FBI FILES: The Beltway Snipers, Part 1

10/22/07

This blue 1990 Chevy Caprice was used as a rolling sniper’s nest.

This blue 1990 Chevy Caprice was used as a rolling sniper’s nest.

Five years ago this week—at 3:19 in the morning on October 24, 2002, to be exact—we closed in on the snipers who’d been terrorizing the Washington, D.C., area over the course of 23 long days.

During the month, 10 people had been randomly gunned down and three critically injured while going about their everyday lives—mowing the lawn, pumping gas, shopping, reading a book. Among the victims was one of our own—FBI intelligence analyst Linda Franklin, who was felled by a single bullet while leaving a home improvement store in Virginia with her husband.