Virginia Beach, Va. ? A friend of John Allen Muhammad testified Friday that Muhammad introduced Lee Boyd Malvo to him as a sniper and that Muhammad tried unsuccessfully to fashion a silencer for the rifle allegedly used in last year’s sniper spree.

“He (Muhammad) said, ‘Imagine the damage you could do if you shoot with a silencer,'” said Robert Holmes of Tacoma, Wash., Muhammad’s friend since their Army days in the mid-1980s.

When Muhammad introduced Malvo to Holmes, “he said his name is Lee. He said he’s a sniper,” Holmes testified in Muhammad’s capital murder trial. Asked by the prosecutor what Malvo’s reaction was, Holmes said, “Lee just smiled.”

Also Friday, the director of a Bellingham, Wash., homeless shelter used by Muhammad and Malvo testified that Muhammad “had a very strong influence” on Malvo while the pair stayed at the shelter.

Holmes’ tip to the FBI that Muhammad might have been responsible for the shootings helped lead to the arrest of Muhammad and Malvo on Oct. 24, 2002, after three weeks of attacks in the Washington, D.C., region.

Holmes said he still considered Muhammad his friend and had sent him money and letters while he had been in jail. He also testified that he became concerned about a deterioration in Muhammad’s condition after his ex-wife, Mildred, gained custody of the couple’s three young children in September 2001.

“He wasn’t as clean. There were times he would wear the same clothes two or three days in a row. That wasn’t John,” Holmes said.