The post DC sniper's ex-wife reveals his chilling threat before killing spree appeared first on My Blog.
]]>For much of their 12-year marriage, the mother of three endured emotional and psychological abuse in silence. Even after the couple split in 1999, John Allen Muhammad continued to stalk and terrorize her. When she changed her phone number, he still found it — and then showed up at her home uninvited.
“He said to me, ‘You have become my enemy, and as my enemy, I will kill you,’” she told Fox News Digital.
BTK KILLER’S DAUGHTER CALLS HIM ‘SUBHUMAN’ AFTER FINAL PRISON CONFRONTATION ENDS RELATIONSHIP
John Allen Muhammad and his teenage accomplice terrorized the area in and around the nation’s capital for three weeks. (Virginia Department of Corrections via Getty Images)
In honor of Domestic Violence Awareness Month, Muhammad is now speaking out in a new Investigation Discovery true-crime documentary, “Hunted by My Husband,” which explores John’s relentless desire to murder her so he could gain custody of their children.
John, an expert rifle marksman, and his accomplice, Lee Boyd Malvo, shot and killed 10 people and wounded three others over a three-week span in October 2002 that terrorized the Washington, D.C., area, The Associated Press reported. Multiple other victims were shot and killed across the country in the prior months as the duo made their way to the area around the nation’s capital from Washington state, the outlet shared.
A map is displayed on a screen during the penalty phase of the trial of convicted Washington area sniper John Allen Muhammad at Virginia Beach Circuit Court on Nov. 18, 2003, in Virginia Beach. The map, which was on Muhammad’s laptop, shows marks indicating alleged shooting sites and potential shooting sites in the Washington, D.C., area. (Dave Ellis-Pool/Getty Images)
During the investigation, authorities theorized that John believed killing Mildred would help him regain custody of their children by making her appear to be the victim of a random gunman.
Dr. Mildred Muhammad is speaking out in a new true-crime documentary about the case, “Hunted by My Husband.” (Investigation Discovery)
Muhammad met John in 1985 while he was stationed at Fort Lewis, Washington. She was shopping with a friend when he approached with “a beautiful smile.” They went out that same evening and married in 1988.
She described her husband as deeply invested in their relationship, and they quickly built a family together. But after serving in Operation Desert Storm in 1990, he returned a changed man. John suffered a shoulder injury and was later diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. When Muhammad and their eldest child, John Jr., visited him in the hospital, she recalled that “the lights were on, but no one was home.”
A note written by John Allen Muhammad found inside a bag at a shooting scene on Oct. 19, 2002. (Adrin Snider-Pool/Getty Images)
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John Allen Mohammed, seen here in this undated photo, was an expert marksman. (Montgomery County Police/Getty Images)
“He would just sit in the corner, rocking back and forth,” she recalled. “He no longer wanted to have conversations. Even if I tried to engage, he felt threatened. He was full of rage — but it was a different rage.
“John was quiet. He was trained in psychological warfare, so he would do things that made me question everything I did. I would look at him and say, ‘Why are you angry?’ He would respond, ‘Why are you saying I’m angry?’ Then he went to the mirror, wiped his hand across his face — and whatever emotion was there was gone.”
David Reichenbaugh served as the criminal intelligence operations commander for the Maryland State Police. He is seen here catching up with Dr. Mildred Muhammad during the filming of “Hunted by My Husband.” (Investigation Discovery)
Once warm and attentive, John became quick to anger and consumed by paranoia. He grew cold and calculating, making Muhammad’s belongings vanish if he disapproved of them. He nitpicked over small things, punishing her with days of silence whenever she dared to act independently. To avoid his quiet fury, Muhammad learned to stay silent. He chipped away at her self-worth, repeatedly telling her she didn’t matter.
Dr. Mildred Muhammad is seen here with her daughters at her office in Camp Springs, Maryland, on Sept. 13, 2008. (Nikki Kahn/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
“I tried to reach out for help, but I didn’t have physical scars,” she said. “I tried to go to my place of religion, and all you’re talking about is that I’m supposed to honor my husband. But how do I honor a man who emotionally hurts me?”
“Abusive relationships don’t begin harshly,” she reflected. “They begin with a dream they sell you, because they’re trying to control your life without you knowing. Once you submit to that dream, they breadcrumb affection toward you. Then you begin to wonder, ‘What did I do?’ You don’t understand that none of it is your fault. . . . If you try to reach out, you’ll get in trouble.”
Brendan Shea (left), a DNA expert with the FBI, points to the Bushmaster rifle used in the sniper shootings as Prince William County Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney James Willett (right) holds the weapon on Nov. 5, 2003, in Virginia Beach. (Dave Ellis-Pool/Getty Images)
The conflict deepened after Muhammad filed for divorce. When John threatened to kill her, she went into hiding with her family. A judge granted a lifetime restraining order — but there was one loophole.
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Dr. Mildred Muhammad told Fox News Digital her husband was a different man after he was diagnosed with PTSD. (Dudley M. Brooks/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
“The restraining order was against me, not the children,” she explained. “Even though it was for life, visitation was still required every other weekend. We were preparing for court to decide on custody. That’s when he took them.”
In 2000, John kidnapped their three children, taking them on an 18-month odyssey to Antigua, the Washingtonian reported. Muhammad told Fox News Digital that because there was no parenting plan in place by the court, she was told, “He has just as much of a right to the children as you do.”
Dr. Mildred Muhammad was separated from her three children for 18 months. (Investigation Discovery)
“There are no words to describe the level of pain I was in,” she said.
Taalibah Muhammad, the daughter of Dr. Mildred Muhammad and John Allen Muhammad, spoke out in “Hunted by My Husband.” (Investigation Discovery)
“In my prayer, I said, ‘Lord, I have to give You back my children. I can’t focus on what I need to do and worry about them. I’m placing them back in Your hands so I can prepare myself to stand before a judge to prove I can care for them.’ At the end of that prayer, I cried for two hours. Then I felt a presence — like someone covering me with a blanket up to my neck. I stopped crying.”
“I didn’t cry much after that,” she continued. “That’s when I began taking paralegal courses to learn how to get my children back. I had my writ of habeas corpus, which meant wherever they found my children, they had to return them to me.”
John Allen Muhammad abducted the children without permission. He took them out of the country to Antigua, in the Caribbean, using false identification and forged documents. (Steve Earley-Pool/Getty Images)
Muhammad was reunited with her children in 2001 after an emergency custody hearing in Tacoma, Washington, the Washingtonian reported. Then, in 2002, investigators knocked on her door in Maryland, where she was residing.
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Dr. Mildred Muhammad was in hiding when she learned from investigators that her ex-husband was the D.C. sniper. (Investigation Discovery)
“They told me, ‘Have you heard about any shootings in the area?’ I said, ‘No, I have not,’” she recalled. “An agent stopped and said, ‘We’re going to have to tell you — we’re naming your ex-husband as the D.C. sniper.’ My head hit the table. They asked, ‘Do you think he would do something like that?’ I looked up and said, ‘Yes.’”
Muhammad remembered once watching a movie with John when he turned to her and said, “I could take a small city and terrorize it. They would think it’s a group of people. It would only be me.” When she tried to ask why, he quickly changed the subject.
John Allen Muhammad was also known as the “Beltway Sniper.” (Bureau of Prisons/Getty Images)
The investigator told Muhammad, “Didn’t you know you were the target? There was a man shot two miles from you at a convenience store. There was another man shot right down the street from you six times. He took $3,000 and his laptop. Ms. Muhammad, you were the target.”
“Hunted by My Husband” features never-before-seen home videos of the Muhammad family and new interviews with the law enforcement officers who worked tirelessly to track and identify the snipers. (Investigation Discovery)
Muhammad and her family were quickly taken to a hotel for safety.
“I saw the TV — there he was,” she said. “I put my hand on the screen and said, ‘What happened to you?’ My children cried themselves to sleep. I went to the bathroom, turned on the water, sat on the floor and screamed into a pillow.”
“The next day, he was caught,” she added.
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John Allen Muhammad was executed on Nov. 10, 2009, by lethal injection. He was 48. (Steve Helber-Pool/Getty Images)
In Antigua, John met Malvo, a Jamaican teenager with whom he formed a father-son bond. John was accused of manipulating Malvo to serve as his partner in the shootings.
Lee Boyd Malvo is serving a life sentence. (Rich Lipski/Getty Images)
With the help of a tip, police arrested John and the 17-year-old while they slept in their car at a Maryland rest stop, ending a three-week reign of terror that gripped Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia, according to the BBC.
John was executed in 2009 at age 48. Malvo, now 40, is serving a life sentence without parole.
Dr. Mildred Muhammad is now a speaker and advocate for survivors of domestic violence. (Lou Rocco/Disney-Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images)
Today, Muhammad advocates for survivors of domestic violence and hopes her story encourages others to seek help before it’s too late.
“My help was slow in coming,” she said. “But I knew I had to make it through for my children.”
"Hunted by My Husband: The Untold Story of the DC Sniper" premieres Oct. 28 at 9 p.m.
Stephanie Nolasco covers entertainment at Foxnews.com.
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]]>The post ‘He knew how to swim’: Family rejects ‘accident’ as Houston bayou death mystery deepens appeared first on My Blog.
]]>“I agree with their assessment,” Dr. Priya Banerjee, a board-certified forensic pathologist, said of the autopsy performed by Dr. Edward Kilbane, of the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences. “There’s nothing definitive at autopsy to say why he died and if it was before or after the body entered the bayou.”
She declined to speculate about what may have happened and said the answer Cutting’s family is seeking “hinges on investigation.”
A Houston police spokesperson told Fox News Digital she would look into the case last week.
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Kenneth Cutting Jr. in this undated family photo. He was last seen alive on June 28, 2024, and later washed up in Houston’s Buffalo Bayou on July 1 of that year. His cause and manner of death were undetermined after an autopsy, and the toxicology report found no drugs in his system. (Courtesy of the Cutting family)
The official autopsy lists Cutting’s cause and manner of death as undetermined. Although he had fluid in his lungs, Dr. Banerjee said there’s no way to know whether it was present before his death, making the assertion that he had accidentally drowned impossible to confirm medically.
Food particles in his throat but an empty stomach were consistent with normal decomposition, Dr. Banerjee said. It happens naturally as the muscles relax.
“I think his electronic footprint is more important,” she said.
DROWNED 63-YEAR-OLD ILLINOIS MAN’S DEATH DEEMED A HOMICIDE: COOK COUNTY MEDICAL EXAMINER’S OFFICE
Kenneth Cutting Jr., left, took this selfie image at a bar in downtown Houston shortly before he vanished on June 28, 2024. (Courtesy of the Cutting family)
Cutting was last seen alive on June 28, 2024, according to his family. Although he lost his cellphone earlier in the evening, his roommates had it in their possession after he went missing, relatives said. It was later given to police for a forensic analysis, but his father, Kenneth Cutting Sr., said detectives came back with no answers.
Surveillance video reviewed by Fox News Digital places Cutting at Pete’s Dueling Piano Bar in downtown Houston roughly between 8 p.m. and 11:45 p.m. He was with two roommates — and he shouted at one of them to “f— off” as he stormed away from the venue.
They later reunited, however, but for reasons that remain unclear, Cutting never made it home.
DEMOCRAT MAYOR’S ‘GASLIGHTING’ AMID SERIAL KILLER FEARS CALLED OUT BY GRIEVING FAMILY
Houston fire and police personnel recover a body from White Oak Bayou near the Heights in Houston, Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2025 (Jill Karnicki/Houston Chronicle via Getty Images)
The roommates sent his father a 2 a.m. text message stating he’d gone “crazy” and demanded to be let out on Interstate 10 in Houston. He was later found dead in the Buffalo Bayou, which is part of the city’s 2,500 miles of waterways.
Kevin Gannon, a retired NYPD detective who monitors water deaths around the country, said Cutting’s death doesn’t fit the pattern of the controversial “Smiley Face Killers” theory — but it still seems suspicious.
“I don’t think this young man drowned, though it’s possible,” he told Fox News Digital. “Believe me, this is a tough one.”
FORMER DETECTIVE SAYS STRING OF HOUSTON DEATHS MAY BE LINKED TO ALLEGED ‘SMILEY FACE’ KILLER NETWORK
The Bayou running through Piney Point Village on Friday, April 18, 2025, in Houston. (Raquel Natalicchio/Houston Chronicle via Getty Images)
Cutting’s father agrees.
“Police told me that they think it was an accidental death, and I said, I don’t think my son fell in the bayou and drowned,” Cutting Sr. told Fox News Digital last week. “First of all, he knew how to swim. Second of all, he shouldn’t have been nowhere near that bayou.”
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The Sims Bayou Greenway near the Houston Botanic Garden and the Glenbrook Park is shown in Houston, Friday, April 4, 2025. (Melissa Phillip/Houston Chronicle via Getty Images)
He said his son didn’t appear to be blackout drunk in the surveillance video and noted that the toxicology report found no drugs in his system.
“Houston police need to do further investigation,” said Lauren Freeman, Cutting’s cousin. “They need to ping his phone the night he went missing, to see where his location was.”
Houston leaders have been publicly downplaying concerns of a potential serial killer with 16 dead in the city’s bayous so far this year, including five discovered in a one-week span last month.
HPD Police Chief Noe Diaz listens as Mayor John Whitmire comments on a recent number of bodies found in Houston bayous during a news conference in Houston, Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2025. (Kirk Sides/Houston Chronicle via Getty Images)
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But Mayor John Whitmire’s explanation, in which he blamed homelessness and substance abuse, prompted Cutting’s family to blast the excuse as “gaslighting” and call for thorough investigations into all of the deaths.
Whitmire slammed misinformation and “wild speculation” online and from political candidates surrounding the cases at a news briefing on Sept. 23.
“We do not have any evidence that there is a serial killer loose in Houston, Texas,” he said, calling the number of deaths “alarming” and urging patience from the public.
“Undetermined means kick back to the investigators for more information so that the medical examiner can make a better informed decision,” said Joseph Giacalone, a retired NYPD sergeant and criminal justice professor at Penn State Lehigh Valley. “You treat it like a homicide until proven otherwise.”
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]]>The post Investigators uncover possible serial killer linked to women’s murders, missing TV anchor appeared first on My Blog.
]]>The Wood County Sheriff’s Office announced that Christopher Revak was behind the death of Deidre Harm, officially closing a case that had gone unsolved for nearly two decades.
On Oct. 20, the Wood County Sheriff’s Office shared a letter from District Attorney Jonathan Barnett on Facebook stating that he would have filed charges against Revak if he were still alive.
“I consider this case closed,” Barnett wrote. “I believe I had enough to charge and, if Mr. Revak were still alive, win at trial.”
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Douglas County Sheriff Chris Degase spoke to Fox News Digital about his experience investigating the case of Christopher Revak. (Wood County Sheriff’s Department)
Harm, a 21-year-old single mother, disappeared after a night out at a downtown Wisconsin Rapids bar June 10, 2006. Her remains were discovered five months later by hunters in a wooded area near Seneca, about 5 miles from downtown, according to WSAW.
“This may provide some closure for many but won’t bring Deidre back,” the Wood County Sheriff’s Office and Wisconsin Rapids Police said in a joint statement. “Our thoughts and prayers will always be with Deidre’s family.”
Revak, a Wisconsin native and former EMT, died by suicide in a Missouri jail cell in July 2009, just one day after being charged with second-degree murder in the death of Rene Williams, 36, a mother of three from Mansfield, Missouri.
Williams was last seen March 13, 2007, at the Eagle Lodge bar in Ava, Missouri, where she worked. Revak was also at the bar that night, according to FOX 9.
In 2024, KCCI Des Moines reported that Iowa and Wisconsin investigators were taking a fresh look at Revak, who had long been suspected of multiple violent crimes before his death.
NOTORIOUS ‘SCORECARD KILLER’ LINKED TO DECADES-OLD MURDER NEARLY 45 YEARS LATER
Investigators have never found Jodi Huisentruit, who was declared legally dead in 2001, The Associated Press reported. (ABC News Studios)
According to a recent documentary, police have examined whether Revak may have been connected to as many as five different homicides over a 14-year span, including the disappearance of Huisentruit.
Douglas County Sheriff Chris Degase, who investigated Williams’ case, previously told Fox News Digital that Revak’s confirmed link to Harm’s killing deepened his concerns about the former EMT’s violent history.
“When I started working on the Christopher Revak case, he was my suspect in the murder of Rene Williams,” Degase said. “I didn’t think it was his first go-around at it.”
Degase told KY3 that forensic evidence linked Revak to Williams’ disappearance.
“We had his DNA at the scene. We had her DNA inside his truck,” he said. “I think the biggest thing was that they weren’t able to find a body. They had no witnesses to come forward to say that she was dead.”
Despite the lack of a body, investigators charged Revak with Williams’ murder based on DNA results. Degase said his curiosity about similar crimes led him to uncover chilling parallels.
“It wasn’t the first time Revak tried to abduct a woman in Ava,” he said. “Actually, shortly after his arrest, I Google searched ‘women abducted from bars’ in all the towns that he had lived in. And when I Google searched from Wisconsin Rapids, Deidre Harm came up.”
NEW CRIME SCENE DETAILS EMERGE IN MANHUNT FOR FUGITIVE DAD ACCUSED OF KILLING 3 DAUGHTERS
Video
That discovery prompted Degase to reach out to Wisconsin investigators, sharing his findings and helping connect the dots between cases.
“I don’t believe in coincidences,” he said. “I called the authorities out there and gave them the information I had.”
Degase, who is featured in the documentary discussing the case, said Williams and Huisentruit remain missing, a detail that still haunts him. He didn’t rule out the possibility Revak could have traveled to Iowa.
“Obviously, [Jodi] wasn’t abducted from a bar, but I just thought it was odd,” Degase said.
He added that Revak “had a dark side.”
“We’re dealing with what’s possibly a serial killer,” Degase told KY3. “During his day, he’s doing his deed to society and helping people and saving people, but there was a dark side to Chris Revak.”
Revak had also been a person of interest in the 1995 disappearance of Huisentruit, a 27-year-old morning anchor for KIMT-TV in Mason City, Iowa.
Huisentruit vanished around 4 a.m. on June 27, 1995, after calling a colleague to say she was on her way to work but never arriving. Police found signs of a struggle outside her apartment, including a pair of high heels and a bent car key near her car.
She was declared legally dead in 2001, though her body has never been found.
ALLEGED DEVIL’S DEN KILLER INVESTIGATED IN MULTIPLE UNSOLVED MURDERS ACROSS US THAT HAVE ONE THING IN COMMON
Jodi Huisentruit was a TV anchor before she disappeared in 1995. (Findjodi.com)
At the time, Mason City Police said there was no evidence linking Revak to the case. However, in 2024, investigators from Wisconsin and Iowa reconnected to compare notes about him, according to FindJodi.com.
Authorities had also looked into whether Revak’s ex-wife once lived in the same house as one of the last people to see Huisentruit alive but determined she moved out six months before the anchor’s disappearance.
Despite three decades of dead ends, then-Mason City Police Chief Jeff Brinkley said in June the department continues to receive and pursue leads year-round.
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Flyers publicizing Jodi Huisentruit’s disappearance outside of her workplace, KIMT-TV, July 3, 1995. (Steve Kagan/Getty Images)
“We haven’t put this down. We haven’t stopped working. We have not stopped pursuing leads and information,” Brinkley told FOX 9 at the time.
In 2024, officers searched a property in Winsted, Minnesota, following a tip, though no new evidence was found. Earlier this year, part of a 2017 search warrant was also unsealed.
“We’re still hopeful the case will be solved and justice served — no matter how long it takes,” Brinkley said.
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Huisentruit’s family continues to hold out hope for closure.
“The pain and anguish felt by us and all who loved Jodi are immeasurable,” her family wrote in a statement on the Jodi’s Hope Facebook page. “True peace will only come when Jodi is found and justice is served. We still choose to hope that one day soon it will happen.”
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A $50,000 reward remains in place for information leading to answers in Huisentruit’s disappearance. Anyone with information is urged to contact the Mason City Police Department or the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation.
Fox News Digital’s Stephanie Nolasco contributed to this report.
Stepheny Price covers crime, including missing persons, homicides and migrant crime. Send story tips to stepheny.price@fox.com.
Stepheny Price is a Writer at Fox News with a focus on West Coast and Midwest news, missing persons, national and international crime stories, homicide cases, and border security.
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