Talk:John Allen Muhammad

Reason for killings

I was just made aware of this tonight, since his wife told the story at Mizzou's (University of Missouri, Columbia) campus tonight. (thurs. sept 30, at 7pm) The reason for the killings is because he was after his wife. He had kidnapped their three children, and lost the trial for custody. He then decided to go after his wife. He proclaimed that he was innocent the whole time. The day of his execution hsi children asked to speak with him, but he never contacted them, and the execution went on that night. It was later revealed the reason he didn't speak to his children is for fear of being asked the question 'why?' because it would've broken him and the facade he put up to stay confident in his belief of his innocence would have crumbled.

Nobody knows definitively what the motive was, except for John Allen Muhammad (who is dead now). However, his wife is mentioned as a possible motive in many sources, and it sounds like a plausible one. Illegitimate Barrister (talk) 13:11, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Malvo Shooting helped get us into the Iraq War...

The single biggest accidental effect of the Malvo shootings gets ignored by everybody. The Senate debate on whether to go to war took place at the same time. War was declared on October 11, 2002. The Malvo shooting spree dominated the headlines and pushed the war debate completely off the front page of most newspapers for the entire debate. The last chance to oppose the war was lost in a sea of headlines screaming "SNIPER !!!" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.42.41.105 (talk) 21:09, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Please read the talk page guidelines. Illegitimate Barrister (talk) 13:10, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Serial killer

I see no reason why he isn't a serial killer. There is no rule stating that someone cannot be both spree and serial. He fits the qualifications for both. He killed 17 people from February to October 2002. That's not just a spree. Yes, the Beltway sniper attacks was a spree but adding it with the earlier crimes then it is serial as well.WikiOriginal-9 (talk)

Hello, WikiOriginal-9. See Talk:John Allen Muhammad/Archive 1#"Spree killer" or "serial killer". As that discussion and the Serial killer article address, being a serial killer is not just about the number of people a person has killed. If it were, then a soldier who has killed plenty of people would automatically be a serial killer. As for being "both," I don't think that it is common that a person is categorized as both, but the Serial killer and Spree killer articles make clear that distinguishing the two concepts is debated, and the lead of the Serial killer article currently states "however, cases of extended bouts of sequential killings over periods of weeks or months with no apparent 'cooling off' period or 'return to normalcy' have caused some serial killer experts to suggest a hybrid category of "spree-serial killer'." We also address the serial killer or spree killer aspect in the lead of the John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo articles, which it seems that you saw and that is your reason for having started this talk page discussion. Flyer22 (talk) 02:17, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

On a side note: You should be careful when listing people at List of serial killers by number of victims; the media is often wrong with regard to what it refers to as a serial killer. And regarding your removal of "soldiers" there, that is not helpful, in my opinion, per what I stated above about soldiers. That article's text did not state that soldiers are never serial killers; it was accompanied by the wording "does not necessarily include." I'm betting that list is highly problematic, as somewhat indicated by the current tag on it. The only person here at Wikipedia that I know of who can help regarding these matters is Legitimus, whether he weighs in on this discussion or not. Flyer22 (talk) 02:32, 12 May 2014 (UTC)