The Bushmaster rifle in a modified Caprice that ended a 23-day terror — and the question that still haunts

The truck driver saw the parked Caprice and called it in.

On October 24, 2002, police found the Chevrolet Caprice at a rest stop on Interstate 70 near Myersville, Maryland.

Inside the car, they found two men and a Bushmaster .223-caliber rifle.

The two men were later identified as John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo.

The car had been modified so that a shooter could fire from the trunk without being seen.

Ballistics tests later linked the rifle to several of the shootings.

The killing spree that terrorized the Washington, D.C., area for 23 days ended with this arrest.

How did a car and a rifle hide in plain sight for so long?

The car was a mundane object, a sedan parked at a rest stop.

The rifle was a commercial weapon, not a military secret.

The record does not detail the exact mechanics of how the trunk modification was used in each shooting.

That would require evidence.

For 23 days, the region shut down, schools closed, residents avoided public spaces.

A truck driver's tip ended it.

Two men sat in a parked car, a rifle in the trunk.

The spree was over.

The question of who pulled the trigger remains a matter of legal argument, not settled fact.

THE 23 DAYS

The first shooting came on October 2, 2002, outside a store in Maryland.

By October 3, five more people had been shot in the Washington, D.C., area.

Another fell on October 9, another on October 11, another on October 14, and one on October 22.

Ten people were killed and three wounded across the region before the spree ended on October 24.

The victims were shot at gas stations, outside stores, on streets, and at a school.

A 13-year-old boy, Iran Brown, was shot outside his middle school in Bowie, Maryland; he survived.

The region shut down in fear.

Schools closed, residents avoided public spaces, and police urged people to stay indoors.

The shootings were initially believed to be the work of a single sniper.

They were later attributed to two men operating together.

A note left at the scene of one shooting demanded $10 million and threatened more violence.

The note was later linked to Malvo's handwriting, according to the record.

The specific locations and order of all shootings are not fully itemized in the record.

It is not established who fired the rifle in each attack.

The question that still haunts the case is precisely that: who pulled the trigger.

Not because the record is silent.

But because the legal argument never settled it.