Police in Maryland have made two arrests at a highway rest stop in connection to the Washington-area sniper case, CNN television said early on Thursday quoting sources listening to police scanners.
Two men were arrested near Middletown, Maryland, some 80 kilometres northwest of here, CNN said.
Another source told CNN the people arrested included the suspect for whom Montgomery County Police Chief Charles Moose late on Wednesday said an arrest warrant had been issued for firearms violations.
The two men detained were John Allen Muhammad, also known as John Allen Williams, a black male 42 years of age, who the network said was a Gulf War veteran, and John Lee Malvo, William’s 17-year-old stepson.
Tipped off by a witness, police found them sleeping inside a blue and burgundy Chevrolet sedan with New Jersey license plates, which Moose had also identified as the vehicle the pair was travelling in, the source said.
They made no struggle when they were apprehended, the source. Maryland police were expected to hold a press conference shortly.
The area around Interstate 70, near where the multiple arrests took place, is under police control with helicopters buzzing overhead, CNN said.
An 11-kilometre stretch of the highway has been closed to traffic, the sources added.
The events in Middletown followed a busy day on Wednesday in the sniper investigation. After police in Montgomery County, Maryland, confirmed that a 35-year-old bus driver shot on Tuesday was the sniper’s 10th fatal victim after examining ballistic evidence, local and federal police in Tacoma, Washington, searched a private yard where they removed a tree stump where bullets may have been embedded.
Experts speculated the tree stump could have been used for target practice. Neighbours reported hearing frequent gunfire coming from the house in December and January when it was occupied by a previous owner.
Reports said that at least one previous resident of the home was a former soldier from the nearby Fort Lewis US army base, which is home to 21 000 troops.
Police chief Moose late on Wednesday told reporters that an arrest warrant had been issued for Muhammad for firearms violations unrelated to the sniper case, but who was sought for questioning in the case.
Moose said Muhammad was to be considered ”armed and dangerous,” but stressed that the change of ”alleged violation of federal firearms laws” and were not related to the sniper shootings.
However, he added, ”we believe Mr Muhammad may have information related to our investigation.” Media reports early on Thursday indicated that investigators were also seeking a possible connection between the Washington sniper and the fatal shooting of a woman in the state of Alabama in late September.
The 52-year-old woman was killed on September 21 outside the state liquor store she worked in Montgomery, Alabama, and another 24-year-old woman was also shot and wounded, CNN said, quoting law enforcement officials.
Police in Alabama are looking for a black male suspect between 1,72 and 1,78 meters in height, CNN said.
Federal law enforcement officials believe there is a connection and the sniper murders in the Washington area — where ten people have been killed and three have been wounded since October 2, CNN said.
The Baltimore Sun daily on Thursday appeared to draw a relation between Williams and Malvo, the murder in Alabama and the search in Tacoma, Washington.
The newspaper said that investigators have linked them to the double-shooting in Alabama through a fingerprint. Both suspects, the daily said, lived together at a Tacoma, Washington, house before moving cross-country. The tip that led to Williams came from somebody in the Tacoma area who called the police, the Sun said.
Williams, the daily said was sought for a shoplifting offence in Tacoma and on a federal firearms warrant unrelated to the sniper shootings.
Malvo is wanted on a material witness warrant sealed in a US District Court, the daily added. Another break in the case, the Sun said, came at the end of a call the sniper made to police, when he told them ”check with the people in Montgomery (Alabama),” or words to that effect.
The daily said police checked every shooting that occurred recently in Montgomery and found the liquor store shooting involved the same calibre ammunition used by the Washington-area sniper. – Sapa-AFP