LEE BOYD MALVO

'Lee Boyd Malvo' (alias 'John Lee Malvo' or 'Malik Malvo') (born February 18, 1985), is an American serial killer. He, along with John Allen Muhammad, was arrested on October 24, 2002 in connection with the Beltway sniper attacks. A jury in Virginia convicted Malvo of capital murder on December 18, 2003, and he was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole on March 10, 2004. He has since pleaded guilty to six additional murders in Maryland, for which he received another six life sentences, and is facing additional charges in several states. He has also confessed to a murder in Arizona. He was held at Red Onion State Prison, located in Wise County, one of Virginia's two supermax prisons, prior to his temporary extradition to Maryland in May 2005 for trial.
In November 2006, Malvo was returned to Red Onion State Prison in Virginia, where he will presumably be held for the remainder of his life. In all, Malvo is believed to have been involved in 16 murders and seven additional attempted murders (23 murder attempts in all), of which the Beltway sniper attacks constituted 10 murders and 15 attempts. Victims included people from California, Arizona, Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, Maryland, and Virginia.

Contents

Childhood

Joining John Allen Muhammad

Interstate Rampage

Criminal prosecutions

Civil lawsuit

The real plan, as told by Lee Boyd Malvo

References

External links

Bibliography

Childhood

Malvo was born in Kingston, Jamaica, to Una James, a seamstress, and Leslie Samuel Malvo, a mason. His parents were never married, and their relationship ended while he was an infant. His father rarely saw him afterward, and his mother was often traveling to look for work. Malvo was usually placed in the care of friends and relatives.
He attended York Castle High school under the name Lee Malvo in Jamaica before he and his mother emigrated to Antigua in 1998. His father said in 2002 that this was when he last saw his son.

Joining John Allen Muhammad

Una and Lee Malvo first met John Allen Muhammad in Antigua around 1999, where Una and Muhammad developed a strong friendship. Later, Una left Antigua for Fort Myers, Florida, using false documents. She left her son with Muhammad, planning to have him follow her later. He did join his mother for a short time in 2001. In 2002, Malvo traveled to Bellingham, Washington, where he lived in a homeless shelter with Muhammad and enrolled in high school with Muhammad falsely listed as his father. Classmates have said he did well in school, but that he did not make any friends. While in the Tacoma, Washington area, according to his statements to investigators, Malvo shoplifted the Bushmaster XM-15 from Bull's Eye Shooter Supply, a dealer for Bushmaster Firearms, Inc., a manufacturer and distributor based in Windham, Maine. About the same time, Muhammad practiced his marksmanship on the Bull's Eye firing range adjacent to the gun shop. Under federal laws, neither was legally allowed to purchase or possess guns. During this period, Malvo converted to Islam.^[1]

Interstate Rampage

Main articles: Beltway sniper attacks

In the summer of 2002, Malvo and Muhammad were seen for a short time in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Malvo's fingerprints were also found at the scene of a murder at a liquor store in Montgomery, Alabama, where another employee was seriously wounded, but survived. From there, they continued their rampage in an attempt to extort $10 million from the U.S. government, traveling through the Washington, DC area and surrounding portions of Maryland and Virginia. Their killing spree ended when Malvo and Muhammad were arrested while sleeping in their car in a Maryland rest area along Interstate 70.

Criminal prosecutions

Malvo was initially arrested under federal charges, but they were dropped. He was transferred to Virginia custody and sent to jail in Fairfax County. He was charged by the Commonwealth of Virginia for two capital crimes: the murder of FBI analyst Linda Franklin "in the commission of an act of terrorism" (an addendum to Virginia law that was added after the September 11, 2001 attacks), and the murder of more than one person in a three-year period. He was also charged with the unlawful use of a firearm in the murder of Franklin. A Fairfax attorney, Michael Arif, was appointed to represent him. While in jail, he made a recorded confession to Detective Samuel Walker in which he stated that he "intended to kill them all."
Under a change of venue, the trial was moved over 150 miles away to the city of Virginia Beach in southeastern Virginia. He pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to all charges on the grounds that he was under Muhammad's complete control. One of Malvo's psychiatric witnesses testified that Muhammad, a member of Louis Farrakhan's Nation of Islam, had indoctrinated him into believing that the proceeds of the extortion attempt would be used to begin a new nation of only pure black young persons somewhere in Canada.
After nearly 14 hours of deliberation, a jury in Virginia Beach, Virginia, convicted him of both charges on December 18, 2003. On December 23, a jury recommended a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole for the murder of Franklin. On March 10, 2004, a judge formally sentenced him to life in prison without parole. The judge could not sentence him to any greater penalty than the jury had recommended.
During this trial, Malvo at times seemed uninterested in the legal proceedings, drawing pictures of the judge, lawyers and other people in the courtroom. The presiding judge, Jane Marum Roush of the Fairfax County Circuit Court, joked with courtroom artists about this incident, stating that their art might have to compete with the defendant's for newspaper and TV coverage.
On October 26, 2004, under a plea bargain to avoid a possible death penalty, Malvo entered an Alford plea to the charges of murdering Kenneth Bridges and attempting to murder Caroline Seawell while Malvo was in Spotsylvania County, Virginia. He also pleaded guilty to two firearms charges and agreed not to appeal his conviction for the murder of Franklin. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole for murder, plus eight years imprisonment for the weapons charges.
One Virginia prosecutor in Prince William County had stated he would wait to decide whether to try him on additional capital charges in his jurisdiction until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on whether juveniles may be subject to the penalty of execution. However, in light of the March 1, 2005 Supreme Court decision in ''Roper v. Simmons'' that the Eighth Amendment prohibits execution for crimes committed when under the age of 18, the prosecutors in Prince William County have decided not to pursue the charges against Malvo. However, prosecutors in Maryland, Louisiana and Alabama are still interested in putting both Malvo and Muhammad on trial.
As Malvo was 17 when he committed the crimes, he cannot face the death penalty, but still may be extradited to Alabama, Louisiana, and other states for prosecution. At the outset of the Beltway sniper prosecutions, the primary reason for extraditing the two suspects from Maryland, where they were arrested, to Virginia, was the differences in how the two states deal with the death penalty. While the death penalty is allowed in Maryland, it is only applied to persons who were adults at the time of their crimes, whereas Virginia had also allowed the death penalty for offenders who had been juveniles when their crimes were committed.
In May 2005, Virginia and Maryland reached an agreement to allow Maryland to begin prosecuting some of the pending charges there, and Malvo was extradited to Montgomery County, Maryland under heavy security.
On June 16, 2006, Malvo told authorities that he and Muhammad were guilty of four additional shootings. The four most recently linked victims were also shot in 2002: a man killed in Los Angeles during a robbery in February or March; a 76-year-old man who survived a shooting on May 18 at a golf course in Clearwater, Florida; a man shot to death while doing yard work in Denton, Texas, May 27; and a 54-year-old man who survived being shot on August 1 during a robbery outside a shopping mall near Baton Rouge, Louisiana.^[2]
On October 10, 2006, Malvo pleaded guilty to the six murders he was charged with in Maryland. On November 8, he was sentenced to six consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole.
On October 27, 2006, Malvo told police that he and Muhammad were responsible for the killing of a 60-year-old man on a golf course in Tucson, Arizona. He claimed that they shot Jerry Taylor while he was practicing chip shots on a local golf course. Tucson police had long sought to speak with Malvo about the March 19, 2002 death of Taylor, who died from a single long range gunshot.

Civil lawsuit

In 2003, Malvo and Muhammad were named in a major civil lawsuit by the Legal Action Project of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence on behalf of some two of their victims who were seriously wounded and the families of some of those murdered. Although Malvo and Muhammad were each believed to be indigent, co-defendants Bull's Eye Shooter Supply and Bushmaster Firearms contributed to a landmark $2.5 million out-of-court settlement in late 2004.

The real plan, as told by Lee Boyd Malvo

In Muhammad's May 2006 trial in Montgomery County, Maryland, Malvo took the stand and confessed to a more detailed version of the pair's plans. Malvo, after extensive counseling, admitted that he was lying at the earlier Virginia trial where he had admitted to being the triggerman for every shooting. Malvo claimed that he had said this in order to protect Muhammad from the death penalty, because it was more difficult to achieve the death penalty for a minor. Malvo stated, "I'm not proud of myself. I'm just trying to make amends," expressing his regret in the shootings.^[3] In his two days of testimony, Malvo outlined detailed aspects of all the shootings.
Part of his testimony concerned Muhammad's complete, multiphase plan. His plan consisted of three phases in the Washington, DC and Baltimore, Maryland metro areas. Phase one consisted of meticulously planning, mapping, and practicing their locations around the DC area. This way after each shooting they would be able to quickly leave the area on a predetermined path, and move on to the next location. Muhammad's goal in Phase One was to kill six people a day for 30 days. Malvo went on to describe how Phase One did not go as planned due to heavy traffic and the lack of a clear shot and/or getaway at different locations.
Phase Two was meant to be moved up to Baltimore. Malvo described how this phase was close to being implemented, but never was carried out. Phase Two was intended to begin by killing a pregnant woman by shooting her in the stomach. The next step would have been to shoot and kill a Baltimore City police officer. Then, at the officer's funeral, they were to create several improvised explosive devices complete with shrapnel. These explosives were intended to kill a large number of police, since many police would attend another officer's funeral.
The last phase was to take place very shortly after, if not during, Phase Two. The third phase was to extort several million dollars from the U.S. government. This money would be used to finance a larger plan: to travel north into Canada and recruit other effectively orphaned boys to use weapons and stealth, and send them out to commit shootings across the country.^[4][5][3]

References

1. http://www.adherents.com/people/pm/Lee_Boyd_Malvo.html
2. Sniper reportedly details 4 new shootings Associated Press/KX net.com 16 June, 2006
3. Malvo: Muhammad 'made me a monster'
Younger man cross-examined by former mentor in sniper trial Mike Ahlers
4. The sniper's plan: kill six whites a day for 30 days Harry Mount
5. Malvo Outlines Snipers' Plan of Terror Charles Montaldo
6. Malvo: Muhammad 'made me a monster'
Younger man cross-examined by former mentor in sniper trial Mike Ahlers

External links

★ Complete Court TV coverage of the Lee Boyd Malvo trial

★ Latest interview with Lee Boyd Malvo's mother

Bibliography

★ Profile: Lee Boyd Malvo, BBC News

★ Malvo Found Guilty in Washington Sniper Case, Reuters (via Yahoo! News)

★ Radford University study on Lee Boyd Malvo (link broken as of 03-30-2007)

★ Article about Malvo's indoctrination