a manufacturer and distributor based in Windham, Maine. About the same time, Muhammad practiced his marksmanship on the Bull’s Eye firing range adjacent to the gun shop.
