Relief for families in execution of Beltway killer?

It has been seven years since spree killer John Allen Muhammed and his then-17-year-old accomplice, Lee Boyd Malvo, terrorized the metropolitan area of Washington, D.C. by targeting people randomly, firing at them from the trunk of their car. Authorities believe that Muhammed and Malvo killed 15 people — including Million A. Woldemariam 0f Atlanta — in a coast-to-coast homicidal rampage that lasted from Feb. 2002 until they were caught in Oct. 2002.

Now, survivors await the execution of Muhammed, scheduled for  9 p.m. tomorrow at the Greensville Correctioal Center in Virginia. I am no fan of the death penalty, but if there is to be one, it is tailor- made for the likes of Muhammed, a vicious psychopath. (Bcause the U.S. Supreme Court decided, rightly in my view, that minors should not be executed, Malvo is serving a life sentence.)

According to The Washington Post, several surviving family members of the deceased — including Marion Lewis, whose adult daughter was murdered — will attend the execution.

“I want to see what he made me see,” Lewis said. “He forced us to look at our little girl laying in a coffin. I want to see justice done. I want to see him take a last breath. . . . I want to be able to describe it to the rest of the family.”

Other survivors don’t want to revisit painful memories.

Still, other victims’ relatives, such as Jocelyn Bridges of Philadelphia, whose husband, Kenneth, 53, was gunned down Oct. 11 at a gas station near Massaponax, Va., don’t want to revisit past anguish.

“I would like to be moving forward with my life,” the mother of six said last week. “That has nothing to do with forward motion. That’s a snapshot in time. My life is a moving train. It’s moving forward. I learned that from my husband . . . got a train to keep moving on.

“I don’t have to go back and rent or borrow or go to any more nightmares.”

Closure is a much-abused word in our cultural lexicon, and I doubt families will find it with the execution, whether they attend or not. Nevertheless, I hope they find some peace.