Gulf war veteran with tangled past

Washington sniper suspect John Allen Muhammad’s life has followed a tangled path.

From what relatives describe as a normal childhood in Louisiana, he faced disciplinary charges in the National Guard, then earned Army honours for marksmanship and Gulf War service. He embraced Islam. He also divorced twice, started and abandoned a karate school, and slid into homelessness.

Relatives say he exerted strict control over the boy he called his son, 17-year-old John Lee Malvo, and divorce papers chronicle the collapse of his second marriage and his ex-wife’s fear that he would follow through on his threats to destroy her life.

"The more I think about it, you know, it seems like I can remember him being bitter, just bitter about life," said Felix Strozier of Tacoma, who started a karate school with Muhammad in 1997.

Muhammad, 41, and Malvo were arrested early yesterday while sleeping in a car at a rest stop in Maryland, wanted for questioning in the serial killings that have terrorised the Washington DC area for three weeks. Thirteen people were shot, 10 were killed.

Federal officials told The Seattle Times that Muhammad and Malvo might have been motivated by anti-American sentiments. But neither was believed to be associated with the al-Qaida terrorist network or with James Ujaama, a Seattle Muslim being held on a federal terrorism charge.

Muhammad, then known as John Allen Williams, was born and raised in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

He was a track and football star at Scotlandville High School, said James "Houseman" Johnson, owner of Houseman’s Kitchen, a Scotlandville soul food restaurant.

His mother died when he was little and his father was not around, so he was raised by his grandfather and his aunt, said Edward Holiday, a cousin who is four years younger and looked to him as a role model.

Williams married his high school sweetheart four years after his 1978 graduation. He converted to Islam and changed his last name after he left Baton Rouge in 1985, according to relatives of Carol Williams.

When he visited Louisiana in July, some saw a definite change.

"He just wasn’t that same fresh, clean and ready-for-business," Holiday said. "He didn’t look like a guy who is doing as good as he said he did."

Denitra King, a neighbour, said: "He wasn’t the same person. He just looked different."

The two old friends said he talked often about his Muslim beliefs. They said he didn’t like the idea of the United States being involved in Afghanistan, although he didn’t show any anger about it.

He enlisted in the Army in November 1985 and was posted to Fort Lewis in Washington state, then transferred to Germany in 1990, to Fort Ord, California, in 1992, and back to Fort Lewis the following year.

Muhammad did not receiver sniper training during his Army career, but he did receive a Marksmanship Badge with expert rating - the highest of three ratings - in use of the M-16 rifle, according to Army records.

He was trained mainly as a combat engineer, his specialty in the 1991 Gulf War, and also as a metal worker and a water transport specialist. His highest ranking on active duty was sergeant.

Carol Williams’ sister, Sheron Norman, said the couple had a bitter custody dispute over their son, now 20. In 1994, the son visited Muhammad in Washington state for the summer, but failed to return until his mother got a court order, Norman said.

When he returned, Norman said, the boy had lost 20lbs. She said he described being subjected to a military-like routine of exercise and a strict diet.

The family saw Muhammad three months ago, when they met Malvo. Norman said Malvo followed a strict diet and ate only crackers and honey and nutritional supplements.

"You could tell he was scared," she said. "He was very, very quiet. You could tell he didn’t like the way he was living."

Muhammad’s second wife, Mildred Muhammad, sought a restraining order after she separated from him in March 2000. She told the court her estranged husband was "irrational" and called her repeatedly, "threatening to destroy my life."

Court records of their divorce said their three children risked psychological damage because of Muhammad’s "abusive use of conflict".

Neighbours in Tacoma remember seeing Mildred Muhammad clad in traditional Muslim robes and a veil. They described her husband as reclusive and unfriendly.

"‘He would just kind of look at me shrug me off and turn away,"’ said neighbour Lee Ann Terlaje. She said the marriage apparently ended shortly before the family moved out of the house in 2000.

But Muhammad presented a different face to Deborah Waters, who lived across the street from the duplex where he lived for about a month this summer. On Wednesday, FBI agents searched the back garden and hauled away evidence, including a tree stump that may contain bullet fragments.

"He seemed extremely nice, maybe a quiet shy guy, but definitely not mean or evil," Waters said.

She knew him as Williams, not Muhammad, and said he took her seven-year-old son on trips to the pool and a nearby park.

In February, Tacoma police investigated a shoplifting incident in which Muhammad and a second man were seen leaving a store in Tacoma without paying for about $27 dollars’ worth of food, police spokesman Jim Mattheis said. Arrest warrants were issued for both after they failed to show up in court.

Muhammad was arrested twice in 1995 for driving with a suspended licence, Mattheis said.

Felix Strozier met Muhammad in 1997 at a karate competition. Muhammad wanted Strozier to teach Malvo. He convinced Strozier they should start a karate school together, promising he’d bring in lots of Muslim students.

But Strozier said they split unhappily when Muhammad failed to follow through on his promises.

Police believe Malvo became like an informal stepson to Muhammad because Muhammad had a relationship with the boy’s mother and for a while the three lived in a family type arrangement, according to a senior law enforcement source.