Investigators in the sniper case report that all evidence points to juvenile John Lee Malvo as the triggerman in the shootings. They cannot link a single shot to John Muhammed.

This makes the case for a death sentence against Muhammed more problematic. The charge against Muhammed is in Prince William County and is a standard first degree murder count which requires the prosecution to prove Muhammed was the triggerman. And according to police, he wasn't.

Here's the evidence against 17 year old John Lee Malvo, according to investigators. (If this doesn't show the need for a gag order on the police in the case, we don't know what does:)

¶His own admissions to both Virginia shootings in which the men are being tried and to one in Maryland, made in conversations with Fairfax police detectives.

¶Hair linked by DNA to Mr. Malvo found in the trunk of the Caprice. A hole was carved in the trunk to create a sniper's nest.

¶A videotape recovered from a security camera near the Home Depot parking garage in Falls Church, Va., where Linda Franklin , an F.B.I. analyst, was killed on Oct 14. The videotape shows someone who appears to be Mr. Muhammad inside the driver's seat of the car.

¶Mr. Malvo's fingerprints found on a piece of paper near where investigators believe the shot was fired that wounded Iran Brown, 13, outside Benjamin Tasker Middle School in Bowie, Md., on Oct. 7.

¶Saliva found on a grape stem on the hill where investigators contend someone fired the shot that killed Conrad E. Johnson, a bus driver, in Aspen Hill, Md., on Oct 22.

There's much more to the article, so read the whole thing--not for the leaks by the police, but for the legal problems the prosecution may encounter as a result of Ashcroft's decision to file the case in the jurisdiction where he believed the pair were most likely to face execution.