In September of 2002, my wife was in her 7th month of pregnancy with our first child. We lived in Ohio at the time and she wanted a baby shower. Since most of her family and close friends lived in Baltimore, Maryland, we planned that we would travel to Baltimore and have the Baby Shower there on Saturday, October 19th, 2002.

But October 3rd and 4th brought the horrifying realization that a serial killer was on the loose in the Baltimore - DC area. We naturally reexamined our plans but decided to go through with them all the same. After all, the likelihood of being this sniper’s victim was practically zero from a statistical point of view. My wife and I listened to the news of the Beltway Sniper in the days leading up to our trip. It was getting a bit more scary as the death count raised to 9 and there were two additional people who had been wounded. In the eleventh hour we decided we would still go but we would take the PA turnpike over to I-70 and then I-70 through Hagerstown, Md, then Frederick, Md, and into Baltimore.

Around 5pm on Friday, October 18, 2002, my wife and I picked up my mom, and my step sister and we set out for Baltimore. The trip was going slowly but was otherwise uneventful. We had used the time to review the plans of what to do when we needed to stop during our trip out. The plan was that we all go together, we don’t dilly dally, we get out of the car and into a building quickly and vice versa, and no one stays in the car alone.

Well as happens eventually, around 12:45 am on Saturday morning we all needed a restroom break. We pulled off into a rest stop near Frederick and parked right in front of the door to the bathroom facility. The rest area was largely empty but there was a dark blue, late model, 4 door sedan parked head-in facing the door to the restroom. I parked next to it and we all quickly reviewed the rules. If I finished first, I would wait for them and we would all return to the car together. We then got out and raced to the restrooms. As I ran into the restroom area, I didn’t pay too much attention to the car we parked next too other than to make sure they didn’t open their doors. The night was crisp and full of moisture.

I finished first and so stood out by the exit but stayed inside the building. The doors and the walls were all glass so I nervously scanned the parking lot for anything off-looking. Satisfied that there was nothing ominous in the parking lot I turned my attention to the blue sedan. I travel a lot so I naturally took note that their license plates were from New Jersey. In the front seat were two African American males. The one behind the steering wheel was middle aged. He was awake and staring back at me. Next to him was a sleeping teenager. I remember feeling a chill go down my spine as I watched him watching me. At this time the authorities hadn’t released info on the snipers and they didn’t know of the ominous role the car played in their killing spree. So I was ignorant of the danger these two really presented. A few minutes passed before my family returned and we all ran back to the car. In a flash, we sped away and continued on to our destination. I remember noticing something weird about their trunk. My family was poor growing up so we sometimes had to pop out a broken lock and couldn’t afford to fix it right away so we would rig the trunk to open using a stew driver. I remember thinking that’s what they must have done with their trunk. It turns out it was the hole that they shot out through while staying concealed.

The baby shower went well and my wife had fun. We did not go out for meals but slept and ate at her moms house in Baltimore. On Sunday morning it was time to go. We took a much more northern route going home, just to be safe.

About a week or so later, once they captured the Beltway Snipers, you can imagine the renewed chills running down my spine when in the newspaper the face of the man that had been staring at me when we stopped to pee at the rest stop, John Allen Muhammad was staring back at me again. There was also a photo of the car we had parked next to, and scarier still the reports that they had been captured in the exact same rest stop where we had parked next to them about a week earlier.

I can only assume that the teenage boy that had been asleep next to him was Lee Boyd Malvo. Fortunately they were both in the front seat and this was where they had planned to hide out and sleep and so wouldn’t likely have killed at this rest stop. Therefore, I feel we weren’t in danger during this encounter. Had it been elsewhere though, we may well have been.