Witness in Sniper Trial Recalls Close Call

ROCKVILLE, Md. - The curly hair of the one-time middle schooler is now cut short, his frame is bigger and he is thinking about college. A high school junior, Iran Brown, 17, dreams of playing basketball at Duke University.

But Brown clearly remembers Oct. 7, 2002, when the then 13-year-old was shot as he walked in front of Benjamin Tasker Middle School in Bowie, the eighth victim of the Washington area sniper. The bullet destroyed most of his stomach and some of his spleen, and left him terrified as called out to his aunt for help.

"I was in pain," said Brown, who was struck below the chest, testifying Tuesday in sniper John Allen Muhammad's second trial for the sniper killings. "I couldn't breathe and I was scared."

Muhammad, who is acting as his own attorney, did not ask any questions.

Brown was the second person to survive a sniper shooting who spoke at Muhammad's trial Tuesday. Caroline Seawell recalled being shot in the back Oct. 4, 2002, as she loaded Halloween decorations into her minivan in the parking lot of a Fredericksburg, Va. shopping center.

Seawell, who remained conscious as she waited for paramedics to arrive, calmly told the Montgomery County jury how the bullet passed through her chest and struck her minivan. Using a laser pointer, she explained photos of her bloody body lying on a hospital bed, saying her lung and liver were badly damaged.

"I dropped to the ground and prayed that God would let me live so that I could take care of my kids," Seawell, who has two children, said of the moment she was hit.

Muhammad asked Seawell only a few questions, such as whether she heard the shot or saw where the bullet came from.

Prosecutors are building a chronological case against Muhammad, detailing the 10 sniper murders and three woundings that began Oct. 2 and ended with Muhammad and accomplice Lee Boyd Malvo's arrest three weeks later. Muhammad is charged with six Maryland murders, but prosecutors are detailing other shootings to establish a pattern.

Muhammad is already on death row in Virginia for a Manassas, Va. sniper killing and Malvo is serving a life term for another Virginia murder. Maryland prosecutors bill the new trial as insurance in case Muhammad's Virginia conviction is overturned.

But Iran Brown's uncle, Jerome Brown, questioned whether it was necessary to keep trying sniper cases.

"How many times do we have to relive this nightmare? I know he (Iran Brown) doesn't want to be here. We don't want to go over this again and again," Jerome Brown said after his nephew's testimony.

Evidence was also presented Tuesday in the Oct. 3 murder of Pascal Charlot at a Washington, D.C. intersection. Charlot was the last of five people killed that day by sniper bullets.

A police officer testified he stopped Muhammad for running two stop signs near the intersection just two hours before the shooting. And two people who worked at Jamaican restaurant at the shooting scene said they saw the Caprice slink away from the murder scene.

"There was something creepy to me, it looked out of place," said Karl Largie, who saw the Caprice before and after the shooting.

Muhammad tried to cast doubt on evidence linking the shootings to the type of high powered rifle found inside the Caprice when he and Malvo were arrested.

Two medical examiners testified that they believed the fatal wounds suffered by the victims were caused by a high powered rifle, noting telltale signs such as the size of the wounds caused by the bullets.

In his cross examinations, Muhammad prodded them repeatedly to say it was possible another type of weapon, such as a handgun, could have created similar wounds. In often confusing questions, he asked about bullet speeds for rifles and handguns, and whether they create the same type of injuries.

"A high velocity round, is that your opinion or is that a fact?" he asked Maryland Deputy Chief Medical Examiner Mary Ripple about the autopsy she conducted on six victims Muhammad is accused of murdering in Maryland. Ripple said her conclusions were opinion.

"We have opinion, and we have fact," Muhammad replied.

In all, he and Malvo were linked to 10 murders and three woundings in the Washington region. In Maryland, both are charged with killing James Martin, Walekar, James L. "Sonny" Buchanan, Sarah Ramos, Lori-Ann Lewis Rivera and Conrad Johnson. Malvo's trial is set for the fall.

The pair was also tied to murders in Louisiana, Georgia, Alabama and Washington state. --

Associated Press writer David Dishneau contributed to this report.

(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)