More than two decades ago, a man named John Allen Muhammad and 17-year-old Lee Boyd Malvo went on a nationwide killing spree that ended in the greater Washington, D.C. area. Over the course of three weeks, the pair shot and killed 10 people and wounded three others in Maryland, Virginia, and D.C.
“It was a very terrifying time,” Aisha Braveboy, now County Executive of Prince George’s County, Maryland, told Dateline.
So when Irina Hans, a 26-year-old staying in D.C. for an internship, was shot and killed on October 12, 2002, it was quickly assumed she could be another victim of the D.C. snipers.
“I think that’s where our minds went at the time because it seemed so random. And those sniper attacks were random,” Braveboy said. “So it just seemed that this was the M.O. of the snipers and that she was a victim.”…