• By BILL LODGE
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Nov 11, 2009 - Page: 4A

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John Gaeta, of Albany, is opposed to the death penalty, but he said Tuesday the execution in Virginia of John Allen Muhammad was deserved.

Gaeta’s interest in the case is heightened by the fact that he was shot through the neck seven years ago.

And law enforcement officials have said that Muhammad and a sidekick are possible suspects in that unsolved shooting.

Muhammad, a former Baton Rouge resident, and Lee Boyd Malvo were convicted of several murders that occurred in the Washington, D.C., area in 2002.

Malvo, who was 17 at the time of the shootings, is serving life imprisonment without benefit of parole.

But Muhammad received the death penalty and was executed Tuesday at 9:11 p.m.

According to published reports, Malvo has admitted that he shot a man in Hammond in August 2002. And Hammond police have said they were looking at Muhammad and Malvo as possible suspects in Gaeta’s case.

Gaeta, a 57-year-old retired state employee, said he was not able to identify the two men who walked past him as he replaced a slashed tire on his vehicle in the parking lot of a Hammond shopping center at night.

He added, however, that he remains convinced authorities arrested the right men for the series of senseless shootings that claimed the lives of several people in the D.C. area.

“He (Muhammad) is getting what he deserves,” Gaeta said approximately two hours before the execution.

“I don’t believe in capital punishment,” Gaeta added, “but I think justice is being served.”

Gaeta said he thought he might not survive his neck wound.

“It makes you appreciate life so much more after you have a close call yourself,” he said.