Speaker 1: Welcome to Monster DZ Sniper, a production of iHeartRadio and
Speaker 1: Tenderfoot TV. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast
Speaker 1: are solely those of the podcast author or individuals participating
Speaker 1: in the podcast, and do not represent those of iHeartMedia,
Speaker 1: Tenderfoot TV, or their employees. This episode contains stories of
Speaker 1: domestic abuse. If you or someone you know maybe experiencing
Speaker 1: domestic abuse, you can call the Domestic Violence Hotline at
Speaker 1: one eight hundred seven nine nine seven two three three,
Speaker 1: or visit the website the hotline dot org. Listener discretion
Speaker 1: is advised.
Speaker 2: When you meet someone for the first time, you always
Speaker 2: put your best foot forward. You don't want that person
Speaker 2: to know all of your flaws, and you don't want
Speaker 2: them to think badly about you because you're really interested
Speaker 2: in that person, and you hide it as long as
Speaker 2: you can. I am Mildred Muhammad. I'm an award winning
Speaker 2: global keynote speaker, and my former husband was John Ala Mohammad,
Speaker 2: whom you all know to be the DC Sniper. Everybody
Speaker 2: loved John because he was jovial. He was that guy,
Speaker 2: that guy of if you needed something, go to John.
Speaker 2: But he was not one to show his emotions, so
Speaker 2: in not showing his emotions, it was difficult for people
Speaker 2: to read him, to understand exactly what was going on
Speaker 2: with him. I believe he was always that type of
Speaker 2: person that blew up. He was just very good at
Speaker 2: concealing it. I believe going to Saudie only intensify that
Speaker 2: to a whole different level. He received artists to go
Speaker 2: to Desert Storm for the war, but he comes back
Speaker 2: three months later because he received an injury. But then
Speaker 2: other stories begin to come forward. He was accused of
Speaker 2: trying to kill other soldiers. John was a sergeant over
Speaker 2: a unit. A soldier challenged him in front of others,
Speaker 2: and he felt humiliated. That soldier that night was in
Speaker 2: charge of the explosives. John went snuck into that area
Speaker 2: and stole a grenade. He threw the grenade in the
Speaker 2: tent and jumped into his sleeping bag. The grenade went off.
Speaker 2: He was accused of trying to get back at that
Speaker 2: soldier that challenged him in front of the other soldiers.
Speaker 2: They put him in a dungeon. They hogtied him and
Speaker 2: left him there. And when he comes back, it's not
Speaker 2: the same person.
Speaker 3: There is a ruthless person on the loose.
Speaker 4: What unerves this community the most is the randomness of
Speaker 4: the murders, ordinary people doing ordinary things. They killed the
Speaker 4: five people in one day and then went on the
Speaker 4: rampage for the next month.
Speaker 5: It is quite a mystery.
Speaker 4: The police say they have never had a crime quite
Speaker 4: like this.
Speaker 6: Be careful, these guys are using weapons that are going
Speaker 6: to go right straight through our bulletproof vests.
Speaker 4: From iHeartRadio and Tenderfoot TV. This is monster DC Sniper.
Speaker 4: On the morning of October twenty second, two thousand and two,
Speaker 4: Leise found the names of their first real suspects in
Speaker 4: the DC Sniper case. Authorities connected the snipers to a Montgomery,
Speaker 4: Alabama liquor store shooting. At that crime scene, police found
Speaker 4: a fingerprint. The FBI then matched the fingerprint to a
Speaker 4: seventeen year old Jamaican boy named Lee Boyd Malvo. He'd
Speaker 4: been arrested in Washington State in two thousand and one
Speaker 4: on suspicions of illegal immigration. The arrest report also listed
Speaker 4: another name, John Allen Muhammed. That name set off alarm
Speaker 4: bells for police. Someone in Washington State had called in
Speaker 4: a tip about a John Mohammed, saying he might be
Speaker 4: involved in the DC sniper attacks. So now Lee Boyd
Speaker 4: Malvo and John Mohammad were prime suspects. Police quickly learned
Speaker 4: all they could about the pair, and here's what they discovered.
Speaker 4: John Mohammad was born John Williams on New Year's Eve
Speaker 4: nineteen sixty and grew up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. In
Speaker 4: the fall of nineteen eighty three, when Williams was twenty two,
Speaker 4: he met a young woman named Mildred Green. Mildred was
Speaker 4: twenty three, a next cheerleader and devout Baptist who lived
Speaker 4: with her mom.
Speaker 2: I was walking to the store and my friend Valina
Speaker 2: picked me up and she said, where are you going? Said,
Speaker 2: I'm going to the store for my mom. And so
Speaker 2: we pulled up at the corner store. She went in
Speaker 2: and she came out with these two guys. When upumas
Speaker 2: John and he put his head through the driver's side
Speaker 2: window and said, what is your name? I said? Mildred said,
Speaker 2: I'm John. Would you like to go out tonight? I said,
Speaker 2: I need to check my schedule. I didn't have a schedule.
Speaker 2: I'm available at about seven. We said, okay, I'll be
Speaker 2: about to pick you up. We went over to Southern University.
Speaker 2: There was a couple area over by the river, Mississippi River,
Speaker 2: and we were just talking and he says, so, are
Speaker 2: you say any about us? Said nope. He said why not? Said,
Speaker 2: I'm waiting for the right man to show up. He said,
Speaker 2: well he just did. Said okay, So he dropped me
Speaker 2: off at home, and then the next day he called
Speaker 2: and so we just started talking and hanging out. He
Speaker 2: was a welder, an excellent welder.
Speaker 4: What were the qualities of the man that you found attractive?
Speaker 2: Well, he had a beautiful smile, he was jovial, funny.
Speaker 2: He said what he meant, and he meant what he said,
Speaker 2: and that's something that most men don't do.
Speaker 4: Mildred had grown up without a father and had never
Speaker 4: had a serious boyfriend. Most of her ideas about relationships
Speaker 4: came from TV and movies. John was romantic and said
Speaker 4: all the right things.
Speaker 2: About six months in, my friend Elena came over and
Speaker 2: she said, so, how are you and John? I said,
Speaker 2: are we good? She said, so?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 2: He married right? What?
Speaker 4: It turns out that John was already married to a
Speaker 4: woman named Carol and they had a son named Lindburgh.
Speaker 2: It was devastating for me to find out that he
Speaker 2: was married. But I knew I had to stay away
Speaker 2: from him. I said, okay, I'm got to break that off.
Speaker 2: So finally I did. But then he came back and said,
Speaker 2: I have some terrible news to tell you. I say,
Speaker 2: what's that? He said, I can't read, and he couldn't.
Speaker 2: All he could do was write his name. So he
Speaker 2: had adapted as an adult to not being able to read.
Speaker 2: His whole family didn't know he couldn't read. Nobody knew
Speaker 2: he couldn't read.
Speaker 4: Mildred felt that John, who in many ways was closed off,
Speaker 4: was finally opening up to her. She cared deeply about
Speaker 4: John and wanted to help him.
Speaker 2: He said, well, I want to go back in the military.
Speaker 2: So I taught him how to read enough to pass
Speaker 2: the test to be reinstated in active duty. And after
Speaker 2: he passed the test, I say we're done.
Speaker 4: John enlisted in the Army and was stationed in Fort Lewis, Washington. There,
Speaker 4: John qualified as an expert with an M sixteen, the
Speaker 4: army's standard infantry rifle. That rating is the Army's highest
Speaker 4: of three levels of marksmanship for a typical soldier.
Speaker 2: So he left went to Fort Lewis, and he wrote
Speaker 2: me a letter and said, hey, I can't do this
Speaker 2: without you. I'll do whatever it takes for you to.
Speaker 4: Be with me.
Speaker 2: Just come, and he sent an airline ticket and I left.
Speaker 4: You love this man.
Speaker 2: I did, absolutely, with all of my heart. I did,
Speaker 2: and I wanted to build a life with him. And
Speaker 2: about three months later he got a divorce and then
Speaker 2: we got married. It was a sunny day, was and
Speaker 2: Grace Chapel ahead on a white dress. He was in
Speaker 2: dress blues ceremonial uniform for military.
Speaker 4: Two years later, in January nineteen ninety, John and Mildred
Speaker 4: had their first child, John Junior. A little less than
Speaker 4: a year after that, John was deployed to Saudi Arabia
Speaker 4: for Operation Desert Storm. He worked as a combat engineer
Speaker 4: and metal worker, and it was here that Williams was
Speaker 4: said to have thrown a grenade into the tent of
Speaker 4: a fellow soldier.
Speaker 2: So they came and brought in investigators. The commander had
Speaker 2: us to come to his office.
Speaker 4: John had his own side of the story. According to
Speaker 4: that account, John had previously approached an officer with complaints
Speaker 4: of racism from white soldiers. John says those soldiers felt
Speaker 4: the need to retaliate, so they created a phony grin
Speaker 4: a story to blame on him, and then his punishment.
Speaker 4: He was hogtied and humiliated.
Speaker 2: And the commander said to John, we investigated your allegations. However,
Speaker 2: when the investigators came to ask you questions, you didn't
Speaker 2: answer them. I didn't know that, he said, so, Sarga Williams,
Speaker 2: why didn't you answer those questions? And John looked at
Speaker 2: him and said, permission to be released. Commander said, permission granted,
Speaker 2: and we got up and we left.
Speaker 4: After the commander released him from the meeting, John stopped
Speaker 4: talking about the incident. The military didn't keep any records
Speaker 4: of the event, so all they had to go on
Speaker 4: were conflicting stories. No official charges were ever made in
Speaker 4: the case. At first, Mildred believed John's side of the story.
Speaker 4: She trusted her husband, but years later, after she saw
Speaker 4: what John was capable of, she came to believe that
Speaker 4: the other story was true, that John had in fact
Speaker 4: tried to get back at a fellow soldier using a
Speaker 4: thermite grenade. The issue fizzled out, and John continued to
Speaker 4: serve in the military, but he was growing disillusioned.
Speaker 5: With it.
Speaker 4: After Desert Storm, Mildred says John was a changed man.
Speaker 2: He was no longer jovial. He didn't want to have
Speaker 2: those long conversations anymore. He was just cutting dry. How
Speaker 2: you doing fine, We'll job to nothing. All soldiers had
Speaker 2: come back from a war zone, they always go to
Speaker 2: a hospital first to just do a whole physical, just
Speaker 2: before they released them back to their base. All I
Speaker 2: learned was that he was diagnosed with PTSD.
Speaker 4: At that point in time, post traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD,
Speaker 4: was not a commonly understood. PTSD can occur after a
Speaker 4: traumatic experience. It can cause flashbacks of the trauma and
Speaker 4: create a heightened sense of fear, and it can make
Speaker 4: people feel depressed or detached. Many who experience PTSD also
Speaker 4: become irritable, aggressive, or distrustful of others, which can lead
Speaker 4: to social isolation.
Speaker 2: The only person he opened up to was our son,
Speaker 2: so when he came home, he just went immediately to
Speaker 2: play with him. Most of his interactions was with our son.
Speaker 2: But then his behavior became to be obsessive. So I
Speaker 2: would buy dishes, silverware. He'd break all the dishes except
Speaker 2: for three three plates, three saucers, three bowls. Well, I
Speaker 2: finally asked them, so why do you keep breaking all
Speaker 2: this stuff? Because this does not make sense. He said, well,
Speaker 2: we don't need anybody else over here. It's just the
Speaker 2: three of us. I said, but what if we have
Speaker 2: a party or a company. We're not having a party.
Speaker 2: We're not having company.
Speaker 4: Mildred says John's erratic moods took a huge mental toll
Speaker 4: on her. She was already raising a child and working
Speaker 4: full time, and she was trying to cope with John's
Speaker 4: strange behavior, but it was becoming harder and harder. Still.
Speaker 4: He had never turned his anger towards her directly until
Speaker 4: one afternoon when they went to a nearby park.
Speaker 2: And this park you could rent a boat. I said,
Speaker 2: you know, I want to get a boat so little
Speaker 2: John can ride in the boat and see what that's like.
Speaker 2: He turned to me with the coldest look in his eyes,
Speaker 2: was just empty, and he said, we're not going to
Speaker 2: do that. Scared me and I just shut down. It
Speaker 2: was painful the way he looked at me and talked
Speaker 2: to me. He never done that before ever. So we
Speaker 2: went home and I went straight to the bathroom and
Speaker 2: locked the door, and I stayed in there all day.
Speaker 2: I didn't get anything to eat, I didn't get anything
Speaker 2: to drink. I was so hurt. I was just devastated.
Speaker 2: I was hurt. I could hear little John at the
Speaker 2: door crying, Mommy, please come out, Mommy, please come out.
Speaker 2: I drew a bath, I sat in the tub, and
Speaker 2: so when I finally did come out, he was sleeping
Speaker 2: on the floor right by the door, and he woke
Speaker 2: up and looked at me. He said, Mommy, you're okay,
Speaker 2: saying Mommy's fine. Now, said Mommy scared me. I say,
Speaker 2: don't ever be scared of me. I just needed some
Speaker 2: time to myself.
Speaker 4: How did John respond? How did you respond to John?
Speaker 2: He waited until that morning and came and apologized to
Speaker 2: me and said he didn't know what came over him,
Speaker 2: and he was really sorry. I said, don't you ever
Speaker 2: ever talk to me like that again.
Speaker 4: The relationship normalized for a while. It was now early
Speaker 4: in nineteen ninety three, and the family was back in Tacoma, Washington.
Speaker 4: They'd had a daughter, Selena, and Mildred was pregnant with
Speaker 4: their second daughter, Taliba. On the surface, things look calm,
Speaker 4: but John was growing more disillusioned with the military, and
Speaker 4: he'd gotten into trouble again.
Speaker 2: John was brought up on charges for threatening to kill
Speaker 2: his first sergeant. He told the first sergeant, I'll kill you,
Speaker 2: your wife, and everybody in their line. He had an attorney,
Speaker 2: military attorney. We went in to talk to her about
Speaker 2: the case, and as they're talking, she looks at me
Speaker 2: and she says, you don't know anything that's going on,
Speaker 2: do you? I say no, am I done? And so
Speaker 2: she asked him, why haven't you told your wife what's
Speaker 2: going on with this case? He said, because she's a
Speaker 2: part of the establishment and she doesn't have my back.
Speaker 2: What has she done to make you feel that way?
Speaker 2: And he said nothing, I just don't want her to know.
Speaker 4: According to Mildred.
Speaker 2: What turned the case was the defense attorney was asking
Speaker 2: the first sergeant what happened and he couldn't recall, and
Speaker 2: so the verdict came back not guilty. John was happy.
Speaker 2: He said he knew that he was not going to
Speaker 2: be found guilty, and he apologized for not telling me
Speaker 2: about the whole case, but he said, because you were
Speaker 2: pregnant with Taliba, and I didn't want those emotions to
Speaker 2: affect our child.
Speaker 4: Eventually, in nineteen ninety four, John was honorably discharged from
Speaker 4: the military. During this period, John and Mildred had also
Speaker 4: been introduced to the name of Islam. The Nation is
Speaker 4: an African American religious and political group based on the
Speaker 4: Muslim faith. It was started in the nineteen thirties and
Speaker 4: then was popularized by Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali. Mildred
Speaker 4: converted first in nineteen ninety six and John followed in
Speaker 4: nineteen ninety seven. The Nation of Islam has been heavily
Speaker 4: criticized for promoting anti white and anti Semitic ideology, but
Speaker 4: Mildred says the Nation does not teach people to hate
Speaker 4: those of other races or beliefs. Rather, it helped her
Speaker 4: understand her role as a black woman in society, and
Speaker 4: it gave her greater insight into the Bible and the Koran.
Speaker 2: Everyone has their own spiritual path, and that was the
Speaker 2: one that I chose because I needed clarity on who
Speaker 2: God is, where is my position, who I am, and
Speaker 2: where I needed to be and the type of mother
Speaker 2: that I wanted to be to my children. So with
Speaker 2: him join us a year later, then that was just
Speaker 2: what he decided to do. And then he would go
Speaker 2: to the brother's meetings and do what they do.
Speaker 4: After John left the military, he needed work. They decided
Speaker 4: to use John's background fixing vehicles in the military to
Speaker 4: start a unique auto mechanic business. Instead of operating from
Speaker 4: a shop, John would go directly to the customer's car.
Speaker 4: He would either work on it there or take it
Speaker 4: back to his home garage. The business started off well,
Speaker 4: but John and Mildred needed help with the bookkeeping.
Speaker 3: I was working one day and a woman walks through
Speaker 3: my door. Her name was Mildred Muhammad.
Speaker 6: She was the.
Speaker 3: Spouse of John Muhammad. They just converted from Williams to muhammad.
Speaker 4: Is and Nichols ran a business development at accounting company.
Speaker 4: Mildred saw an ad for it and sought her out specifically.
Speaker 3: I would say probably an hour and a half. In
Speaker 3: two our meeting for the first time, she wanted to
Speaker 3: do business with me. They had started a business of
Speaker 3: repairing cars. The second meeting was to do more of
Speaker 3: an intake with them, and so her husband was present
Speaker 3: at our second meeting.
Speaker 4: This is when Isa met John for the first time.
Speaker 3: And he walked in the door. He was very tall,
Speaker 3: quite handsome, and had a very hard handshake, very direct
Speaker 3: look you straight in the eye. Short haircut, you can
Speaker 3: tell he had been in the military. Very polite, called
Speaker 3: me sister, which is a term of endearment in the
Speaker 3: black community. He was very glad to meet me. He
Speaker 3: was very glad to be doing business with another sister.
Speaker 3: Mildred Muhammad was the administrator. She was the one who
Speaker 3: would be dispatching and taking the calls for services, and
Speaker 3: John would go out and do the work. Mildred and
Speaker 3: I usually were the ones talking. We became friends more so,
Speaker 3: and John and I we had some commonalities. Her husband
Speaker 3: was stationed at Fort Lewis. My husband was stationed at
Speaker 3: Fort Lewis. She related to her husband. She was very respectful.
Speaker 3: She was very humble with him. He referred to her
Speaker 3: as his wife, his loving wife. Very promising in the beginning.
Speaker 4: But soon Isa began to notice things about John and
Speaker 4: Mildred's relationship, strange things. And the summer of nineteen ninety seven,
Speaker 4: John's son from his previous marriage, Lindbergh, came to visit
Speaker 4: Tacoma from Louisiana.
Speaker 3: He didn't want to return home. He said there was
Speaker 3: abuse in different things and he was afraid to go
Speaker 3: back home. Mildred talked to me about it in terms
Speaker 3: of what should she do, and I said, you're going
Speaker 3: to have to send him back to his mother.
Speaker 4: Mildred says John was adamant that they keep Lindbergh. John
Speaker 4: was worried that Lindbergh really was being abused in Louisiana,
Speaker 4: so he got a lawyer and went to court, hoping
Speaker 4: to gain custody of Lindberg.
Speaker 2: And I said to him, what you're doing is wrong.
Speaker 2: Carol was calling and he wouldn't talk to her. I said,
Speaker 2: you need to talk to her. This is not your
Speaker 2: decision to make on your own, and you need to
Speaker 2: get some background as to what is really happening with Lindberg.
Speaker 4: But when John went to court, the judge in Washington
Speaker 4: said that he didn't have jurisdiction, and so John had
Speaker 4: to send Lindbergh back home.
Speaker 2: So that night I came back from a mosque meeting
Speaker 2: and John had this huge scuffle bag as long as
Speaker 2: a twin bed packing. John, Selena, and Taliba were just
Speaker 2: sitting on a bed and Limbert too, And I said,
Speaker 2: so what's going on here? He said, well, I'm running
Speaker 2: with Lynn. No you're not. Why would you need to
Speaker 2: run with Lynn because he's being abused and I need
Speaker 2: to protect him. I say, but the judge said, he
Speaker 2: needs to go home tomorrow, and you're gonna run with
Speaker 2: him and leave me and the children destitute. Is that
Speaker 2: what you're telling me? Well, I just need to protect
Speaker 2: my son, and say, no, you need to take Lynn back,
Speaker 2: and he's leaving tomorrow. So I took Lynn and the children.
Speaker 2: We went in the second bedroom and I locked the door,
Speaker 2: and I packed Lin's bag and I sat on the
Speaker 2: floor with my back to the door so that he
Speaker 2: could not get in. And when daylight came, we all
Speaker 2: got dressed and we got in the car and John
Speaker 2: was sitting on the sofa and when we passed by,
Speaker 2: I said, are you coming to the airport to see
Speaker 2: your son off? And he said yeah. So I drove
Speaker 2: the children in the back, laughing and talking with Lynn,
Speaker 2: and the whole time he's just looking straight ahead. So
Speaker 2: we checked him in. We walked him to the gate,
Speaker 2: and we watched the plane take off, and John did
Speaker 2: a right face, just like he was in the military,
Speaker 2: just the right face, and walked off. And when we
Speaker 2: got back in the car and he said, you didn't
Speaker 2: have my back. I said, I was not about to
Speaker 2: watch you take limbird away from her for no reason.
Speaker 2: And that is when the relationship changed.
Speaker 4: The incident with Lindbergh was just the beginning. Soon other
Speaker 4: people began to notice odd things about John and Mildred's relationship.
Speaker 5: They didn't fight a lot, but they did fight. Sure,
Speaker 5: there was a couple of times that it would be
Speaker 5: right there and you would just kind of hear the
Speaker 5: attitude in the voices.
Speaker 4: This is Felix Strojer in Tacoma. He and John had
Speaker 4: opened a martial arts business together. Felix was the martial
Speaker 4: artist and John was the businessman. Mildred helped out with
Speaker 4: the bookkeeping, so Felix regularly saw the couple interact.
Speaker 5: You know, I think that they kept a lot of
Speaker 5: this stuff hit. I knew that they had problems, but
Speaker 5: not to the extent that it went it went too far.
Speaker 4: Despite the tension with Mildred, Felix says that John loved
Speaker 4: his kids more than anything.
Speaker 5: I remember one of them he would always have in
Speaker 5: his arms. Any little kid sometime will start to play
Speaker 5: in class or something. But the thing is all John
Speaker 5: would have to do is just look their eyes just
Speaker 5: had to meet a little John knew to just get
Speaker 5: it together. I never seen him spank him or anything,
Speaker 5: but when I did see the eye contact, I knew
Speaker 5: that it had been some work to make that happen.
Speaker 5: You know, little kids, they have to learn to look
Speaker 5: for that look. But I think he had a good
Speaker 5: relationship with him. He loved him.
Speaker 4: But Felix says that John also had a darker side.
Speaker 4: On one occasion, Felix noticed that John had taken a
Speaker 4: liking to a young female student, and then she stopped
Speaker 4: coming to class, presumably to avoid John. Even still, Felix
Speaker 4: says that John would go over to her house.
Speaker 5: This might have been something that I should have paid
Speaker 5: attention to, because if I remember right, it was almost
Speaker 5: like in a stalking way. I believe that she said
Speaker 5: that he would show up when he wanted to. That
Speaker 5: was a problem. I misread his character. He had some issues.
Speaker 4: Those issues would become consistent and soon escalate even further.
Speaker 4: Here's Icea Nichols again.
Speaker 3: After the third year of being their client, it became
Speaker 3: apparent to me that there were some tensions going on
Speaker 3: with John and Mildrid. Through the business. There were calls
Speaker 3: from clients that John was missing appointments. Milder didn't know
Speaker 3: his whereabouts, why he was missing appointments. He would be gone.
Speaker 3: She had a list where he was supposed to go
Speaker 3: for the day, and then she started getting phone calls
Speaker 3: him not being there, then waiting for him to rive.
Speaker 3: All of this information I got from Mildred telling me
Speaker 3: about calls she received. One of those calls was from
Speaker 3: a woman who wanted to speak to the owner. The
Speaker 3: woman told Mildred that she wanted to report inappropriate sexual
Speaker 3: advances made to her from John for repair of the car.
Speaker 3: So now there's an ineducation that there's infidelity. This woman
Speaker 3: is calling saying that John is making sexual advances toward
Speaker 3: her in lieu of payment. She reaches out to me
Speaker 3: because she trusts me business consultant. This is a business issue,
Speaker 3: and she was like, well what do I do? This
Speaker 3: is serious, And I said, well, you have to talk
Speaker 3: to your husband. You have to make him aware of
Speaker 3: this client calling with this information. For Mildred, this is
Speaker 3: her husband, father of her children. She's devastated. She didn't
Speaker 3: know how to handle it. She emotionally reached out to
Speaker 3: me because she was hurt and because she also as
Speaker 3: a businesswoman had to respond to this woman.
Speaker 4: Mildred wasn't comfortable talking to the young woman who made
Speaker 4: these claims, so Mildred asked her friend Stanley to go
Speaker 4: investigate for her.
Speaker 2: So he went and talk to the young lady and
Speaker 2: she said that John had been over there all the time,
Speaker 2: spent Christmas, in Thanksgiving, and even the little boy, who
Speaker 2: was I think three or four knew him. He came
Speaker 2: back to me, he says, so, Mildred, this is what
Speaker 2: I found out. So what we're going to do? I said, well,
Speaker 2: what we're going to do is we want to confront
Speaker 2: John because I still got a on his business.
Speaker 4: So Mildred finally approached John and he said.
Speaker 2: Oh, she's lying, She's this, she's that. But I didn't
Speaker 2: believe him. I asked him for a divorce. I said,
Speaker 2: you acting free, you may as well be free.
Speaker 4: They agreed to separate, but John didn't want a divorce,
Speaker 4: and although they hadn't settled on rules for seeing the kids,
Speaker 4: John moved out.
Speaker 2: Of the house, but he still had a key to
Speaker 2: the house, so he would come in in the middle
Speaker 2: of the night. I could hear the key going in
Speaker 2: the door. He would walk back to the bedroom. So
Speaker 2: I opened my eye to a slither. Watch him walk
Speaker 2: into the room from one side of the bed to
Speaker 2: the other, lean over to listen to me breathe stand
Speaker 2: up and leave out of the room. He did that
Speaker 2: three times. The third time, Taliba woke up and said Daddy,
Speaker 2: and he picks her up and says, here's Taliba, and
Speaker 2: then he leaves. So that's when I decided to get
Speaker 2: the locks changed.
Speaker 4: Even though they were separated, Mildred and John tried to
Speaker 4: make the mechanic business work, but soon it began to
Speaker 4: fall apart. Here's Ion Nichols again.
Speaker 3: I got a call from Mildred. She wanted to inform
Speaker 3: me that they were no longer be able to afford
Speaker 3: to utilize my services anymore. I felt really sad. She says,
Speaker 3: we're not making the money. She says, I don't know
Speaker 3: where John is half the time. She's told me that
Speaker 3: he sometimes will leave for two three days. I don't
Speaker 3: have any more control, and so she didn't know how
Speaker 3: the business would survive without John.
Speaker 4: Mildred says the mechanic business was no longer important to John.
Speaker 4: All he cared about was getting back into the house
Speaker 4: and back into the family, and he was determined. On
Speaker 4: one faithful night, Mildred learned how dangerous her husband truly was.
Speaker 2: He came over and said, we need to talk. My
Speaker 2: brother was there, so I felt I was safe. We
Speaker 2: go into garage, so he says, you are not going
Speaker 2: to raise my children by yourself. John said you have
Speaker 2: become my enemy, and as my enemy, I will kill you.
Speaker 2: I said, well, I've been sleeping with the enemy all
Speaker 2: this time. What else you're gonna do? He charges at me.
Speaker 2: I ran around him into the house where my brother
Speaker 2: was and he leaves and I tell my brother. I said,
Speaker 2: John's going to kill me. It's going to kill me.
Speaker 2: He said, girl, John not going to kill you. I
Speaker 2: never went till my brother again for help because he
Speaker 2: didn't believe me. John's mottel was one shot, one killed
Speaker 2: to the head, never leave an enemy behind. He was
Speaker 2: a man of his word. He was going to kill me,
Speaker 2: and it was going to be a headshot, and he
Speaker 2: was going to bury me where no one would be
Speaker 2: able to find me. And I could not get anybody
Speaker 2: to believe me. Nobody.
Speaker 4: Mildred was thoroughly terrified of John. She went to the
Speaker 4: courthouse the next morning to get a restraining order against him.
Speaker 2: Judge say, you really need to get away from this guy.
Speaker 2: I say, your honor, I am really trying to do that.
Speaker 2: He saw the escalation in how dangerous John was for me,
Speaker 2: and he gave me a lifetime restraining order, but still
Speaker 2: had to have visitation with the children. So we had
Speaker 2: to set up for someone to pick up the children
Speaker 2: and take them to John and bring them back, and
Speaker 2: so we found somebody to do that. The first weekend
Speaker 2: went fine. Second weekend was my mom's birthday, March to
Speaker 2: twenty seven, I.
Speaker 4: Said Nichols dropped in that evening to see Mildred and
Speaker 4: to tell her mother Happy birthday.
Speaker 3: I expect to see the children. I expected to see Mom.
Speaker 3: I expected to see John. When I got there, the
Speaker 3: children weren't there. John wasn't there. Mildred's mother was in
Speaker 3: the back room, and her brother was there, who was
Speaker 3: a truck driver and he was in town. So I
Speaker 3: got in and I took my shoes off, and I said, Hey,
Speaker 3: how's it going. She's like, well, it's my mom's birthday
Speaker 3: and we're waiting on John to bring the children back.
Speaker 3: They should have been back by now. And I said okay,
Speaker 3: So you know, I kick off my shoes and I
Speaker 3: sit on the couch and I wait with her. When
Speaker 3: her brother left, she sits down and she tells me
Speaker 3: at that time that they were separated. She told me
Speaker 3: that John would come and get the children on the weekend,
Speaker 3: and she told me that she was filing for a divorce.
Speaker 3: She told me she had problems because John was trying
Speaker 3: to get back with her, meaning to stop her filing
Speaker 3: of the divorce. She shared with me times that he
Speaker 3: was angry and forced his way into the house. Time
Speaker 3: had went by. It's six o'clock. I've been there a
Speaker 3: couple of hours, and it's at that point I feel
Speaker 3: the tension.
Speaker 4: Mildred was getting worried. The children were supposed to be
Speaker 4: home hours ago and she hadn't heard from John.
Speaker 2: We didn't have cell phones back then like we do now.
Speaker 2: We had pagers. So I'm blown up his pager seven
Speaker 2: point thirty. He calls. My son is on the line.
Speaker 2: I said to asks your dad, what time are you
Speaker 2: coming home? Say mom? Dad said we'll be there in
Speaker 2: an hour. I said, where are you anyway? He said, well,
Speaker 2: we're at kmart, which was literally fifteen minutes away. When
Speaker 2: eight thirty comes, no children blowing up his pageer Again,
Speaker 2: at eleven thirty five pm, he calls and he says,
Speaker 2: we're en route from Seattle, will be there shortly.
Speaker 3: She hung up that phone and she looked at me
Speaker 3: and she said something is wrong. Something is wrong, and
Speaker 3: she began to pace back and forth. I know now
Speaker 3: that something really is wrong because of what she just
Speaker 3: shared with me. I stayed at their house till ten o'clock,
Speaker 3: almost eleven o'clock, Mildred's making phone calls asking people have
Speaker 3: they seen John and the children. I go home. I
Speaker 3: call her one more time before I got ready to
Speaker 3: go to bed. I lived there, and she says no,
Speaker 3: She says, my children are gone. I said, what do
Speaker 3: you mean? She said, my children are gone. He took them.
Speaker 4: The children never came home that night. The next morning,
Speaker 4: Mildred started calling around looking for them.
Speaker 2: So I'm thinking maybe he took the children to school.
Speaker 2: Because it's a Monday. Went to the school. I talked
Speaker 2: to secretary. She said, no, Mammy, your children have not
Speaker 2: checked in. She looked at me because every time they
Speaker 2: saw me I was smiling. I wasn't smiling. I said,
Speaker 2: this was Mohammy, what's the matter. And it was the
Speaker 2: first time I cried. I say, John took the children,
Speaker 2: and she said, let's go in the bathroom, wash your face,
Speaker 2: go home, call the police.
Speaker 4: Mildred did go home, and her mom was waiting for her,
Speaker 4: hoping for some good news.
Speaker 2: And when she saw me come around the corner without
Speaker 2: my children, she let out a scream. I had never
Speaker 2: heard my mother's scream before, and I ran to her
Speaker 2: before she hit the ground because she was she was
Speaker 2: going there, and she said, he took out babies.
Speaker 4: He took us babies.
Speaker 2: I said, I know mine, So what are we gonna do?
Speaker 2: I said, I don't know, but I'm gonna do something.
Speaker 2: So I called the police.
Speaker 3: They took a report. She gave them pictures of her children.
Speaker 3: John had taken the children and vanished.
Speaker 4: The police told Mildred that since John had shared custody
Speaker 4: of the children, the incident couldn't be filed as a kidnapping.
Speaker 4: John had just as much right to the kids as
Speaker 4: she did, and that meant there would be no criminal investigation.
Speaker 3: She's learning all of this, and she aspirally emotionally every
Speaker 3: day because she doesn't know where her babies are. Then
Speaker 3: John began to call her, and he began in this crazy,
Speaker 3: diabolical take me back or you won't never see the children.
Speaker 3: That's when it began. She would plead John, please just
Speaker 3: bring the children back, and he would constantly hold those
Speaker 3: children and threatened that she would never see the children
Speaker 3: again if she didn't take him back. Over time, we
Speaker 3: find out that this was strategic. John had taken money
Speaker 3: out of the accounts, emptied them out, emptied the children's savings.
Speaker 3: Accounts out that he had actually planned this, and here
Speaker 3: he has the money, he has the children, and she
Speaker 3: has nothing.
Speaker 4: Mildred says she got so depressed that she lost all
Speaker 4: desire to eat.
Speaker 2: I was eating half a slice of bread and crushed ice.
Speaker 2: That was it, just enough to sustain me. I was
Speaker 2: signing for a package from my mom on Mother's Day and.
Speaker 4: I passed out. Shortly thereafter, ISA got a phone call.
Speaker 3: And it's from Mildred's mon and Mildred's mom says that
Speaker 3: Mildred's in the hospital and if I could go and
Speaker 3: check on Mildred for her. I go, and Mildred's in
Speaker 3: the emergency room. I walk into the room and I
Speaker 3: see Mildred and I grab her hand and she opens
Speaker 3: her eyes. She looks at me, and she starts apologizing
Speaker 3: to me. She starts crying, saying she's sorry. I tried
Speaker 3: to take care of myself. I tried because those are
Speaker 3: the things that I would talk to her about. It's like,
Speaker 3: where are you're gonna be when the children are found?
Speaker 3: Are you going to be in the psych ward? She
Speaker 3: just was surviving. The phone rings. Mildred answers the phone
Speaker 3: and it's John. Mildred is hooked up the ivs and
Speaker 3: monitors and it's John on the phone. She's screaming, and
Speaker 3: let me see the children. John, please don't take the children.
Speaker 3: He's saying, take me back. If I don't get to
Speaker 3: come back home, you don't get to see the children.
Speaker 3: And she's screaming and she's begging, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: she flips out. The ivs are coming out of her arms,
Speaker 3: the monitors are going crazy, beeping and stuff, and the
Speaker 3: staff comes into the room. I'm backed up against the
Speaker 3: corner while they work on her and calm her down.
Speaker 3: They end up giving her a sedative and she finally
Speaker 3: is sedated enough where she's not kicking and screaming. And
Speaker 3: they have to put those things back in her arm
Speaker 3: because she had pulled them out. She was so scared.
Speaker 4: Mildred was in her lowest place. She hadn't seen or
Speaker 4: heard from her children in nearly two months, and she
Speaker 4: was about to learn that her life was in serious danger.
Speaker 2: My mother called the hospital shortly thereafter and told them
Speaker 2: that John just called her and said he was on
Speaker 2: his way to the hospital to kill me. A social
Speaker 2: worker came and said, you can't go back home because
Speaker 2: we have to put you in hiding so that John
Speaker 2: will not find and kill you. So they waited till
Speaker 2: it got dark, brought me to close, took me out
Speaker 2: of the back door of the hospital. They told me
Speaker 2: I needed to slouch down in the car so no
Speaker 2: one could see that I was in the car. But
Speaker 2: I watched the rooftops and I was watching the open
Speaker 2: windows because I knew it was going to be a headshot,
Speaker 2: just as sure as I'm sitting here talking to you,
Speaker 2: I knew it was going to be a headshot.
Speaker 4: Mildred made it safely to a shelter. She stayed there
Speaker 4: for a few months before relocating to Maryland to stay
Speaker 4: with some family. It appeared as though John was nowhere
Speaker 4: to be found, So where was he and where were
Speaker 4: the children? It seemed like nobody knew, But thousands of
Speaker 4: miles away someone did know. The Jamaican boy whose fingerprints
Speaker 4: had been found during the Sniper investigation, Lee boyd Malvo.
Speaker 5: He gave me his time.
Speaker 2: He was consistent, even though the consistency was maive.
Speaker 5: He was consistent.
Speaker 4: Next time on Monster DC Sniper.
Speaker 7: This is a very rare time where you're able to
Speaker 7: understand how an individual develops from the day he's born
Speaker 7: to the day he was arrested for one of the
Speaker 7: most sensational crimes of modern time.
Speaker 6: All over the world, who are fatherless, who are not
Speaker 6: in school, who have no role model, who feel like
Speaker 6: they have no purpose, it's so easy for a gang
Speaker 6: leader or even an organization like Isis to recruit and
Speaker 6: to give them a sense of purpose.
Speaker 7: He didn't have his parents, he didn't have any structure,
Speaker 7: and all he had was instability.
Speaker 3: I mean, I have no one.
Speaker 5: If I off of a bridge that they know and
Speaker 5: get them.
Speaker 7: So it probably had a traumatic impact on him knowing
Speaker 7: that this was going to be how my life is.
Speaker 2: I'm going to.
Speaker 4: Find a way because if I don't find a way.
Speaker 2: I'm let.
Speaker 1: Monster DC Sniper is a fifteen episode podcast hosted by
Speaker 1: Tony Harris and produced by iHeartRadio and Tenderfoot TV. Matt
Speaker 1: Frederick and Alex Williams are executive producers on behalf of
Speaker 1: iHeart Radio, alongside producers Trevor Young, ben Keebrick, and Josh Thain.
Speaker 1: Payne Lindsay and Donald Albright are executive producers on behalf
Speaker 1: of Tenderfoot TV, alongside producers Meredith Stedman and Christina Dana.
Speaker 1: Original music is by Makeup and Vanity Set. The audio
Speaker 1: you heard of Lee Boyd Malvow in this episode comes
Speaker 1: from a twenty twelve interview by journalist Josh White. That
Speaker 1: audio was provided courtesy of The Washington Post. If you
Speaker 1: haven't already, be sure to check out the first two seasons,
Speaker 1: Atlanta Monster and Monster the Zodiac Killer. If you have
Speaker 1: questions or comments, email us at Monster at iHeartMedia dot com,
Speaker 1: or you can call us at one eight three, three,
Speaker 1: two eight five six six sixty seven. Thanks for listening.