| -Caveat Lector-
At last a name, but not from the local papers. This raises all kinds of
questions. Will Dancy be prosecuted? However, this does not explain the
Bushmaster. It was a Remington Dancy bought for Mohammad, so he says. What
happened to the Remington? Should Dancy be considered an accessory to
murder (Keenya Cook's)? Stay tuned. - Jim
Friend Illegally Bought Rifle for Muhammad By Tamara Jones VIRGINIA BEACH, Nov. 18--A sailor who shared his vast gun collection with
John Allen Muhammad and illegally purchased a rifle for the buddy now convicted
of capital murder testified Tuesday in the penalty phase of the Washington-area
sniper's trial. Earl Lee Dancy Jr., an active-duty Navy gunner's mate, told jurors now
holding Muhammad's life in their hands about his friend's keen interest in guns,
his admiration for Adolf Hitler and his pride in the marksmanship of the
teenager who posed as his son. "He's a sniper," Dancy recalled Muhammad saying of Lee Boyd Malvo as the two
adults examined a target Muhammad's accused accomplice riddled with bullet holes
at a shooting range in Tacoma, Wash., where Muhammad was then living. Malvo is standing trial for capital murder in nearby Chesapeake, Va., in the
shooting spree that left 10 people dead and three wounded in the Washington area
13 months ago. Muhammad was found guilty of capital murder and related charges
Monday and now faces either life in prison or death by lethal injection. Dancy said he knew it was against the law when he purchased a Remington
700-308 rifle for Muhammad at a Tacoma sporting goods store, and acknowledged
that he lied to police and the FBI when they later questioned him about the
weapon, which Dancy had meanwhile reported stolen at Muhammad's behest. Muhammad and Malvo stayed at Dancy's apartment for periods of time, Dancy
said, and the two houseguests had free access to the gun collection Dancy kept
in his bedroom closet. Muhammad also showed interest in a book about silencers that later
disappeared from Dancy's house. The houseguests also had videos about snipers,
which they frequently watched, he said. Dancy's testimony followed that of a Tacoma man who found the Remington on a
bipod along a trail one night with a scope on it, pointing toward a nearby
apartment. Muhammad's request that Dancy report his Remington stolen came around
the same time the stranger found the gun with a single bullet in the chamber and
turned it over to police. Dancy admitted under cross-examination that he had told multiple lies to
authorities investigating the sniper case, but said he "didn't know" if he had
been offered a plea bargain to avoid charges and possible prison time in
exchange for his testimony. Dancy also testified fleetingly about Muhammad's bitter relationship with his
former wife, Mildred, mother of his three young children. Muhammad told him "she caused him to lose everything, and he was going to fix
her," Dancy said. Prosecutors have suggested that Muhammad orchestrated the sniper spree to
create a smokescreen, and that Mildred, then living in the Washington area, was
ultimately his intended target. The motive, they allege, was revenge over his
loss of parental rights to the children. But jurors now left to decide whether to impose the death penalty against
Muhammad have been hearing testimony during this penalty phase not about the 16
shootings that led to their guilty verdict, but about a killing far away and
long before the D.C.-area rampage. A young mother who opened her front door to a shotgun blast on Feb. 16, 2002,
in Tacoma became the latest bloodied face of death for jurors who have been
immersed for over a month in images of violence and voices of anguish. The 21-year-old was found dead in the front foyer of her aunt Isa Nichols's
home, where she lived with her infant daughter. Nichols had kept the books for
Muhammad's car-repair business at one point, and had become a friend of Mildred
Muhammad. She had sided with Mildred during the Muhammad's bitter divorce, after
Muhammad spirited away the couple's children. She was in court with Mildred again 18 months later, when authorities found
and returned the children to their mother. Nichols testified Monday that she
watched Mildred Muhammad screaming and running down the courtroom hallway to
flee an angry Muhammad after that hearing. Testimony about the slaying of Keenya Cook underscored the horror of random
violence, of death unexplained, that the greater Washington metropolitan area
would come to know intimately eight months later, when Muhammad prowled the
streets in a decrepit Chevrolet Caprice modified into a sniper's lair. Keenya Cook, in her stocking feet, was poaching chicken on the stove that
evening while her aunt went to the store for a tomato and taco shells before
picking up her 13-year-old daughter, Tamara Nichols. The baby was upstairs when
Cook heard someone at the door. The medical examiner who testified Tuesday said the 45-caliber handgun was
probably just three feet away when the gunman fired it into Cook's face. The
bullet split her nose shattered her jaw and tore through her cervical spine. No charges have ever been filed in Cook's death, which Tacoma police still
consider an open case. Prosecutors showed jurors photographs of her blood staining her aunt's
polished wood floor, spattered against the pretty pink wallpaper, soaking into
the plush living room carpet where her head landed. They put a photograph of her
shattered face and dead gaze up on the courtroom screen, while Cook's family
members shook their heads and hugged in the spectator seats. Tamara Nichols, twirling a long tendril of hair as she listened to the
prosecutor's questions, testified about coming into the house that evening and
seeing her cousin's feet poking into the hallway. The house was filled with
smoke, she said. "She was lying there," the girl testified. "I called her name and saw the
blood around her head." Her mother, Isa Nichols, told the story on Monday with a bookkeeper's
measured precision, recalling how she went to take the melted pot off the stove
and came to Keenya's side, believing her niece had been overcome by smoke. "I grabbed her hand, her hand was cold," Nichols testified. "Her eyes were
open, but fixed." Nichols said she saw "a little metal thing" she later learned was a bullet
casing, bloody on the floor near her niece's head. The fire department lieutenant who was first on the scene testified that Cook
was "pulseless" when rescuers arrived four minutes later. Again and again, prosecutors showed witnesses -- and the jury -- photographs
of the tidy house where in the winter darkness a gunman stood on a front porch
still festooned with red Christmas bows and hanging icicle lights. Inside,
dinner was on the stove, and a baby slept. And then Keenya Cook opened the door
to violence unimaginable. Washington Post staff writer Josh White contributed to this report.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ <A HREF="">ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om |
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