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Peter Haley | The News Tribune
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Staff Sgt. Joseph Nichols pauses before his front door where his niece, Keenya Cook, was shot and killed in February. Tacoma police are now investigating whether John Allen Muhammad could have been involved.
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Muhammad scrutinized in area death
Jason Hagey and Stefano Esposito; The News Tribune
John Allen Muhammad is a "person of interest" in an unsolved Tacoma homicide, police said Friday, offering yet another twist in a serial killer case that unexpectedly turned to the South Sound this week.
Police and the FBI have discovered Muhammad - charged Friday in Montgomery County, Md., in connection with six homicides - was a friend of the family of a 21-year-old woman shot to death in February at her aunt and uncle's East Tacoma home.
It isn't clear whether there was a direct connection between Muhammad - a former Fort Lewis soldier - and the victim, Keenya Cook.
But police know Cook's aunt - who once provided accounting services for Muhammad's Tacoma auto repair business - sided with Muhammad's second wife, Mildred, in the couple's divorce.
The aunt, Isa Nichols, went as far as to intervene in the couple's custody battle, calling police to help with the seizure of their three children after Muhammad allegedly abducted them, said her husband, Joseph Nichols, a staff sergeant at Fort Lewis.
"My wife was trying to help his wife get (her kids back) because John took the kids," Joseph Nichols told reporters outside his house Friday.
Isa Nichols could not be reached Friday.
Muhammad was bitter about losing custody of his children, court records indicate, and retained an attorney in an effort to get them back.
Still, the revelation wouldn't seem to explain the Feb. 16 slaying of Cook, the young mother who was shot once in the head with a large-caliber handgun while standing in the door of the Nichols home in 2400 block of East 34th Street.
Joseph Nichols said he doubts Muhammad, 41, ever met Cook, and he said Muhammad never seemed to express anger toward the family over Isa Nichols' involvement in his custody dispute.
Police stopped short of identifying Muhammad as a suspect in the case, noting they have no specific evidence that points to him.
"It's something to go on," said police spokesman Jim Mattheis. Detectives interviewed Isa Nichols on Thursday and planned to review the case in detail.
Until this week, the investigation had grown "fairly cold," Mattheis said.
The possible link between Muhammad and Cook didn't surface until this week, when the Nichols family recognized Muhammad's photo on television and called authorities.
Muhammad's name had not been mentioned before in the Cook case, Mattheis said.
"The aunt didn't think about it," he said, "and obviously we didn't know who he was."
After Muhammad was identified in connection with the sniper spree, members of the family were shocked - and suddenly suspicious.
"The police told us all along that if we heard of anything, (we should call them)," Joseph Nichols said. "And when that came up, I knew John was here and the case was still unsolved and so we figured we'd just inform them."
Cook's mother, Pamala Nichols, was excited that they might finally have some answers.
"I ran to my mother, I was like, 'Oh, Mom, it might be a break in our case,'" Pamala Nichols said.
The family immediately called the police.
"I mean, it's just too much, it's too close," Pamala Nichols said. "It's too close. It's too close."
At the time of the shooting, Cook had recently moved in with her aunt to get away from her boyfriend - the father of her daughter. There were no witnesses to her slaying and no suspects.
It didn't appear the shooter broke into the house or stole anything. Cook had been home alone with her 6-month-old baby.
Isa Nichols found her niece lying in a pool of blood in the open doorway when she returned home about 7:30 p.m. A pot of chicken was left burning on the stove. Upstairs in a bedroom, Cook's daughter lay naked on a towel.
Detectives spoke to Cook's boyfriend, but he wasn't considered a suspect.
On Friday, a neighbor recalled seeing an unfamiliar car in the neighborhood the day of the shooting. The driver parked it and then moved it two or three times, said the neighbor, Kathleen Yellowcalf.
She described the car as large, white with a black top and a gold chain-like license plate frame.
"That's why I was watching it," she said, "because it was a nice-looking car, a big car."
Court records indicate Muhammad was in Tacoma four days before Cook's slaying. He was cited Feb. 12 for allegedly shoplifting Gardenburgers, a box of tea, packages of meat and crackers from a Tacoma grocery store.
The Nichols family said they never met John Lee Malvo, the teenager arrested with Muhammad.
Joseph Nichols said he and his family met Muhammad in the early 1990s when Muhammad came to fix Nichols' car.
Later, Isa Nichols began providing accounting services for Muhammad's auto repair business, Express Car/Truck Mechanic Inc. Isa Nichols eventually became close friends with Mildred Muhammad.
"They had a good business relationship," Joseph Nichols said. "The whole family has been to my house for social gatherings."
Joseph Nichols remembered Muhammad as a "quiet, kind of subdued person," but also unusually stern with his children.
"He was a very strict disciplinarian," Joseph Nichols said. "To me, it was a little overboard."
Even so, Joseph Nichols said, he liked Muhammad and never would have suspected him of being linked to Cook's killing if it weren't for his apparent connection to the sniper case.
Mattheis said police are looking into possible connections between Muhammad and other Tacoma cases, as well. And he suspects Tacoma isn't the only department poring over old case files.
The state Attorney General's Office has compared details of the sniper case to facts from the thousands of cases in its computerized Homicide Investigation Tracking System, said spokesman Gary Larson.
He would not divulge whether the sniper case matched up with any information in the database.
"I couldn't go into that," Larson said. "All I can say is if we were to find something of interest - something that might be of interest to a law enforcement agency - we would let them know about that."
Staff writer David Quigg contributed to this report.
Stefano Esposito: 253-597-8644
stefano.esposito@mail.tribnet.com
Jason Hagey: 253-941-9634
jason.hagey@mail.tribnet.com
(Published 12:30AM, October 26th, 2002)
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