The time of death echoed the first anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, when Muhammad and his young accomplice Lee Boyd Malvo wreaked such deadly havoc in the Washington, D.C., area.
According to Traylor, the prisoner was "very unemotional" as he was led into the execution chamber. "He seemed quiet and relaxed," said the official. "After he was placed on the gurney and strapped down, he was motionless."
And although Muhammad was given the chance to make a final statement, he declined. "He did not say anything," reported Traylor. "I did not hear him utter a word."
For some of the families of his many victims, the execution brought little sense of closure. Steven Moore, whose sister Linda Franklin was slain by Muhammad in Washington, greeted the news on CNN with no visible joy. "It's another life gone," he said, "this one deservedly so.... I don't feel any closure. The justice system has executed another prisoner who needs to be executed."
Others found a least a measure of solace in observing Muhammad's end. Cheryll Witz was among those who traveled to Viriginia to witness the procedure. Her father, Jerry Taylor, was killed on an Arizona golf course in March 2002 by Malvo.
"[Muhammad] basically watched my dad breathe his last breath," Witz told The Associated Press. "Why shouldn't I watch his last breath?"
Earlier in the day, as Bob Meyers made the long drive to the prison, he recalled the day seven years ago when he urged his brother to leave the Washington area. It was too dangerous to stay there, he argued, while the mysterious D.C. sniper remained on the loose."His comment was, 'There are millions of people down here. It's pretty unlikely I would be involved,'" Meyers said. But he finally relented, agreeing to return to the family home in rural Perkiomenville, Pa., for the weekend. He was set to leave early Friday morning.
"Unfortunately," Meyers said, "he didn't make it past Tuesday evening."
Dean Meyers, 53, was pumping gas in Manassas, Va., on Oct. 9, 2002, when he became the seventh of 10 people killed by Muhammad or Malvo in the Washington region.
In all, the sniping team would shoot 22 people, murdering 15 of them, in a deadly coast-to-coast spree that stretched from the Northwest to the deep South. But it was their three-week finale in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C., that jangled the capital region and the nation as it nervously marked the one-year anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. And it was Meyers' murder that led to Muhammad's conviction and his trip to Virginia's death chamber.
Meyers and his wife, Lori, were also among victims' family members who watched Muhammad die.
"Honestly, it was surreal watching the life being sapped out of somebody intentionally," said Meyers, 56, who works in a buildling material supply company. "I watched my mother die of natural causes, but that was very different.... It was a point of closure, I would say. But that pretty much was overcome by the sadness that the whole situation generates in my heart -- that [Muhammad] would get to the place where he did what he did, and it had come to this."
Also watching were Isa Nichols and her daughter Tamara. Eight months before the snipers struck fear into the nation's capital, the pair killed Keenya Cook at Nichols' home in Tacoma, Wash.
The murder remained a cold case until Nichols saw Muhammad's photo on TV as a suspect in the D.C. sniper shooting spree. That's when she realized Muhammad, who had repaired her car and whose children her daughter had baby-sat, had sent Malvo to target her for helping Mohammad's wife, Mildred, escape their abusive marriage. Cook, 21, answered the door instead on Feb. 16, 2002, and was shot point-blank. The teen, then 16, "later confessed it was his initiation shooting" under Muhammad's tutelage, Nichols said.
"For me, it's a process of justice being carried out," said Nichols, who has written a book, "Genesis: The Bullet Was Meant For Me: D.C. Sniper Story Untold." She said she is at peace with Malvo's sentence of life without parole because "he had the mind of a child who happened to be with a man who became diabolical."
Nichols flew across the country to witness Muhammad's execution because of Tamara, who discovered her cousin's body and is now 21. "She said, 'Mommy, I want to be there," Nichols said as she drove south on Interstate 95 toward the prison. "She said, 'I need closure.'"
