Ron Lantz, an unassuming trucker from Kentucky, could share a $500,000 reward for leading Maryland police to the alleged sniper.

Mr Lantz, from Ludlow, Kentucky, said he heard a description of the suspects’ car on the radio moments before he spotted the blue 1990 Chevrolet Caprice parked at a Maryland rest stop. “I called 911 and they told me they’d be there as soon as possible,” he said. “They said ‘you stay right where you’re at’.”

Within a quarter of an hour the silence of the rest stop was shattered by swarms of armed police officers with searchlights in vans, cars and helicopters.

Mr Lantz parked his lorry across the entrance to the motorway layby to prevent the car, in which Mr Muhammad and Jon Lee Malvo slept, from leaving.

“I'm no hero. I just want people to think what I did is what I should have done,” Mr Lantz told a Cincinnati television station. The authorities had offered a $500,000 reward to anyone who provided information that led to the arrest of the Washington sniper. Who receives the money, if anyone, will not be known until charges linked to the 13 sniper shootings are brought. Another motorist, who has not been named, also called the police about the vehicle and could split the reward with the Kentucky trucker.

Mr Lantz said he would not keep the cash. “If I had the money I’d probably take it and give it back to the people who were shot.”

Last Thursday Mr Lantz and 50 other lorry drivers held a prayer meeting to pray for the capture of the sniper. The meeting took place 20 miles from where police captured the suspects.

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