"A girl just shot herself," he told a 911 operator.
The 911 recording was played for the jury yesterday when Sheldon took the stand at the murder trial of sniper suspect John Allen Muhammad.
Muhammad, 42, is on trial for the shooting of Dean Harold Meyers at a gas station in Manassas, Va., one of 10 fatal attacks that terrorized the Washington area for three weeks last year.
But prosecutors are presenting evidence from the other shootings because they must prove multiple killings to convict Muhammad on one of the death-penalty charges against him.
Sheldon, testifying about the shooting of 34-year-old Sarah Ramos outside a shopping center in Montgomery County, said he was putting a letter in a mailbox when he heard "a huge explosion." He said he turned and saw Ramos' bloodied body on a bench.
Moments before, Sheldon said, he had seen a "pretty lady sitting there."
Cynthia Martin, the first police officer on the scene, testified that she could tell immediately that Ramos' wound was not self-inflicted because there was no weapon nearby. Martin said she also knew there was no way the woman could survive: "When I walked up, her brain was on the ground, had fallen through the bench."
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