The Beltway Snipers

In 2001 something very interesting happened at a local golf course in Clearwater, Florida.

Now Josh knows this and many of our listeners know that about 18 months ago, I started my journey in a brand new sport for me - golf. It's been a ton of fun. I love it. It's good for me. It's been a fun challenge mentally.

And if you have played golf or you know someone who plays golf, something that I found fascinating early on is how aggressive golf culture can be. Because on the surface, it seems like such a relaxing sport and it is most of the time. But when people get angry in golf, it's usually for very small insignificant reasons and they get very angry.

So in 2001 in Clearwater, a gentleman by the name of Albert Michaelzik is playing golf by himself, enjoying a nice round, trying to relax from the pressures of life, when he hears a loud bang, and feels a sharp pain in his chest and back.

Albert said that he thought he had finally been hit by a golf ball. Because that's something that golfers are slightly afraid of. Even if you've never played, you know the pop culture reference if someone shouts "four!!!" it means there is a ball coming in your general direction.

So Albert's playing, he doesn't hear anyone shouting, he hears a distant bang and then feels a sharp pain in his chest and back. So he assumes he's been hit by golf ball. That is until he looks down and sees blood gushing out of his chest.

Cops are called, an ambulance arrives and they take Albert to the hospital and they save his life. And when he wakes up, they let him know: "Hey man, you were shot in the chest."

But this is where a great mystery for the city of Clearwater begins. Albert had no known enemies, he hadn't been arguing with anybody on the golf course, and to make the situation even more strange, out of all the witnesses who were present that day, nobody saw the shooter.

The thing that puzzled Clearwater authorities the most is that whoever took the shot had to have been hundreds of yards away. That leads investigators to believe that maybe it was a hunting accident. Somebody was shooting a rifle and they accidentally hit somebody on a golf course who's pretty far away.

Ultimately, no one came forward. No one was arrested, and no charges were filed. Albert Michaelzick had to live with the knowledge that he would never know who his shooter was.

That was until a year later when Albert found out that he was a survivor of a serial killer.

In 2002, for the entire entirety of the month of October, the American public were told to stay indoors or take shelter as they traveled to do mundane tasks because a serial killer armed with a sniper rifle was on the loose. Ordinary people going about their daily lives, pumping gas, buying groceries, walking their dogs were being gunned down by an unseen, invisible predator.

Over the course of almost 4 weeks, 10 people were killed and three others were critically injured by individuals that we now know as the Beltway Snipers. Two men by the name of John Alan Mohammed and Lee Boyd Malvo had spent the better part of the last two years training in marksmanship and retrofitting their blue Caprice car to be a traveling sniper station.

John Mohammed was born in 1960, but his accomplice Lee Malvo was only 17 years old. The two acquired a Bushmaster XM-15 high caliber rifle and modified a 1990 Chevrolet Caprice so that the license plate would move slightly to the side, providing 100% cover for their murders.

The terrifying thing about it is that all the victims were random. Every race, gender and age demographic were at risk of being shot, the vast majority of their victims were shot while pumping gas or walking outside a grocery store.

The first murder happened on October 2, 2002 around 6:30 PM. James Martin, who was a 55-year-old program analyst was shot and killed in a parking lot in Wheaton, Maryland. Very similar to the Florida man who was shot on the golf course, there were no suspects, no enemies and no eye witnesses. Local police thought that it was a drive-by shooting and an accidental wrong target by a local gang.

But the very next day chaos erupted. 16 hours after the initial murder, the two Beltway Snipers killed five more randomly selected innocent Americans. A landscaper was shot while mowing the grass. A taxi driver was shot while pumping gas. A nanny was shot sitting on a park bench. A housekeeper was shot while vacuuming her van. And a 72-year-old retiree was shot while walking down the road on his evening walk.

So at this point, it has become a national news story. People were keeping their kids home from school because there was no rhyme or reason to these murders. Josh and I were highschoolers when this happened and there was a sense of fear even in our own local community.

I remember vividly getting gas and seeing people hiding behind their driver side door while they pump the gas. Because you really didn't know where the next attack would be and you also have to keep in mind, this was a year after 9/11. So the country was already on high alert and feeling on edge.

After a month-long killing spree, the two killers were apprehended after a childhood friend called the FBI to let them know that he suspected his buddy John Mohammed was one of the killers.

Even if you have heard of this story before, one piece of information that wasn't widely reported on was that the killers were leaving encrypted letters just to the police. They would write these notes in a way that only police would understand using cop code.

At the time because it was so close to 9/11 the media loved to use the word terrorism. Which in a way this was. But when you consider the notes to the police and the randomness of the victims, what you essentially had were two very clever, highly intelligent serial killers.

After their apprehension, which they both were captured alive by the way, they were evaluated by government psychiatrists, and the follow up reports were kept classified and not turned over to a jury.

John Mohammed, the older killer received the death penalty while the 17-year-old Lee Melvo got life in prison. It was then that Melvo confessed that one of his targets that got away was an older gentleman on a Florida golf course.

Our Florida man, Albert Michaelzick found out who his attempted murderer was on national television. We're talking years after the attacks.

The Beltway Snipers are still considered to be not only one of the most prolific shooting sprees in American history, but also some of the most intelligent serial killers. The federal government has stated on multiple occasions that had the close friend not come forward, the murderers would have never been caught.