A long-overdue sense of closure settled over the case known as the "Beltway sniper attacks" Tuesday evening with the execution of the attacks' mastermind, 48-year-old John Allen Muhammad, in Virginia.

Muhammad and his then-17-year-old accomplice, Lee Boyd Malvo, now serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole, were responsible for a three-week reign of terror that resulted in 10 deaths in the Washington, D.C., area in the fall of 2002.

The killing for which Muhammad was put to death in the nation's second-busiest death chamber (Texas' is the busiest) involved a 53-year-old Vietnam War veteran and civil engineer who was shot in the head at a Manassas, Va., gasoline station.

Malvo was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for killing a 47-year-old FBI analyst who was shot as she and her husband loaded supplies at a Home Depot store in Falls Church, Va.

Had he been of adult age when the attacks occurred, Malvo probably would have faced a deserved fate like Muhammad's.

In addition to the 10 people killed, three others were critically wounded in the Washington-area shootings. And, Muhammad and Malvo also were suspected of fatal shootings in other states, including Louisiana, Arizona and Alabama.

Unless Malvo eventually agrees to tell all, it's unlikely that the full range of the Muhammad-Malvo killing spree will ever be known.

What has not been a topic of focus in regard to the October 2002 attacks is the fact that, when they were captured, Muhammad and Malvo were on a travel route that eventually could have brought them into Pennsylvania. It's anyone's guess as to whether the Keystone State might suddenly have found itself locked in terror in the way the Nation's Capital, Virginia and Maryland were — if similar sniper killings had begun to happen here.

Regardless, based on Pennsylvania's death penalty history since that penalty was reinstated in 1978, it's unlikely that the Keystone State — if it had been charged with the task — would have executed Muhammad Tuesday evening or anytime soon.

It took this state 17 years to execute is first murderer after the 1978 reinstatement, and only two other killers have been executed since the first one on May 2, 1995 — one in August 1995 and the other, in July 1999.

That's more than 10 years since the last execution and, as of this week, there were 221 individuals currently sentenced to death in Pennsylvania.

Had Muhammad killed in this state, he, like Malvo, might have faced the prospect of dying of old age, rather than breathe his last breath in Pennsylvania's death chamber at Rockview Prison in Centre County.

"I think it's important that they do have these (long series of) appeals because we want to assure that we're not going to be executing somebody who may be innocent," Susan McNaughton, a spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, told an interviewer recently.

The concern about executing an innocent person as a result of irresponsible haste is paramount.

But why appeals seem to take so much longer in the Keystone State than in many other states remains a legitimate topic for discussion.

More than the appeals process, the past 30 years suggest Pennsylvania just doesn't seem to have the stomach to carry out that penalty, no matter how heinous the crime.

At the same time, it can be asked how Pennsylvania could have avoided executing Muhammad, given the overwhelming evidence tied to the sniper case — assuming, of course, that Muhammad and Malvo would have killed here.

Beth Panilaitis, executive director of Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, who protested Muhammad's execution, said, "The greater metro area and the citizens of Virginia have been safe from this crime for seven years. Incarceration has worked and life without the possibility of parole has and will continue to keep the people of Virginia safe."

She is correct. But it's also necessary for the will of the courts to be carried out after all appeals have been exhausted. And the cost of keeping condemned killers alive in prison must also be considered.

More important than the taxpayers' costs, though, is the right of victims' survivors to finally have closure — like what happened Tuesday evening in Virginia.

Pennsylvania needs to re-examine its attitude and commitment regarding capital punishment.

What currently exists is a limbo that only benefits killers who, in many instances, have shown no remorse for the evil they have done — just like Muhammad refused to do Tuesday evening.