MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Md. (WUSA9) --The deadly shootings in Montgomery County reminded many of the DC sniper shootings in 2002. There were eerie and frightening similarities.
When the second shooting happened about an hour later at Northgate shopping center, it suddenly seemed all too familiar. A woman was fatally shot in the parking lot of a Giant Food grocery store. It seemed completely random, and, now, so did the first one outside of Montgomery Mall where three people were shot; one man would die.
During three weeks in October of 2002, John Mohammad, 42, and his accomplice Lee Boyd Malvo, 17, terrorized the Washington DC region.
They shot and killed 10 people in DC Virginia and Maryland. Three more were critically injured. Some of the attacks happened in Aspen Hill, Maryland. One man was shot while mowing the lawn, others were shot in store parking lots. Others were pumping gas. They were all killed doing everyday things.
As terror gripped the region, gas station owners put up bedsheets so that people could pump without being seen.
A false alert went out for a white van and people were calling police about white vans everywhere. The site of a white van could stop you in your tracks.
But the snipers were in a 1990 blue Caprice sedan, sniper's nest fashioned in the trunk so when they fired, no one would see them.
The biggest difference? In 2002, authorities had no suspect. This time, they did. He was apprehended at the Northgate shopping center. The same shopping center where the DC snipers shot out a window at the Michaels store.
Strangely, the restaurant the Boston Market played a role in both events. This time the suspect was seen there and it led to his arrest. It's the same restaurant where Mohammad and Malvo ate lunch while a frantic region searched desperately for the unknown killers, hoping there would be no more shootings.
Around the corner from the Northgate shopping center is a gas station where Premkumar Walekar, taxicab driver, was shot and killed while filling up his car with gas on October 3, 2002.
The DC snipers we're finally apprehended after three long violent weeks in October. This time, a suspect has been caught and is in custody before fear would grip the region.
Muhammad and Malvo killed seven people in other states before the DC region shooting spree. They were both convicted; Mohammed was executed in Virginia in 2009 and Malvo is serving several life prison sentences.
