Nov 2, 2009 11:25 pm US/Eastern
Sniper Victims Share Their Feelings 7 Years Later
BALTIMORE (WJZ) ―
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John Allen Muhammad is slated to die next week.
WJZ
In one week, the man behind the D.C. sniper spree is slated to die, seven years after he and his partner terrorized people living in Maryland, D.C. and Virginia.
Two of the snipers' victims share their innermost feelings with
Vic Carter as the man who tried to kill them now faces death himself.
It was a 23-day killing spree. Ten people in all were gunned down by a faceless enemy as they went about their everyday lives.
Only after the snipers' capture did we learn the random killings were designed to mask the eventual murder of John Allen Muhammad's ex-wife, Mildred.
He wanted custody of their three children, who lived with her in Prince George's County. She has since forgiven the man who plotted to kill her.
"Those were hard pills to swallow, but I swallowed them and I had to move on. I was not going to allow him to control me from a jail cell," she said. "[The children] love him."
Next week, Muhammad will die by lethal injection unless the Supreme Court or the Virginia governor stops it.
"I don't know how to prepare for an execution," Mildred said. "[The children] are the ones who will experience the most difficult pain."
Years later, Mildred wanted to meet one of the sniper victims who survived, a man shot not far from where she lived.
"He was glad to see me," she said. "I just live with it one day at a time."
Sniper survivor Paul LaRuffa remembers leaving his restaurant that night.
"As soon as I got in my car, I saw a flash of light," he said. "I was being shot."
Only after the snipers' arrest at a Maryland truck stop did he learn he was one of their victims.
"Malvo came out and shot me," LaRuffa said. "Shot me five times."
He still drives the car he was shot in and just recently sold his restaurant, moving to southern Maryland with his wife.
"Everything changes your life," he said. "The key is not to let it ruin your life."
He's not sure how he'll spend the day of the execution.
"Probably spend it with my friends and grandchildren, wife and son. Go out to dinner, try to make it a really nice day," he said. "I don't want to waste a day seeing him die."
"I already have closure," Mildred said. "I don't need an event to make me feel whole."
Mildred's children want to see their father before he is executed. She says she is doing everything she can to make that happen.
Tuesday night at 11, hear firsthand what the snipers told Maryland's top prosecutors about what they did and why this was just the beginning of their reign of terror.
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