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Two men arrested in sniper case

Two men were arrested on Thursday in connection with the serial sniper attacks in Washington.

Members of the sniper task force arrested the men at 1249 IST in Frederick County, Maryland.

A motorist and an attendant at the rest stop called police at 1 am after they spotted the men inside one of the cars sought in the sniper investigation.

Hours earlier, police issued an arrest warrant for a man they believe may have information about the slayings.

Montgomery County Police Chief Charles Moose, who is leading the investigation, earlier listed John Allen Muhammad as a person they were seeking for questioning in the slayings.

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Members of the sniper task force arrested an ex-soldier and his stepson early Thursday at a freeway rest stop. Sources told CNN the two were considered suspects in the shootings that have killed 10 and wounded three in the Washington area.

Sources identified the two as John Allen Muhammad, 42 -- a Gulf War veteran named in a federal arrest warrant for firearms violations who was being sought as a material witness in the sniper case -- and his 17-year-old stepson John Lee Malvo, a Jamaican citizen.

They were taken to an undisclosed location in Montgomery County and questioned. The string of deadly shootings began in the county three weeks ago, and the most recent victim linked to the sniper was killed there Tuesday.

A federal search warrant was being sought, but one official told CNN no weapon was found in a preliminary check of the car.

Muhammad and Malvo were sleeping in a blue 1990 Chevrolet Caprice, which a motorist and attendant recognized as matching the description of a vehicle authorities were looking for -- a blue or burgundy 1990 Chevrolet Caprice with New Jersey license plate NDA 21Z.

The sighting was reported to police, who relayed the tip to the sniper task force, which dispatched officers to the scene some 50 miles northwest of Washington.

The rest area is along a seven-mile stretch of Interstate 70 near Myersville, Maryland, that had been shut down in a dragnet launched just a few hours earlier by Montgomery County Police Chief Charles Moose, the head of the sniper task force.

After the October 3 shooting of Pascal Charlot, 72, in Washington, D.C., law enforcement officials searched for a burgundy Chevrolet Caprice. One such car was later found burned out in the D.C. area, but it was never determined whether it had anything to do with the fatal shooting.

Agencies

EXTERNAL LINK:
Former soldier named in federal firearms warrant

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