Teenager may have murderd FBI analyst

The 17-year-old suspect in the Washington sniper murders may have fired the shot that killed an FBI analyst, it emerged today, raising the possibility that the death penalty could be brought against both suspects.

Virginia prosecutor Robert Horan said there is “an equal possibility” that either John Allen Muhammad, 41, or John Lee Malvo, 17, shot FBI analyst Linda Franklin at a Fairfax shopping centre on October 14.

The New York Times and The Richmond Times-Dispatch both reported today that Horan suggested there is evidence Malvo was the shooter in that case.

“There will be evidence that the juvenile was the shooter,” The New York Times quoted Horan as saying. He refused to provide any more details.

Despite murder charges filed in Maryland against the two suspects, rival prosecutors in Virginia are circling the case with the promise that they could win death sentences against the pair.

At least two Virginia counties were prepared to seek charges today against Muhammad and Malvo, the men suspected of 13 shootings that left 10 dead and terrorised the suburbs around the nation’s capital.

The suspects already face multiple murder charges in Maryland, and murder charges in Alabama unrelated to the sniper shootings. They could also be charged with extortion and murder counts that could bring the death penalty.

A 17-year-old would be eligible for the death penalty in Virginia and Alabama but not in Maryland. There is no death penalty in the District of Columbia, where one person was killed.

The top elected official in Maryland’s Montgomery County urged prosecutors to choose the strongest venue.

“They need to present a unified front to the public and say: ‘Here’s how we are going to handle this,’ and wherever the case is strongest with the stiffest penalties, that is where they need to go,” Montgomery County Executive Douglas Duncan said.