MONTGOMERY, Alabama (CNN) -- Alabama police will seek the death penalty against suspected snipers John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo in connection with the killing of a woman in Montgomery, Police Chief John Wilson said Friday.
Wilson said capital murder warrants were being signed for both suspects in a killing at a liquor store. He said Malvo, 17, would be charged as an adult. Authorities had previously identified him as John Lee Malvo.
Wilson said in a news conference that a police officer identified Muhammad from a line-up, and Malvo was identified from “other evidence.”
The Montgomery shooting happened on the night of September 21. Claudine Parker died and Kelli Adams was wounded in the shooting at the Alabama Beverage Control store where the women worked.
The store is just off an Interstate 85 exit. Shootings by the sniper in the D.C.-area and in the Richmond, Virginia, area also took place near interstates.
Meanwhile, prosecutors in Rockville, Maryland, were to meet Friday to map out charges in the D.C.-area sniper case, which authorities say culminated Thursday with the arrest of Muhammad and Malvo sleeping in a “killing machine” -- a car outfitted with a sniper’s nest in the trunk.
Also in the car was a .223-caliber rifle that ballistics tests reveal was the weapon in all but three of the 14 sniper shootings. The sniper’s rampage left 10 people dead over a three-week period in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia. Three others were wounded.
Muhammad, 41, is a Gulf War veteran who qualified as a marksman in the service, and Malvo, is a Jamaican who allegedly was in the United States illegally.
“We’re waiting for the charges to be filed,” Montgomery County, Maryland, executive Douglas Duncan said Friday. “What I want to see is the prosecution have the same unified front that the task force did,” referring to the multi-jurisdictional investigation in the case.
Among the issues to be touched on are the role of the federal government in the case and which jurisdiction would be the best place for a trial -- Maryland, where there has been a moratorium on the death penalty during a study of its application, or Virginia, where there have been many more executions than in Maryland.
But Duncan said he doesn’t consider the death penalty moratorium applying in this case.
“We want justice in this case and the public will stand for nothing less than that,” said Duncan, who was a voice for the county at the daily sniper task force press briefings during the ordeal.
Life is getting back to normal, Duncan said. “Schools are open. Kids are going to be outside.”
Cracking the case:
The tip that broke the case came from the sniper himself, who called the sniper task force hot line last Thursday and boasted about a past killing. He told investigators to look at an unsolved slaying in Montgomery, Alabama, authorities told CNN.
Authorities then matched Malvo’s fingerprint -- on file as a result of an unspecified dispute -- with one lifted from a September 21 fatal shooting at a liquor store in Montgomery.
Less than a week after that tip was phoned in, Muhammad and Malvo were surrounded as they slept in their car at a Maryland interstate rest area and taken into custody without incident.
The two suspects made their first court appearances Thursday afternoon in Baltimore, Maryland.
Standing before U.S. Magistrate Beth Gesner, a handcuffed Muhammad entered the court wearing a green prison uniform and white sneakers, escorted by a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agent. As of now, the only charges Muhammad faces are federal firearms violations.
Muhammad replied, “Yes, Ma’am,” in a soft voice when Gesner asked him if he understood his rights and the charges against him.
The charges include possessing a .223-caliber firearm as well as harassing and stalking his ex-wife and children, the judge said. He was prohibited from owning a gun or approaching his ex-wife by a restraining order she obtained in 2000.
Because he is a juvenile, Malvo appeared in a closed hearing in U.S. District Court before Judge James Bredar. The arrest warrant against Malvo named him as a material witness in the sniper case.
The suspects’ apprehension by sniper task force members -- in combat gear and supported by helicopter cover -- capped an intense investigation that crossed state lines and time zones.
The sniper shootings terrorized the Washington, D.C., area, and residents there expressed relief Thursday that the ordeal appeared to be over.
‘We have the weapon. It is off the street’
The Bushmaster .223-caliber rifle found in the suspects’ car “has been forensically determined to be the murder weapon,” Michael Bouchard of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms told a news conference Thursday night in Montgomery County, Maryland.
“We have the weapon. It is off the street,” said Montgomery County Police Chief Charles Moose, whose department spearheaded the sniper task force.
“We only wish we could have stopped this [sooner] to reduce the number of victims,” Moose said.
No charges in connection with the D.C.-area shootings have been filed against Muhammad or Malvo. Moose said prosecutors from Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia would meet Friday to discuss possible charges.
Car was a ‘killing machine’
Along with the Bushmaster .223-caliber rifle, a scope, a tripod and a “sniper platform” were recovered from the suspects’ 1990 Chevrolet Caprice, sources said. All the sniper victims were hit by a single .223-caliber bullet.
A senior law enforcement described the Caprice as a “killing machine,” with two holes in the trunk, one for the rifle, the other for the scope.
That way, shots could be fired without opening the trunk, the source said. The back seat could fold down, enabling a potential shooter to stretch out in the back without stepping foot outside, the source said.