For those who worked the Beltway sniper case in Washington a little more than a decade ago, the manhunt for a highly trained gunman suspected of targeting cops and their families in Southern California has some startling similarities and clear differences as well.

In the California case, the mood is tense among police officers as they continue the search for Christopher Dorner who is suspected of killing three people to settle a score for what he called an unjust firing from the Los Angeles Police Department.

Similar fear gripped the Washington-area for nearly a month in October 2002, when John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo terrorized the city and its suburbs during the sniper case.

They operated out of an old sedan, firing from a hole in the trunk, and struck in broad daylight and at night.

They randomly gunned down 13 people, killing 10 and wounding three, going about their daily routine -- never suspecting for a second that they were in the sights of a killer.

They were each felled by a rifle shot while at a gas station, doing yard work, going to school, or heading into a shopping center.

Police bulletins, road blocks, and false leads and sightings around the notorious shootings fueled drama and tension in a region already on edge over the drumbeat of threats of another al Qaeda attack on the capital.

Police were methodical and eventually caught a break, arresting the pair at a rest stop in Maryland.

The Los Angeles case offers some similarities.

- It involves a manhunt originating in a major metropolitan area with reported sightings in different communities raising fears.