In September 2002, Hong Im Ballenger, 45, a Baton Rouge wife and mother, was robbed and killed by a single gunshot to the head as she left work at a Florida Boulevard beauty supply store.

"She was a beautiful woman and a wonderful mother to my three sons," her husband, Jim Ballenger, said the following day.

His wife died at the hands of John Allen Muhammad, 41, a New Orleans-born and Baton Rouge-raised former U.S. Army sergeant who later became known as the DC Sniper, and his accomplice, Lee Boyd Malvo, 17, born in Jamaica and relocating to Miami illegally in 2001. The woman was one of the duo's preliminary victims. Shootings in Alabama, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Texas and Washington also were eventually linked to the pair.

When their subsequent 23-day reign of terror throu

See Full Page