Moose won't attend execution

WASHINGTON - The man at the center of the investigation for the sniper shootings says he won't be at John Allen Muhammad's execution Tuesday night.

"I don't think I will be personally interested. I have seen a lot of death and destruction and I don't think I am interested anymore," former Montgomery County Police Chief Charles Moose tells Channel 5.

Moose was the face of law enforcement during those three terrifying weeks in October 2002.

Muhammad is scheduled to be executed at 9 p.m. for the killing of Dean Harold Meyers at a Manassas gas station. Meyers is one of 10 people across Maryland, Virginia and the District killed by Muhammad and fellow sniper Lee Boyd Malvo.

Now retired and living in North Carolina, Moose, 53, says the experience changed him.

"I think the whole experience has shown me and changed me in the sense that I will always be forthright and open with information. I think that is the big lesson for me and one that I wish I would have known when I was 14-years-old. I would have lived my life differently."

But Moose is proud of how he and the police handled the 23-day standoff.

"Three weeks is a short amount of time I think for the kind of fear and death that we were facing. Would I have preferred that it would have been taken care of in one day, certainly, but at the same hand I feel like the three weeks was overly long that it was overly extensive investigation I don't fault us in that sense," Moose tells Channel 5.

Moose does have one regret -- the perception that he disliked the media.

"I appreciate and understand the role of the media, the necessity of law enforcement and the media work together. So this whole thing that I was angry with the media or didn't like the media or didn't understand the media, not that it matters, but I guess if there was something to clear up I would like to clear up the fact that I am smart enough to know the two need to work together," says Moose.

Moose who retired after writing a book, "Three Weeks in October," says he misses the men and women he served with, but is happy with his decision to retire.

(Copyright 2009 by WTOP. All Rights Reserved.)