Scared Silent

Mildred Muhammad shares her story about rising up from the domestic abuse she endured from her ex-husband, John Allen Muhammad, the convicted D.C. Sniper.

Mildred witnessed firsthand John’s bizarre behavior after he returned from the Gulf War, but no one—including her family, friends, and local police—took her warnings seriously. Even when John kidnapped their three children for eighteen months, changing their identities and living with them on the run in Antigua, or when he threatened to kill Mildred, her pleas for help went unfounded and she was forced to live undercover for eight months in a women’s shelter.

Everyone knew John as a charming and intelligent man. No one could fathom that he posed a serious threat to Mildred, let alone the ten innocent victims he and his seventeen-year-old accomplice Lee Boyd Malvo would later kill to carry out John’s heinous plot to get custody of his and Mildred’s children...permanently. What began as a domestic case eventually victimized millions. And it has taken years for Mildred and her children to heal from the fear and psychological trauma they endured.

In Scared Silent, Mildred shares her personal story to show how domestic violence devastates entire families, including the children, and hopes that what she reveals will give new insight on this national social ill.

Mildred Muhammad is a keynote speaker, certified consultant with the Office on Victims of Crime, and award-winning advocate for survivors of domestic violence. She has been interviewed on CNN, BET, Good Morning America, Oprah: Where are They Now, as well as interviewed by The Washington Post and Newsweek. She has been the recipient of many awards, including the Maya Angelou “Still I Rise” Award, the 2008 Shirley Chisholm Woman of Courage Award, and Special Commendation from the Office of Violence Against Women. She is author to Scared Silent and her follow-up memoir, I’m Still Standing.