D.C. sniper attacks
The D.C. sniper attacks (also known as the Beltway sniper attacks) were a series of coordinated shootings that occurred during three weeks in October 2002 throughout the Washington metropolitan area, consisting of the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia, and preliminary shootings, that consisted of murders and robberies in several states, and lasted for six months starting in February 2002. Seven people were killed, and seven others were injured in the preliminary shootings, and ten people were killed and three others were critically wounded in the October shootings. In total, the snipers killed 17 people and wounded 10 others in a 10-month span.
| D.C. sniper attacks | |
|---|---|
Locations of the fifteen sniper attacks in the D.C. area numbered chronologically. | |
| Location | Maryland, Virginia, Washington, D.C. and Arizona, Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, and Washington |
| Date | February 16, 2002 – September 26, 2002 (preliminary shootings) October 2, 2002 – October 24, 2002 (sniper attacks) |
| Target | Civilians in the Washington metropolitan area |
Attack type | Spree killing, mass murder |
| Weapons | Bushmaster XM-15 rifle |
| Deaths | 17 (10 in sniper attacks, 7 in preliminary shootings) |
| Injured | 10 (3 in sniper attacks, 7 in preliminary shootings) |
| Perpetrators | John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo |
The snipers were John Allen Muhammad (age 41 at the time) and Lee Boyd Malvo (age 17 at the time), who traveled in a blue 1990 Chevrolet Caprice sedan.
In 2003, Muhammad was sentenced to death, and in 2009, he was executed by lethal injection. Malvo, a juvenile, received six life sentences in Maryland and three in Virginia. In 2017, Malvo's life sentences in Virginia were vacated without parole on appeal.