Sniper Tipster Testifies

The man who led police to sniper suspect John Allen Muhammad after spotting his car at a Maryland rest stop said Monday he stayed on the line with 911 dispatchers for nearly three hours, giving them updates as officers moved into position.

Whitney Donahue, a refrigeration mechanic from Greencastle, Pa., testified at Muhammad's murder trial that he spotted the blue Chevrolet Caprice on Oct. 24, 2002, and believed he saw two people inside.

He said he remained on the line from 12:47 a.m. to 3:30 a.m., even though he worried about getting shot.

At one point, 911 dispatchers asked him to double-check the tags. He said he enlisted another driver to check them as he drove out.

"I really wasn't wanting to get shot," Donahue said.

FBI agent Charles Pierce, who led the team that arrested Muhammad and fellow suspect Lee Boyd Malvo that morning, said they initially waited for signs of movement because they were not sure anybody was in the car.

Pierce said he went in anyway to seize them because the rest area's perimeter had not been fully secured and Donahue remained in danger.

"The safest way to effect the arrest was to take them by surprise," Pierce testified.

About five agents rushed the vehicle from a tree line about 20 yards away, smashed the windows open and arrested Muhammad and Malvo without incident.

Muhammad, 42, and 18-year-old Malvo, who goes on trial Nov. 10 in connection with another sniper shooting, were sleeping in the Caprice that authorities say was adapted so someone concealed inside the car could fire a rifle through a hole in the trunk.

The third week of testimony began Monday in Muhammad's trial on charges of shooting Dean Harold Meyers at a Virginia gas station Oct. 9, 2002.

Prosecutors are introducing evidence in 16 shootings in Maryland, Virginia, Alabama, Louisiana and Washington in an effort to show that Muhammad had a role in multiple slayings and terrorized the community - necessary conditions for the two death penalty charges against him.

Earlier Monday, the widow of a bus driver slain in last year's sniper attacks testified she saw his empty bus on television but could not get to the hospital fast enough to say goodbye.

Denise Johnson, widow of Conrad Johnson, said she did not know right away that it was her husband's bus but immediately tried to reach him on his cell phone without success. "I thought maybe he had seen something," she said.

She eventually received a call from her mother-in-law saying that he had been shot. She rushed to the hospital. Her husband was alive when she arrived, but she did not get to see him before he died.

Forensic expert David McGill spent several hours Monday describing items found in Muhammad's car, including the .223 Bushmaster rifle prosecutors believe was used in most of the shootings.

Police also found a handwritten note under the front passenger's seat headrest, with the names of five Baltimore-area schools written on it. One of the sniper shootings took place outside a school; the boy survived.

McGill also said a dark glove was stuffed into a hole that had been cut in the Caprice's trunk. Prosecutors believe the shooter fired through the hole while lying in the trunk. A matching glove was found at the scene of Johnson's shooting.

By Matthew Barakat