Sniper who terrorized Washington area is executed

By Jonathan Ernst

JARRATT, Virginia (Reuters) - John Allen Muhammad was executed on Tuesday for masterminding and carrying out with his teenage accomplice the 2002 sniper shootings that killed 10 people and terrified the Washington, D.C., region a year after the September 11 and the deadly anthrax attacks.

The 48-year-old Muhammad was put to death by lethal injection at the Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt, Virginia, said Virginia Department of Corrections spokesman Larry Traylor.

"Death was pronounced at 9:11 p.m. There were no complications. Mr. Muhammad was asked if he wished to make a last statement. He did not acknowledge us or make any statement whatsoever," Traylor told reporters.

"Things went very normally," Traylor added.

Three journalists who witnessed the execution said a clean-shaven Muhammad was stoic as he was strapped down and as the lethal injection was administered.

Muhammad was convicted of killing Dean Harold Meyers at a gas station near Manassas, Virginia, during a three-week shooting spree in October 2002 that spanned Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia.

Paul Ebert, the Virginia prosecutor who won the death penalty conviction against Muhammad, was among the officials and family members of victims to witness the execution.

"He died very peacefully, much more than most of his victims. I felt a sense of closure and I hope that they did too," Ebert told reporters.