About a month before the Beltway snipers held the region in a state of fear 20 years ago, a man was shot and robbed outside his Prince George's County restaurant – a shooting that eventually would be linked to the snipers after their arrest.
The gunman shot Paul LaRuffa five times as he got in his car, then stole his deposit bag with $3,500 in cash and his laptop.
“For that month and a half, two months, I was mentally really paranoid and scared, because I didn’t know who shot me,” he said.
LaRuffa later learned he was likely the first victim in the Beltway sniper shootings carried out by John Allen Muhammed and Lee Boyd Malvo, who killed 10 people and injured three others over three weeks.
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Prosecutors have said part of the stolen cash was used to buy the infamous Chevy Caprice they described as a killing machine.
“It was shocking to find out that my, the money they stole from me kind of financed their whole insane rampage,” LaRuffa said.
When Malvo and Muhammed were arrested, investigators found LaRuffa’s laptop in the Caprice.
“It doesn’t haunt me, but I still remember every second of what happened – every single second and how I felt and what I thought,” LaRuffa said
He still has bullet fragments lodged in his chest.
“It’s pretty amazing that none of the bullets hit my heart, none hit my head, even though he was amazingly right next to my head,” he said.
He said he learned not to take life for granted.
“I learned that, very vividly, that tomorrow is not guaranteed, that I was fine that night,” he said. “I was happy; I was fine. And it could have ended like that.”
LaRuffa believes justice was served, as Muhammed was executed and Malvo is serving life in prison.
