Criminology - The DC Sniper

Episode Date: December 20, 2020

In the fall of October 2002, a series of seemingly random shootings occurred in and around Washington, D.C. The country was still reeling from the events of September 11, 2001, and these shootings were terrifying. The authorities figured out the shootings extended to multiple states. They eventually identified the snipers as 41-year-old John Allen Muhammad and 17-year-old Lee Boyd Malvo. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the senseless and terrifying acts of Muhammad and Malvo. In a relatively short period of time, police believe the pair murdered at least 15 people and injured over a dozen more. But who were they? And, how did Muhammad get the younger Malvo to go along with his plan which revolved around a number of random shootings to hide his one true target? You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital Production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you love chilling mysteries, unsolved cases, and a touch of mom-style humor, moms and mysteries is the podcast you've been searching for. Hey guys, I'm Mandy. And I'm Melissa. Join us every Tuesday for moms and mysteries, your gateway to gripping, well-researched true crime stories. Each week, we deep dive into a variety of mind-boggling cases as we shed light on everything from heist to whodunit. We're your go-to podcast for Mysteries with a Motherly Touch.

Subscribe now to moms and mysteries wherever you get your podcast. If you love chilling mysteries, unsolved cases, and a touch of mom-style humor, moms and mysteries is the podcast you've been searching for. Hey guys, I'm Mandy. And I'm Melissa. Join us every Tuesday for moms and mysteries, your gateway to gripping, well-researched true crime stories. Each week, we deep dive into a variety of mind-boggling cases as we shed light on everything

from heist to who done it. We're your go-to podcast for Mysteries with a Motherly Touch. Subscribe now to moms and mysteries wherever you get your podcast. Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. Hello everyone and welcome to episode 140 of the criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And I'm Mike Morford. Mr. Mike Morford, what is going on with you, brother?

I'll just get ready for the big holiday. How about you? Same here. My wife has about 18 different Christmas trees. I don't know why she needs so many. I swear there's four or five on on each level of the house. Well, you've, Oh, so you're saying is you've got like four or five levels of your house. It's like a,

a compound. No, no, no, no, we got, it's a two story with the basement, but she just has like four or five Christmas trees on every level. She is Christmas from,

and I think she put them up before Thanksgiving. She just loves Christmas. Yeah, my voice is the same way. She's got all her decorations out. And I love it. for the kids. That's what gets me excited to seeing the kids smiling and excited. So let's give our Patreon shoutouts. We had Julia Baranowski, Jennifer Minsky,

Jen, Anna Ica Viello, and Margaret McLean. So some great new support. We really appreciate the new support. We appreciate the people that have supported us all year and ever since we started. It's amazing. Yeah, we've got some really great listeners and we can't thank you. Thank you enough for what you do for us all year around for the show. And if there's anyone out there that would like to support criminology on Patreon, you can do so by going to patreon.com slash criminology. So, more of I think before we jump into this case, let's wish everyone a happy holiday, no matter what you celebrate.

We hope you have a good one. I'm speaking for you because I know you and I talked before we started recording. But we'll be taking the next couple of weeks off. to spend with family. And, you know, like you said, more if we kind of need it. We need to recharge those batteries. Everybody does. So we'll talk to all of you in the new year. One that I think everyone will agree, we all hope, will be better than 2020. Because 2020's been a whopper, man. I don't know about you, but I got my fingers crossed. I'm hoping. Yeah. And I don't really want to say it can't be worse because I don't want to jinx anything, but I, for one, I'm looking forward to a very,

very good 2021. I really think it's going to be a great year. Yeah, I hope we can put a lot of the hurdles of 2020 behind us and move forward. Yeah, yeah, no doubt. It may take a while. It's not going to happen on January 1st, right? But we'll get there. We definitely will. All right, but are you ready to get into this case? Yeah, this is a big case I've been excited about doing for a long time. Yeah, I'm right with you. This is one that captivated me back in the day when it happened, and it still fascinates me. We start off this story one year after the horrific events of September 11th, 2001. The entire country was still on edge and mourning the thousands of lives that were lost on that devastating day. As a country, I think we were still wondering if and really when another attack

might possibly happen. And if so, where? We were on guard. So when a series of seemingly random senseless shootings took place, it took everyone by surprise. You know, these shootings happened over a three-week period in October 2002 in and around our nation. And capital. And many people thought the worst. In reality, while this series has been referred to as the DC sniper series, the attacks were spread out across multiple states in the southeast, and ultimately, by the time the case was solved, the trail of victims connected to these crimes would be traced back to the other side of the country. Authorities quickly realize that they had a major problem on their hands, and that identifying who was behind,

the shootings and why it was going to be a large-scale mission, one that would call on local and federal law enforcement to bring the string of shootings to an end. For those three weeks, residents within range of the shootings didn't want to go outside, and the shooter or shooters didn't discriminate when selecting a target. It didn't matter if you were young or old, what color you were, or what gender. If a person was in the wrong place at the wrong time, they could have found themselves in the killer's crosshairs. The first victim in the D.C. area in this series of shootings that would be dubbed the D.C. sniper shootings was Paul LaRuffa, the owner of Marjolina, an Italian restaurant in Clayton,

Maryland. At 10.20 p.m. on September 5th, 2002, 55-year-old Paul LaRuffa closed a restaurant and walked out of the building with one of his employees and a friend. Paul put his briefcase and laptop in his car's back seat, then got into the driver's seat. All of a sudden, a man appeared about 18 inches from his window and fired six shots. The Baltimore son reported that one bullet entered the window, but missed Paul's head. Four bullets hit him in his chest, stomach, arms, and back, and one bullet shattered into three pieces, about an eighth of an inch from his spine. The gunmen stole his briefcase, laptop, and the restaurant's receipts for the day.

Paul managed to get out of his car. He staggered. He was bleeding, gasping for air while his lungs began to collapse. Only one of his friends remained by his side. The other fled in a panic. However, both men did call 911. Paul had a long road to recovery, but he survived the shooting. The next shooting would come 16 days later on September 21st

and almost 700 miles southwest of where Paul was shot. This time, the victim would be in Atlanta, Georgia. At 12.15 a.m., 41-year-old, Millian Waldm., an Ethiopian immigrant and part-time employee at Sammy's package store in Atlanta, was assisting the owner in closing up for the night when he was shot and killed. About 10 minutes earlier, Millian had not. noticed a suspicious car in the parking lot. The owner told him that if he saw a suspicious car or someone suspicious outside not to go out, but Millian did anyways. He was shot three times

in the head and back with a 22 caliber handgun. Millian's friends described him as a kind and willing worker and a devoted churchgoer who sent money home to his mother in Ethiopia. He had come to the U.S. six or seven years before and was a Canadian national. Two days later, on September 23rd, at 6.30 p.m., 45-year-old Hong M. Ballinger was shot in the head with what police would later determined to be a Bushmaster rifle. This happened in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Hong was leaving her job at a supply house she managed. She had her keys in one hand and her lunchbox in the other. When a man confronted her by her car, she was shot once in the head and died almost instantly. Police located a witness who really couldn't provide a lot of details other than saying he saw a man run off to a small park near the store with Hong's purse.

The police quickly brought in bloodhounds to search the area, but they didn't hit on anything. Hong met her husband Jim Ballinger in 1980. When he was stationed in South Korea, he and a friend got lost on the way to the movies and asked Hong for directions. He invited her to join them, and she accepted. They later married and had a child together. They had lived in Baton Rouge for about five years. Between October 2nd and October 24, 2002, 10 more people were killed and three others injured, as the shooter focused in and around the Washington, D.C. area.

At 5.20 p.m. on October 2, a bullet narrowly missed 43-year-old Anne Chapman, a cashier at Michael's Craft Store, located in the Northgate shopping center in Aspen Hill, Maryland. According to the Baltimore Sun, the bullet cut a dime-sized hole in the display window, Nick Delight fixture, pierced two posterboard signs, and hit a metal rack holding rows of MIDI books.

Anne had been standing near the window when she heard a loud bang. She thought a light bulb had blown up, but then saw smoke and figured her computer was malfunctioning. It wasn't until she saw the bull, bullet hole that she realized someone had shot at her and missed. The next shooting happened at 6 p.m. the same day. James D. Martin, a 55-year-old program analyst at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, was heading to his home in the Stone Gate neighborhood of Silver Springs, Maryland.

He stopped at the shopper's food warehouse on Randolph Road in Wheaton. James was shot and killed in the store's parking line. The following day on October 3rd, four others were shot to death within a two of our time frame. 39-year-old James Sunny Buchanan ran a landscaping business out of a Rockville, Maryland home that he shared with his mother, Alice, and the eldest of his two sisters, Debbie Cox. However, he had recently moved to Grayson County, Virginia, to live with his father, James Buchanan, who ran a tree farm near Abingdon.

Sunny had a decades-old contract with Fitzgerald Auto, malls to mow their lawn at 1-1-211 Rockville Pike. Despite the long-distance drive after he moved, Sunny still honored the agreement. At 7.40 a.m. on October 3, 2002, sunny was shot while mowing at Fitzgerald Auto Malls. He died en route to suburban hospital. 54-year-old Prim Kumar Wallachar was originally from India and lived all

Georgia Avenue in Olney, Maryland. He drove a brown independent cab for living and often stopped at the mobile gas station in Aspen Hill on his way to work. As he was pumping gas shortly before 8.15 a.m. on October 3rd, Prim Kumar was shot. One of the gas stations' mechanics saw him clutch his left side and fall against a nearby van as his blood pooled onto the pavement. The van's female driver called out frantically saying, he's been shot. The woman jumped out of her vehicle, and performed CPR on him as he struggled to breathe. But she couldn't save him, and Prim Kumar died. He had immigrated to the U.S. in the 1970s and had a wife and two children.

A short while later at 8.37 a.m., a. 34-year-old woman named Sarah Ramos was sitting on a gray metal bench outside Leisure World in the Burnt Hills area of Silver Spring, Maryland. She was waiting for a ride. She had just gotten off a bus and was sitting. sitting on the bench reading a book when she was shot and killed. A witness to the shooting described a white box truck in the area at the time. It really was the first solid lead that D.C. area police had after they realized that someone was going around shooting people at random in their

area. Police stopped trucks in the area that matched the description, but it turned out to be fruitless and they soon realized that there were seemingly endless amounts of trucks matching this description. Sarah Ramos spoke little English and supported her family by working as a housekeeper and nanny for the family of Larry Gaffigan. She was the primary wage earner supporting her husband and seven-year-old son Carlos Cruz Jr. Carlos Sr. was once an economics professor in El Salvador. It turned out that Sarah's employer, Larry Gaffekin, also knew victim James Martin, who had been killed the day before. Over an hour after Sarah Ramos was killed, 25-year-old Lori Ann Lewis Rivera was vacuuming a maroon Dodge caravan at a shell gas station in Kensington shortly before 10 a.m.

When she collapsed, witnesses thought she had a heart attack, but one witness came forward named John Mystery, who heard something that sounded like a backfire right before Lori fell to the ground. It turned out, Lori had been shot to death. Lori left behind her husband, Nelson Rivera, and daughter, Jocelyn. She and her husband were planning to buy a house together. Lori was also a nanny like Sarah Ramos. At 9.15 p.m. that same day, the sniper struck again when he shot and killed 72-year-old Pascal Charlotte, a retired. Carpenter, he was walking near Calmia Road on Georgia Avenue in Washington, D.C., just steps from the Montgomery County line. Pascal was buying medicine for his sick wife and lottery tickets when he

was gunned down. A witness to the shooting told police that he saw a dark-colored Chevy Caprice with its lights off near the scene, but the police still focused in on this white van because there were several reports of white vans at the previous shootings. White spread panic quickly grew through the area as news of the shootings spread. Schools went into lockdown with no recess or outdoor physical education classes, and parents drove their kids to school instead of letting them walk or take the bus. Some people were afraid to get out of their cars and pump their gas, out of fear of being shot. Others tried to live life normally as best they could, despite the circumstances.

but everyone was aware that there was a maniac out there moving amongst them. At this point in the investigation, law enforcement officials had little to go on. As far as suspects or a motive, the shootings appeared to be random with no connection between the victims. And up to this point, the shootings in the other states hadn't been officially linked to the D.C. area shootings. The police waited to see if and when the killer would strike again.

And they didn't have to wait long. On October 4th, 43-year-old homemaker and mother of two, Caroline Sewell, was loading groceries into her minivan at a Michael's parking lot in Fredericksburg, Virginia, near Interstate 95, about 50 miles south of the most recent shooting. A shot rang out, striking Caroline, but she survived the shooting. Three days later on October 7th, A 13-year-old student named Irn Brown was shot in the chest as his aunt dropped him off at the Benjamin Tasker Middle School. This was located at 4901 Collington Road in Bowie, Maryland. Irons' aunt was a nurse and quickly got him back into her vehicle and raced to Bowie Health Center. From there, Iron was soon transferred to a Washington, D.C. trauma center.

Police investigating at the scene found a shell casing about 100 yards from the school's entrance, along with the death of the death. card from a terror card deck with a hand-wrent message on it. This was an interesting clue for the investigators and later would prove useful. Initially, they chose to hold back some details about what they had found, but details eventually emerged indicating that the card read in part, Mr. Policeman, I am God. Some reports say it read, call me God. Iron Brown survived the shooting. His shooting was the only one involving a child, and the only one that occurred at a

school. As a result, schools again went in a lockdown, and parents scrambled to pick their kids up from school early. They were terrified that more kids would be hurt or killed. School officials did their best to ensure the safety of children, but at this point, there was no guarantee it wouldn't happen again. Shortly after 8 p.m. on October 9th, 53-year-old civil engineer Dean Harold Myers was shot in the head as he refueled his car at a Manassas, Virginia gas station near his office. According to Dean's obituary, to avoid the draft, he enlisted in the Army and was sent to South Vietnam in May, 1969, he received the Purple Heart for wounds received in hostile action on March 8, 1970, and a permanent disability for the same incident.

Although he spent over a year in recovery, he graduated with a civil engineer degree from Penn State in 1975. He relocated to Northern Virginia to work in the field, never married. He was an active uncle to his brothers and his friends' children and a longtime sponsor to several children through World Vision and anti-poverty Mission. He loved the outdoors, especially the waterways. At around 9.30 a.m. on October 11th, just two days after Dean Myers was killed, 53-year-old Kenneth Bridges, a prominent Philadelphia businessman, was shot to death while pumping fuel at the Exxon Station. This was located off Interstate 95 near Fredericksburg, Virginia. Not far from where Caroline Sewell was injured. A state trooper was across the street at the time of the shooting and raced to help.

And in very little time, police set up roadblocks and checked white vans along. the interstate. It seemed to the police that there was no way that the sniper could get away, but investigators came up empty. On October 14th at 9.15 p.m., 47-year-old FBI intelligence analyst Linda Franklin was shot dead in a covered parking lot of a Home Depot just outside of Falls Church, Virginia, at the seven-corner shopping center. Linda was a resident of Arlington, Virginia. She and her husband, William Franklin, were making... In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. Number one, which emergency?

We just walked in the door, and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved, until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, Blood and Water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. Purchases at Home Depot for their new home, they were about to move into nearby. William heard what he thought was wood slamming on concrete as he felt something wet hit his face.

What he felt was his wife's blood hitting him. He looked down and saw his wife's lifeless bloody body on the ground. He went into shock. but was able to call 911. It was when police arrived at the scene and began to investigate that they thought they had another big clue. A 37-year-old witness named Matthew M. Dowdy gave a detailed description of the sniper.

He described him as a Middle Eastern man driving a white van with a busted taillight. The story was so detailed, but it took less than 24 hours for police to realize Dowdy was lying for whatever reason. Police later arrested and charged him with making a false statement to investigators. The real shooter had slipped away once again. If you love chilling mysteries, unsolved cases, and a touch of mom-style humor,

moms and mysteries is the podcast you've been searching for. Hey guys, I'm Mandy. And I'm Melissa. Join us every Tuesday for moms and mysteries, your gateway to gripping, well-researched true crime stories. Each week, we deep dive into a variety of mind-boggling cases as we shed light on everything from heist, to whodontas. We're your go-to podcast for Mysteries with a Motherly Touch. Subscribe now to Moms and Mysteries wherever you get your podcast.

Reacting to the national shock at the D.C. sniper shootings, President George W. Bush even responded to the press and addressed terrorism fears. Sniper attacks, first of all, I'm just sick to my stomach. To think that there is a cold-blooded killer at home. taking innocent life. I weep for those who've lost their loved ones. I am, you know, the idea of moms taking their kids to school and sheltering them from a potential sniper attack is not the American I know of his top lieutenant roaming around.

Well, first of all, it is a form of terrorism, but in terms of the terrorism that we think of, we have no evidence, one way or the other, obviously. but anytime anybody is randomly shooting, randomly killing, randomly taking life, it's a, it's a cold-blooded murder and it's, you know, it's a sick mind. It's obviously loves terrorizing society. By this point, the sniper shootings were all over local and national TV. Meanwhile, profilers and pundits were all over the news channels discussing how the sniper had a pattern. He never struck on weekends. That stood out to them. Five days after the last shooting, the longest gap between shootings, the sniper struck again. This time on a Saturday. At 8 p.m. on October 19th, 37-year-old Jeffrey Hopper and his wife were traveling through town and pulled into a Ponderosa

Steakhouse in Ashland, Virginia, near Interstate 95 to grab a bite to eat. Jeffrey was shot in the parking lot by a shooter standing in the nearby woods. His wife cried out for help and a passerby called for an ambulance. Jeffrey survived his injuries. Police found a note in the woods which demanded $10 million and threatened to harm children. At the time, the threat and extortion details were not released to the public. So police had found some written clues. at multiple scenes, but they were no closer to catching the shooter.

The next day on October 20th, Montgomery County Police Chief Charles A. Moose gave a press conference and directly appealed to the sniper in response to the note left at the scene. He said, quote, we do want to talk to you. Call us at the number you provided. He was hoping to open a dialogue with a sniper, one that might lead to his identity being revealed. The next day, there was chatter of the arrest of two men near Richmond, Virginia, who may have been connected to the shootings, but it turned out that the arrest had nothing to do with the sniper case. The next shooting took place on October 22, 2002, when 35-year-old bus driver Conrad Everton Johnson was shot just before 6 a.m. while standing on the steps of his bus at the 14,000 block of Grand Prix Road in Aspen Hill, Maryland. He died from his injuries. Following Johnson's shooting, Chief Moose released

part of the letter's content, found at the scene of Jeffrey Hopper shooting that demanded $10 million. The note read in part, your children are not safe anywhere at any time. The chief also took to television, trying to continue a dialogue with the shooter. In the past several days, you have attempted to communicate with us. We have researched the option you stated and found that it is not possible electronically to comply in the manner that you requested. However, we remain open and ready to talk to you about the options you have mentioned. It is important that we do this without anyone else getting hurt. Call us at the same number you used before to obtain the 800 number that you have requested. If you would feel more comfortable, a private post office box or another secure method can be

provided. You indicated that this is about more than violence. We are waiting to hear from you. What the general public didn't know was that police were closing in on the sniper, and as a Turns out, Conrad Johnson would be the last victim in the series. The massive investigation of the sniper shootings was led by the Montgomery County Police Department and headed by Chief Moose. Assisting in the investigation was the FBI and several other law enforcement agencies, including the ATF and Secret Service. The FBI was considerable presence in the investigation,

and it alone had approximately 400 agents throughout the country working on the case. The Bureau set up a toll-free number to collect tips from the public, had teams of new agents trained to help work the hotline, and established a joint operations center to assist the Montgomery County police in running the case. So you had all of these resources and agencies working towards a resolution. You had the public who was definitely keeping their eyes and ears open. The pressure was on the shooter. But despite all the pressure from law enforcement in the public, it was the actions of the shooters themselves that brought them down. On October 17, 2002, a caller claiming to be the sniper, phoned in to say that he was responsible for the murders of two women during the robbery of a

liquor store in Montgomery, Alabama. The man was referring to the September 21st shooting of Claudine Parker and Kelly Adams. 52-year-old Claudine Parker, a liquor store clerk at the ABC store on Zelda Road in Montgomery, was shot in the chest and killed during an apparent robbery of the liquor store. Her co-worker, 24-year-old Kelly Adams, was shot but survived. The bullet entered the back of her head and exited her jaw. It just barely missed a major artery. and her spinal column.

The gunman fled after seeing police nearby. So there was no money taken from the store. Investigators in Alabama said that fingerprint and ballistic evidence were available in that case. A month later on October 21st, an FBI agent arrived in Mobile, gathered evidence and took it back to Washington, D.C. The ATF handled the ballistics. and FBI agents took the fingerprint evidence to the FBI lab,

located at their headquarters in D.C. The following morning, investigators got a match. A magazine dropped at the crime scene matched the fingerprints of a juvenile from Washington State who had been previously arrested. The young man's name was Lee Boyd Malvo, and he was only 17 years old. Malvo's previous arrest record also mentioned a man named John Allen Muhammad. ATF agents discovered that Muhammad owned a Bushmaster 223 rifle, a federal violation since he had a restraining order filed against him to stay away from his ex-wife Mildred.

That enabled agents to charge him with federal weapons violations. With Malvo connected, the FBI and ATF jointly obtained a federal material witness warrant for him. On October 22nd, FBI agents searched. their criminal records database and found that Muhammad had registered a blue Chevy Caprice with the license plate of NDA 21Z in New Jersey. The next day, authorities put out a public bulletin looking for a dark blue 1990 Chevy Caprice bearing New Jersey license plate NDA 21Z with two men considered armed and dangerous inside. Back in Washington State, authorities were examining a tree stump.

one which they learned was used by Muhammad and Malvo for target practice. They compared bullet fragments with bullets used in the DC sniper shootings and found that they were matches. At 1145 p.m. on October 22nd, the caprice was spotted at a rest stop parking lot off I-70 in Frederick County, Maryland. Less than an hour later, law enforcement officials swarmed the scene and set up a perimeter to check out any movements and ensure that there would be no escape. A few hours later, at 319 a.m., the FBI and other police units closed in on the suspected snipers and arrested 41-year-old John Allen Muhammad and 17-year-old Lee Boyd Malvo as they slept. What they found in the car was astonishing.

The car had a hole cut in the trunk near the license plate. so that shots could be fired from inside the vehicle, creating a rolling sniper's nest, if you will. Per the FBI's website, investigators also found the following. The Bushmaster-223 rifle that had been used in each attack, a rifle scope for taking aim and a tripod to steady the shots, a backseat that had the sheet metal removed between the passenger compartment in the trunk, enabling the shooter to get into the trunk from inside the car. The Chevy Caprice's owner's manual, with what the FBI lab later determined were written impressions of one of the demand notes.

The digital voice recorder used by both Malvo and Muhammad to make extortion demands. The laptop that was stolen from victim and survivor Paul LaRuffa contained maps of the shooting sites and getaway routes from some of the crime scenes, and maps and walkie-talkies, as well as several other items. After the arrest, Lee Boyd Malvo was subjected to hours of questioning and interviews with both psychologists and social workers. Investigators needed to understand how he came to partner with the older Muhammad to go on a ruthless killing spree. While Malvo admitted responsibility, it was clear that he was highly manipulated and controlled by John Allen Muhammad. Authority stated the motive behind the killings was part of a plan to kill Muhammad's ex-wife,

Mildred who lived in Maryland. By randomly killing others, police would connect her murder to the sniper shootings. Luckily, he was arrested before he was able to follow through with his plan. It really was, though, a devious and well-thought-out plan and a cold-blooded one to boot because they ultimately injured or killed a lot of people, all just to eventually murder Muhammad's wife. But just who were these two snipers? John Allen Muhammad was born John Allen Williams on December 31, 1960, in New Orleans. After his mother died when he was four years old, his aunt raised him in Baton Rouge.

After high school, Muhammad married Carol Kegler and joined the Louisiana Army National Guard. They had a son named Lindberg. Muhammad's military career began promisingly, but he eventually got into trouble in two separate incidents. failing to report for duty and hitting an officer. In 1985, Muhammad left his wife, converted to Islam, joined the U.S. Army, and was stationed in Washington State. He eventually married Mildred Green, and they had three children together. During his time in the Army, Muhammad became a skilled marksman and served in Germany in the Middle East during the Gulf War. He left the army in 1994. He unsuccessfully started two businesses, an auto repair shop.

in a karate school. Mildred filed for divorce in 1999, and the following year, she got a restraining order against Muhammad because of violent threats he made against her. Shortly after, he fled to Antigua with the couple's three children and eventually

met teenager Lee Boyd Malvo. Lee Boyd Malvo was born on February 18, 1985, in Kingston, Jamaica, to Una James and Leslie Samuel Malvo. His parents often neglected him. And due to their constant absence, Malvo was often left in the care of others.

He really wasn't very well supervised. In 1998, Una and Malvo moved to Antigua. That's where Malvo met John Allen, Muhammad. Three years later, mother and son moved to Miami, where Malvo briefly attended high school before moving to Bellingham, Washington. eventually returned to the states, settling and Bellingham with his kids. But the police found him and returned the children to Mildred. She and the children then moved to Maryland. And that really enraged Muhammad. He soon became fixated on Malva, who had recently moved to the area with his mother.

The three of them lived together in a shelter. And it was during this time that Muhammad began to guide. and some would claim control the younger, impressionable Malvo, who looked at Muhammad as a father figure. Muhammad imposed a vigorous exercise program on Malvo and a strict diet that reportedly consisted of only honey and crackers at one point. In December 2001, Muhammad and Malvo were arrested by immigration officials for being in the U.S.

illegally. but they were released while waiting on a hearing and the two soon reunited. For several months, Muhammad taught Malvo how to shoot. They would often practice shooting on a tree stump in a friend's yard. When Muhammad was confident Malvo was adequately trained, they moved on to live targets. Authorities learned that Dua's killing spree actually started in Washington and that their first victim was 21-year-old. Kenya Cook of Tacoma, Washington. On February 16, 2002,

Kenya opened the door of her aunt's east side Tacoma home and was shot in the face by Lee Malvo, while her six-month-old daughters slept upstairs in her crib. Malvo later confessed to shooting Kenya, but neither man was charged with her death. Authorities didn't believe that Kenya was the intended target, and that instead it was most likely her aunt Isa Nichols, who was friends with Muhammad's ex-wife, Mildred.

Muhammad held a grudge against Issa because she had taken Mildred's side in the custody dispute. Muhammad and Melvo left Washington State for Arizona. But sadly, Kenya wasn't the only victim on the sniper's cross-country trip to the East Coast. On March 19, 2002, 60-year-old Jerry Taylor, a dairy product and frozen food salesman, was golfing in Tucson when a single shot fired from long range, struck and killed him. A 92-year-old golfer, dialed 911 from the pro shop, but it was too late. Jerry was dead, and his dog, a German Shepherd Rottweiler mix, cried all night, warning the loss of his owner. Taylor left behind a wife and two daughters.

Jerry Taylor was later confirmed to be a victim of John Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo. On August 1st, 2002, 51-year-old John Gata was shopper. at a mall in Hammond, Louisiana, when he got a flat tire. As he was changing the tire, a young man later verified to be Lee Malvo, shot him in the neck. The bullet exited through John's back. John pretended to be dead while Malvo stole his wallet that contained $40. After Malvo fled, John ran to a service station and was taken to a hospital. Another man was with Malvo at the time of the shooting, John Muhammad. John Gay to survive the shooting. And in two things, 2010, Malvo sent him an apology letter from prison.

It was just over a month later. On September 5th, when the pair shot and wounded Paul LaRuffa in Maryland, officially kicking off their D.C. area crimes. La Ruffa's stolen laptop was later found in John Allen Muhammad's car when he and Malvo were arrested. The trials of both John Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo were moved to separate cities in Virginia. They began in the fall of 2003. Muhammad was ultimately convicted of capital murder on three counts and was executed by lethal injection in Jarrett, Virginia on November 10th, 2009. He was 49 years old.

Lee Malvo was ultimately sentenced to life in prison without parole in 2004. Malvo's case once again made headlines when he challenged his life sentences. In June 2018, A three-judge paneled the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Richmond, Virginia, unanimously ruled for Malvo, saying his sentences were unconstitutional and that he was entitled to a new sentence in hearing. A few days later, Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring announced in a statement that his office was seeking to have the U.S. Supreme Court review the case, which it did in October 2019. In a November 7th, 2019 article for Northern Virginia magazine, Michael Lee Pope wrote, quote, The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Mathena v. Malvo, which addressed the question, when juveniles are sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, should their youth be taken into account?

Randall, Mathina, is the warden to Supermax Red Onion State Prison in Virginia. where Malvo is incarcerated. Pope wrote that the question of whether or not Malvo should be executed or should receive life in prison was not on the docket. The court was examining the question of whether a juvenile's age should be taken into consideration during sentencing in Virginia. Samantha Michaels further explained on motherjones.com that Malvo's case is now at the center of a debate about the way teenagers are punished for crimes and the extent to which states must give

juvenile lifers, even the ones who committed notoriously violent offenses, an opportunity to show they have changed since they were younger. So if the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Malvo's favor, Virginia might have been forced to resentence him since Malvo was serving a total of 10 life sentences, it's pretty implausible, more if that he would ever get out of prison. In addition, the decision wouldn't just affect Malvo's case, right? There were a lot of juvenile offenders whose cases would be affected by any significant U.S. Supreme Court ruling. On February 24, 2020, in a letter to the Supreme Court, Virginia prosecutors and lawyers for Lee Boyd-Melvo asked the Supreme Court to dismiss the case, saying that a new Virginia law, which made juvenile offenders eligible for parole after 20 years, rendered the case moot.

Even if they had followed through with the case, a ruling in Melvo's favor from the Supreme Court wouldn't have helped him. According to Adam Liptack of the New York Times, he was also said, sentenced to life without parole in Maryland for six murders there. And he's challenging those sentences in a separate proceeding. In addition, Malvo and Muhammad were not charged with the killings in Alabama, Arizona, Louisiana, and Washington State. And Malvo could still be charged with those murders. Today, Lee Boyd Malvo is 35 years old and he is incarcerated at the Red Onion State Prison in Virginia. In the year since his convictions, he has shown some remorse for his crimes. On October 2nd, 2007, Malvo called Cheryl Witts, the daughter of Tucson victim, Jerry Taylor,

to apologize for killing her father. In 2010, Malvo sent a letter to John Gata, apologizing for shooting him. Malvo also gave an interview in 2012 with the Washington Post, in which he called himself a monster for the crimes he committed with John Allen Muhammad in 2002. That same year, he told the Today Show Matt Lauer that Muhammad had once sexually abused him. In March 2020, Lee Malvo married a young woman while in prison, but her name wasn't publicly released. Carmada Albaris, one of Malvo's mentors, who testified at his 2003 trial told the Associated Press, over the past 17 years, he has grown despite his conditions of confinement. He has grown into an adult and has found love with a wonderful young lady.

It was a beautiful ceremony. Well, Morph, the problem I have with that is that Malvo took away the chance for his victims that died to grow, to have a life, to see their children grow. You know, okay, I got it. He's doing the best he can in prison. You know, he had a beautiful wedding ceremony. I don't care. I really don't care because he created such chaos and carnage and damage so many people.

And I go back to the old thing. Is he really sorry? Has he really changed? Or is he just sorry that he got caught? And that's the only reason that he's showing remorse. Yeah, I think you have to ask that question in every case. case because is he angling to one day face the parole board and he's smart enough to know that when he gets there, he needs to have this track record of remorse. In total, the authorities believe that

John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo murdered at least 15 people and injured over a dozen more. In fact, there are a number of other shootings that bear a lot of similarities to their shootings, but lack the evidence to connect them to their crimes. So, Morph, as we're wrapping up this case, you know, one of the things that kind of has always intrigued me is the relationship, you know, to use that term between John Allen, Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo. You know, Malvo was a juvenile. Some have said he was impressionable. You could make the argument that most kids 16, 17 years old are impressionable.

But how did John Allen Muhammad, you know, get this kid to go along with his plan, knowing that, you know, they were going to be driving around picking victims at random and, you know, killing them. You know, Malvo later accused Muhammad of sexually abusing him. Okay, did that have something to do with it? Was it that he just became, you know, like a father figure? And this kid was searching for a father figure and therefore was willing to go along with whatever this guy wanted him to do. Now, to me, it goes back to that old thing that your parents told you, when you were a kid, if so-and-so jumps off a bridge, would you jump off a bridge? And I think that's just the difference of knowing whether something's right or wrong.

So whether he was in the needing a father figure or not, he should have known that, hey, I can't be doing this. This is just plain wrong. Yeah, I mean, I am with you. I do believe at that age, kids know that that type of behavior is wrong. It's criminal. but he did it anyway. So, you know, again, to me, that's the fascination. How? Why? Was Muhammad so persuasive? Or did Malvo have kind of this dark side already? And it wasn't that hard to bring it out. Now, one thing that

interests to me about this case, or I should say, that really jumps out to me about this case is how scary the randomness of these murders were. It's hard to believe it's been 18 years. When we're researching this, I looked back and I said, well, I can't believe it's been 18 years because I remember like it was yesterday. My sister-in-law was supposed to drive to Virginia the week when this was going on, and she refused to do it because she was afraid to get out and pump gas along the way while this was going on. So I can only imagine how people that were actually living there while this was going on, how afraid they might have been, that you could walk into the drugstore and get shot or go pump your gas and get shot or mow your lawn and get shot.

And that's a, you know, the idea of a scary, creepy, oddest tool creeping around your neighborhood is scary enough. But when you have to be worried about just doing something you do every day of your life, that's really powerful. Yeah, I think you nailed it exactly, right? this isn't a case like a Jeffrey Dahmer where he's selecting his victims in pretty specific places, right? So a lot of people might have thought, well, I'm not going to be at those places or I'm not going to be out at 10, 11, 12, 1 o'clock at these bars where these men are being abducted from. If you look back on it that way, this case totally different.

like you said. I'm not saying those people were doing anything wrong at being, you know, at a gay bar at one o'clock in the morning. There's nothing wrong with that. What I'm saying is many of these victims were just doing everyday things that we don't even think twice about. You got to get gas, right? You got to go to work. You got to stop off and get something to eat. So, you know, from my perspective, there is kind of an enhanced scaringness. in that randomness. And I think they proved that they didn't discriminate. Their targets were young, old, male, female, Indian, white, black, everyone, no matter what their

background, race, age, sex could be a target. Again, I think that's a very scary proposition. Thanks goes out to Debbie Buck at TruecrimeDiva.com for writing and research assistants in this episode. As always, if you love the show, but you haven't done so yet, go out, give us a five-star rating. You can leave a review, but don't forget to keep telling your friends. That word of mouth for the show makes a huge difference. If you want to find us on social media, we're on Twitter with the handle at Criminology Pod. You can also find us on Facebook by searching for Criminology Podcast or by joining our Facebook discussion group, which is Criminology Podcasts

discussion and fans. So just a reminder, this is our last episode of 2020. Morph and I are taking our holiday break, spend time with our family, and enjoy the holidays. We'll be back with all of you on January 9th, 2021 with a brand new episode of criminology. So until then, for Mike and Morif, we'll talk to you in the new year. Happy holidays, everyone.