Keene Native Endures Sniper Attacks
WASHINGTON, Nov. 07, 2002–“I know these people have been caught, but I can’t help still thinking about it because one of the killings happened at my gas station,” Elizabeth Hamshaw said of the recent sniper attacks in the Washington area. “There was no discrimination; all you had to be was a human being to be a target.”
Twenty-four-year-old Hamshaw, who has lived in Washington for two years and works for the Council of Independent Colleges, fills her car at the Mobil station in the Aspen Hill section of Montgomery County, Md., where one of the sniper’s first victims, cab driver Premkumar A. Walekar, was gunned down. The station is located near Silver Spring, Md., where Hamshaw regularly goes horseback riding.
As a Keene native, Hamshaw’s first experience of living in a large city came when she moved to Washington after attending Sweet Briar College, near the Blue Ridge Mountains in rural Virginia.
Hamshaw said she first found out about the sniper killings from a friend who works in Rockville, Md., and initially thought the killings were a random spree and would end the first day. As they continued, though, Hamshaw said she made a point to fill her gas tank only in Washington because “she felt pretty safe in the city.” She said that she is thankful the suspects were caught because one of her biggest fears as time went by between each killing was that “he would stop and we would never catch them.”
Sniper suspects John Allen Muhammed, 41, and John Lee Malvo, 17, who have been linked to 14 area shootings as well as a mounting number of killings in other parts of the country, were brought into custody on Oct. 24. Until then, many Washington-area residents were shaken into altering their daily routines throughout the almost month-long reign of terror.
Despite having the mindset to go about their daily lives, Hamshaw said, her friends who live in Maryland and Virginia often came into Washington, where they would just “stay in and watch movies” or go to places that they knew would be crowded with people.
“It’s so ironic because after 9/11, I was nervous to be in any big crowds or to go on the Metro, and now it was a completely opposite feeling,” Hamshaw said.
While she is relieved the sniper has been caught, she can’t help but still be nervous because of her surprise at the identity of the suspects, whom she had expected to be “monsters.” “The two suspects were really unsettling because they looked like nice family people,” she said.
She added that even though she was “put off by how the media made it into entertainment, the police department did a great job and really used all of their resources.”
Although she never contemplated moving home during the sniper killings, Hamshaw said her parents, Douglas and Marianne, who have lived in Keene for more than 25 years and own Hamshaw Lumber and the Cheshire House, “were very worried and pretty nervous” about her living alone in Washington. She said she believes though that “wherever you are, you’re at risk for certain dangers.”
“I think it’s made me realize it could happen anywhere, in any small town, which I didn’t think before,” Hamshaw said. “They [the snipers] almost went into rural areas on purpose.”
Published in The Keene Sentinel, in New Hampshire.
