Scared Silent: The Mildred Muhammad Story

In this riveting memoir, Mildred Muhammad, the former wife of convicted D.C. Sniper John Muhammad, breaks her silence about the domestic violence she suffered during their marriage and the tragic events that occurred after their divorce, which led up to the October 2002 sniper killings in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.

Mildred witnessed firsthand John's bizarre behavior after he returned from the Gulf War, but no one — including her family, friends, and local police — took her warnings seriously. Even when John kidnapped their three children for eighteen months, changed their identities and lived with them on the run in Antigua, or when he threatened to kill Mildred, her pleas for help went unfounded and she was forced to live undercover for eight months in a women's shelter. Everyone knew John as a charming and intelligent man. No one could fathom that he posed a serious threat to Mildred, let alone the ten innocent victims he and his seventeen-year-old accomplice Lee Boyd Malvo would later kill to carry out John's heinous plot to get custody of his and Mildred's children...permanently.

What began as a domestic case eventually victimized millions. And it has taken years for Mildred and her children to heal from the fear and psychological trauma they endured.

In Scared Silent, Mildred shares her personal story to show how domestic violence devastates entire families, including the children, and hopes that what she reveals will give new insight on this national social ill.

"The book is full of foreshadowing, of odd behaviors that, given the events that followed, become downright chilling. A revealing, frightening, insightful, and compelling memoir." Booklist

"[Readers] will come away with a new understanding of and respect for this brave woman, whose faith saw her through to the end." Library Journal

In this story of courage and triumph over domestic abuse, the former wife of John Allen Muhammad — the convicted Washington, D.C., sniper who killed 10 people — reveals the psychological warfare she endured and how she managed to escape.