White van turned out to be red herring

In the end, it wasn't the white van. Or the white box truck. It was a blue Chevrolet Caprice, the favored undercover car of police departments across the country.

On Thursday, after arresting Gulf War veteran John Allen Muhammad, 41, and John Lee Malvo, 17, investigators said their 1990 sedan was the vehicle from which they killed 10 and wounded three.

It was equipped with four doors and a special trunk platform that allowed someone to lie inside and fire a rifle, investigators said.

A four-door Caprice was previously mentioned in the sniper case, but never received a fraction of the attention bestowed on stories of a white truck and a white van witnesses saw at two shooting sites.

On Oct. 8, police approached the Caprice on a Baltimore street and found Muhammad sleeping in the vehicle, police spokeswoman Ragina Averella said. That was the day after a 13-year-old boy in Bowie was wounded as he arrived at school.

But investigators were looking for a white van, and Muhammad was told to move on, The (Baltimore) Sun reported.

Reid Meloy, a forensic psychiatrist, said human frailty affects witnesses and investigators.

"In the frenzy of these kind of investigations, evidence gets pushed aside, things get ignored, mistakes are made," he said.