RedHanded - Episode 239 - The D.C. Snipers

Episode Date: March 31, 2022

In the space of 3 weeks in October 2002, Washington D.C was terrorised by a pair of spree killers carrying out a spate of deadly sniper-style attacks. They killed 10 people and injured 3 others. Their choice of victims was shockingly random; they crossed racial, gender, age and socioeconomic lines - ensuring that everyone was absolutely terrified. And when the pair were finally apprehended, authorities realised that they had been wrong about almost everything from motive to profile… Check us out on this week’s episode of Let’s Not Meet Podcast too! Sources:  Book: The Making of Lee Boyd Malvo: The D.C. Sniper - Albarus, Carmeta https://northernvirginiamag.com/culture/culture-features/2019/11/07/a-collective-timeline-of-the-dc-sniper-case-from-2002-to-2019/ https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/washington-d-c-sniper-john-muhammad-convicted https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2004/10/beltway-snipers-200410 https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trucker-im-no-hero/ https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/beltway-snipers https://www.today.com/news/d-c-sniper-lee-boyd-malvo-i-was-sexually-abused-1c6671345 https://www.wiki.ng/en/wiki/who-is-lee-boyd-malvo-wife-sable-noel-knapp-everything-to-know-about-her-648371 https://www.britannica.com/topic/Beltway-sniper-attacks https://edition.cnn.com/2013/11/04/us/dc-area-sniper-fast-facts/index.html https://www.cbsnews.com/news/malvo-defense-to-air-the-matrix/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9AB73R8MNA https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/john-allen-muhammada-failed-businessman-andfrustrated-father/2012/09/28/fa5c7c9c-08e4-11e2-858a-5311df86ab04_story.html https://archive.ph/20140913002022/http://bigstory.ap.org/article/interview-dc-sniper-says-he-was-sexually-abused https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/2003/11/26/witnesses-call-malvo-obedient/213e80ff-8cfb-497d-8a9e-259f4483d96c/?noredirect=on https://edition.cnn.com/2003/LAW/12/19/sprj.dcsp.malvo.trial/index.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/2003/01/12/a-boy-of-bright-promise-and-no-roots/aa08f90d-8528-423d-af0d-ed1b0fe2d944/?noredirect=on https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2003/09/the-pied-sniper.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2002-nov-09-na-suspects9-story.html Become a patron: Patreon Order a copy of the book here (US & Canada): Order on Wellesley Books Order on Amazon.com Order a copy of the book here (UK, Ireland, Europe, NZ, Aus): Order on Amazon.co.uk Order on Foyles Follow us on social media: Instagram Twitter Visit our website: Website Contact us: Contact See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hannah. I'm Saruti. And welcome to Red Handed. If you still haven't got tickets for our live show, you're too fucking late, my friend,

because it has sold out. We basically found out that the links weren't working and we were like, why the hell is our show not selling out when they usually sell out in minutes? We discovered that the link was fixed and now they're sold out. Yeah, we'll keep you informed of other ones that we might be doing this year. But yeah, for cryptic reasons that we can't tell you yet, we're not doing a UK tour this year. That's all I can say. TBC. TBC. TBC.

Another thing that you guys might enjoy is I was going to talk to you like you're in this room. Do you listen to the Let's Not Meet podcast? Oh yeah, well done. Because I do. And I really love that podcast. I love the guy, Andrew Tate is the host and I love his voice. If you've never listened to it,

he sounds exactly like Aaron Mankey from Lore. And reading out scary stories sent in by listeners. It's terrifying. And the reason we're talking about Let's Not Meet and the deliciously voiced Andrew Tate is because Hannah and I special guested on Let's Not Meet. Yeah, we did. I believe the episode,

if you're listening to this on the day of release, so Wednesday or Thursday, depending if you're a patron or not, our episode of Let's Not Meet will be out this Sunday. So a little weekend delight for everybody. And Hannah and I got given these, frankly, nightmarish places. Yeah, really stuff to keep you up. Did not enjoy, but did enjoy.

And so if you fancy listening to that, head on over to the Let's Not Meet podcast and check that out this Sunday. It's basically, yeah, just true horror stories read usually by Andrew Tate, sometimes by us. Yes. So that's what we have for you in terms of letting you know what's going on in our lives, which I know you will desperately love and definitely don't skip past. Today, we've got some spree killers for you. So let's just jump right in. As the people of America were still coming to terms with the horrors of 9-11, they found themselves facing a new nightmare. In the space of three weeks in October 2002,

the residents of Washington DC were terrorised by a pair of spree killers who carried out a spate of deadly sniper-style attacks that claimed the lives of ten people and injured three more. The shooter's choice of victims seemed completely random. In a rare move for multiple murderers, their victim profile crossed race, gender, age and socioeconomic lines. This of course meant that it was pretty impossible to predict their next move. And it also meant that no one felt safe. People were running across streets in zigzags, anticipating the impact of a barrage of bullets. I think with this case, we've had it recommended a lot of times to us.

Why am I being coy? You can see it in the title. We've also called it a sniper case and it's in DC. It's the DC snipers. It took place in 2002. I don't know why when I look at pictures of this case I always think it's past O times but I think it's just because even in 2002 cameras were kind of shit. Yeah terrible yeah. So it's in 2002 it's in the noughties and also they killed the same number of people of Son of Sam but I really don't think the DC snipers get talked about nearly half as much. No.

Not even half as much, not even a fifth as much. Yeah, hands up, I had no idea about this. Yeah. Never heard of it. It's crazy. So when this case was playing out, FBI profilers, the media and the public all assumed that the DC sniper was a lone white man. Despite the fact that only over half of sniper homicides committed between 1976 and 2000 in the US were carried out by white perpetrators. Now we discussed this false

narrative of all serial killers being white men in our book. You haven't bought it yet, why haven't you? You would know this if you had. And it is of course a common myth, but one that still persists to today, especially in pop culture. The idea of a calculated, methodical, repetitive killer is almost always put down as the domain of a white killer. It's the kind of crime in the West that's rarely associated with non-white men. So imagine everyone's surprise when the DC snipers were finally caught that they turned out to be a pair of black Muslims. This assumption of race and the role it played in the investigation of the DC snipers stirred a valuable debate afterwards. But we'll go into that a bit later. Because first, we need to explore the story of a bizarre team dynamic of pseudo-paternal manipulation, coercive control and abuse

that all culminated in the rapid transformation of a young boy who had dreams of one day becoming a commercial pilot into someone capable of shooting an innocent girl at point-blank range in the face whilst her baby cried in the next room. Lee Boyd Malvo was born in Kingston, Jamaica on the 18th of February 1985 to Leslie Malvo and Una James. Malvo's earliest memories of his father were all good ones. Leslie was the nurturer. Imagine the kind of hazy, vignetted, hallmark movie montage of a father teaching his son how to ride a bike buying ice cream reassuringly picking him up after he falls over helping him with his homework etc all that good stuff that was their relationship did you know that i was nearly called una were you yeah

una mcguire una mcguire yeah so i could see you as an Una. Yeah. I yeah, I've never felt like a Hannah as I'm sure I've discussed at length on the show. But my nanny, so my dad's mom, when my mom was pregnant with me, would just leave Irish name books just like around the house with like stuff underlined. And the eventual compromise is that my middle name is Mary, which was her name. But yeah, Una was a contender. And also Anita. I think I'd smash being an Anita. Anita McGuire, you're joking. Yeah, I don't see you as an Anita. I see you as an Una. Yeah, it's a weirder name. I feel like you suit Una. Oh, that's kind of sad that you weren't called Una. I know, so close. I really see you as that. Hmm. No, my grandmother was very annoyed that my parents didn't name me after some sort of Hindu goddess. She was very disappointed by that. And the fact that they went with Saruti Leia, which, don't know, apparently there was like a singer that my dad was like in a parasocial

love relationship with. Really, you dog. I know. When he was at university, who was something along the lines of Saruti, and she killed herself herself so he was like that's what i'll name my daughter oh wow yeah good tragic love loss there yikes um so grandma was very upset by that and i don't think she's ever fully got over it you know what the handy thing is now that you've mentioned that your middle name is mary after your grandma both my grandmas have the same first name bingo bangoo. If I ever have a daughter, that's her middle name.

What is it? Rajam. Uh-huh. So there you go. Easy. Not bumping it to first name? No. Don't care that much.

So yeah, Leslie and Leboid Malvo, they're having a great time. It's that classic thing of like what I imagine is just like hazy around the corners of the screen and they're just laughing. They're just laughing and laughing and laughing. You don't know what, but it's to show that they have a good relationship. And the thing you also have to understand is like contextually. At this time in the impoverished community of Waltham Gardens in Kingston, absent fathers were unfortunately all too common. So Malvo and Leslie's relationship was very much an anomaly. But where Leslie was the nurturer, Una, Malvo's mum, was the disciplinarian. And the very worst kind because she was the volatile, fire and brimstone sort of disciplinarian. And Malvo learned from a very young age that Una had expectations of him

that stretched well beyond the normal expectations a mother would have for her child. She absolutely hated watching Malvo playing. In her eyes, it was just time he should have spent studying. It was just time completely wasted. So whenever her husband Leslie wasn't around to protect Malvo, Una ruled with an iron fist, beating her son senseless for the most minor things. Eventually, and probably predictably, Leslie and Una's marriage began to break down. Because Una suspected that her husband was cheating on her.

And then one day she emptied their joint bank account and took off with Malvo. Throughout Malvo's childhood, Una would uproot him constantly, never allowing him to stay in one place for more than a year. In fact, by the time he was 15, Malvo would have lived in around 15 different places, attended 12 different schools, witnessed three people being murdered in front of him, and also an attempted suicide after his mother almost beat him to death see yeah bad times i can't say i relate to the latter part of that paragraph but uh by the time i was 11 i'd been to 13 different schools no wonder you're so well adjusted it really makes you be like well fine then it really makes you start a dino blog

it really makes you the internet and the dinosaurs are my friends. It really makes you cripplingly lonely as a child. But it makes you an excellent reader. Books were my only friend. I didn't speak English. Well, I could speak it, but I just felt scared. So there was all sorts of challenges I was reading a thread this morning about today I learned or like I was today years old and there

was this person who didn't realize they needed glasses and he was I was in my second year of university when I realized that I hadn't actually been reading I'd just been guessing the shapes of the words in in context to what was going on and I think when I was in my final year of uni I was convinced for about six months that I couldn't actually read I just memorized a lot of words but but then some and sometimes the fear creeps back in but then I start spelling out words and I'm like oh I can read oh good good good good no there was a girl I went to uni with who I was convinced was uh completely illiterate because all she did was just like copy things down off the board but I felt like she had no comprehension of it because afterwards she'd be

like so about this and I was like you wrote it all down were you just copying our shapes anyway it doesn't matter it doesn't matter what were we talking about Una and Malvo so after living years of transient lifestyles Una and Malvo moved to Antigua with the hope of one day making it into the US. Life in Antigua was hard for Malvo though. His mother would often leave him alone for weeks at a time in a one-bedroom shack with no electricity or running water. But by this point, Malvo had learned to make the best of a bad situation. Despite his living conditions, Malvo remarkably kept his grades up best of a bad situation. Despite his living conditions, Malvo remarkably kept his grades up. People would regularly see him studying under streetlights

after dark. In his free time, with dreams of one day becoming a pilot, Malvo played as much of the Microsoft Flight Simulator 2000 game as he possibly could. And he did that in the local electronics store. Obviously, he did not have a console in his own home. And it was at that electronics store in early October 2000 that Malvo first laid his eyes on the man who would change his life forever. And that man's name was John Allen Muhammad. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. When TV producer Roy Radin was

found dead in a canyon near L.A. in 1983, there were many questions surrounding his death. The last person seen with him was Lainey Jacobs, a seductive cocaine dealer who desperately wanted to be part of the Hollywood elite. Together, they were trying to break into the movie industry. But things took a dark turn when a million dollars worth of cocaine and cash went missing. From Wondery comes a new season of the hit show Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of The Cotton Club Murder early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus.

Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America. But when a social media-fueled fight over Harvard and its new president broke out last fall, that was no protection. Claudine Gay is now gone. We've exposed the DEI regime and there's much more to come. This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On the Media. To listen, subscribe to On the Media wherever you get your podcasts. Now, unlike how Una had come to Antigua with the hopes of making it to America, John Alan Mohamed had come to Antigua to escape America. When Malvo saw John, the first thing he noticed was the relationship that he had with his son. It immediately gave 15-year-old Malvo flashbacks

of his happy past life with his dad. The way that John Muhammad spoke to his children, no differently to how he spoke to adults, and how he gave them his undivided attention, left Malvo longing for that kind of love again. And from a distance, Malvo fell under John Muhammad's spell. What Malvo didn't know, however, was that John had two failed marriages, a string of failed businesses, and that he'd once thrown an incendiary grenade into the tent of a sergeant that he'd fallen out with during his time in the Gulf War. I would wager that a fully grown adult-ass man hanging out in a GameStop, picking up children, is possibly a red flag. Oh yeah, I mean, there's red flags galore throughout the rest of this episode. Everybody prepare yourselves.

And the reason that John Allen Mohamed was actually in Antigua, hanging out in that electronic shop playing games with his kid, was because he'd actually abducted his three children from Washington DC in the midst of a bitter custody battle with his ex-wife. His ex-wife was so worried about John that she'd actually got a restraining order against him because she was convinced that John would try to murder her. So not a chill guy. No, no, the opposite. No, but through the eyes of a love-deprived and abused 15-year-old Malvo, he looks like a dream come true. Oh, absolutely. I think especially because his dad was nice to him and his mum wasn't,

and his mum is the one he ends up globeshrotting with. Yeah. There would have been a big hole to fill. Oh, absolutely. That very same week, Una returned to Antigua and told Malvo that she had heard about an American man who could sell her a visa for the US. Together they went to this man's house and to Malvo's absolute astonishment and delight, the man was none other than John Allen Muhammad. And John provided Una with the necessary visa and paperwork that she needed to get into the United States. He even gave her an address,

an entire life story that she had to memorise in order to ensure smooth entry into the nation. And soon enough, chasing the Yankee Doodle American dream, Una boarded a flight and once again left 15-year-old Malvo alone in Antigua. Malvo carried on as usual, but then he contracted rheumatic fever, which is no joke. He was so weak he couldn't even get out of bed to find help. His tonsils were so swollen he couldn't even eat. Had John not paid Malvo a visit out of the blue one day, the 15-year-old could well have died alone in that house. John took Malvo to a doctor and brought him medication

and took him back to his house where he fed and cared for him. After a few days, Malvo was up and about again. That is how you get someone under your spell, cloak, wing. Absolutely. All of those things, all of the above. And so yes, of course, this was an absolutely significant event for Malvo and it cemented his relationship with John. After this John and Malvo became inseparable. They were like guru and follower. John spoke and Malvo listened. Malvo began to confide in John all of his life experiences up until that point. How his mother had torn him away from his father and the void it had left in his life. He also told him about how his father had refused to take him in when he needed a place to stay, the beatings he'd received, the feelings of abandonment and lovelessness. In turn, John

Alan Mohamed shared his life story with Malvo, constantly pointing out the similarities in their experiences. John assured Malvo that it was no coincidence that they'd met. It was destiny that had brought them together. And John began introducing Malvo as his eldest son from then on. Pretty soon in January 2001, Malvo moved in with John and his three other children, who treated him as if he was a real blood brother. It's so much manipulation, obviously. It's grooming. That's what's going on here it's like somebody like john allen muhammad he recognizes the void in malvo and this is what groomers do and he absolutely just becomes everything that he knows this boy wants and in turn begins to shape malvo into everything he wants yeah and we'll go on to discuss like the presence of Islam in this,

but it is, it's a, you know, it's part of the vernacular for Muslims to be like brother, sister, like that's referring to each other. And for a kid who's never, ever had that. That's very true. Yeah. I can understand how that would, yeah. And how welcoming it would feel. And John took advantage of this. He introduced Malvo to the teachings of Elijah Muhammad who was then the leader of the nation of Islam and every evening they'd listen to speeches from minister Farah Khan Huey Newton George Jackson and the earlier speeches of Malcolm X which if you're familiar with Malcolm X are the uh more violent ones and actually the reason I thought of the brother thing was like i'm obsessed

with michael x and the reason he called himself michael x is he was once in a hotel room with malcolm x and malcolm turns to him and he's like oh and another room for my brother michael so then he called himself michael x from then on i see i didn't know that no wonder your podcast on michael x he's mine so after they'd listened to these lectures, they'd spent hours discussing Malvo's future plans, girls, sex, money, America, Islam, school, history, and what John referred to as Malvo's, quote, hidden aggression. It starts to get very reverse Dexter, where it's like, I'm going to fucking say spoilers for Dexter, that show's been up for like 20 years. Yeah, I'm sorry. Sorry. And also it's like the first episode, what you're about to say is set up it's not a spoiler but yeah

obviously in that you've got a kid who is got a quote-unquote dark passenger and the dad teaches him to control it and channel it and hide it and hide it here i don't think that malvo had a hidden aggression no it gets planted it gets planted and then nurtured by John Allen. He also taught Malvo to express the anger that he had planted and also the anger that he felt towards his mother, which I do believe must have been very real for the traumas he'd endured. He'd always suppressed it. Malvo decided that his mother had failed to raise him to be the man he needed to be and that John was going to turn that around. John was his saviour. Malvo's previously Christian ideology was now replaced with John's version of Islam

and the formerly quiet teenager began to stir up quite a lot of trouble at his Seventh Day Adventist school. And he did that by openly questioning and mocking Christian beliefs. Uh oh, that's a big no. And it's an even bigger no that on occasion he attempted to convert his peers to Islam. Out of all of the Christian denominations, obviously, there are some more hardline than others. The Seventh-day Adventists are pretty hardcore. They're not going to fuck with that shit.

Absolutely not. They would probably have a problem with you being like, hey, do you want to become a Baptist? And one day, during all of this rabble rousing conversion that Malvo's doing, the principal of his school called Malvo into his office to tell him that his behaviour was completely unacceptable, and that he was going to have to contact Una to tell her what was going on. And it's then that it struck Malvo that there was once a time that the mere threat of his mother being called would have had him shaking in fear. But in that moment, he realised that he felt absolutely nothing.

For the first time in his life, he felt completely free of the hold that Una had had over him. John had told Malvo that he needed to respect his mother, but also to remember that she was stupid. I'm assuming that the school know his mum is gone. I mean, yeah, I just feel like... Again, I don't know what the schooling system in Antigua was like. Oh yeah, sure, fair enough, yeah. In the early 2000s, but presumably Una's just like,

either not telling them that she's gone, or she's just like, that's them that she's gone or she's just like that's just how it is. Yeah yeah fair enough. Not fair enough. Awful but I understand now. So in the spring of that year the Antiguan authorities were closing in on both John's forgery business and his custody issues because remember the custody issues are why he's in Antigua in the first place and the forgery business is why Una is no longer in Antigua. So at one point John was arrested at the airport in Antigua escorting a Jamaican mother and daughter through customs on their way to the United States. He ended up going on the run and left Malvo to look after his kids whilst he hid

on the other side of the island for a month. After this, John knew it was time to leave Antigua behind for good. At this point, Una was working in Florida as a server whilst trying to get her legal permanent residency in the US by marrying an American citizen. She was saving money in order to bring Malvo to the States to join her, but little did she know that John had already flown Malvo and his three other children into the US by way of Puerto Rico. When Una found out about this, she contacted John and threatened to report him to the police if he did not return her son. John definitely couldn't afford any police attention, and Malvo understood that, so John left Malvo with Una, assuring him that it was only for now, it was just temporary.

Malvo enrolled in a high school where he excelled, but eyebrows began to raise when Una was unable to provide a social security number for him. Una quickly realised that Malvo's only hope was to be adopted by a US citizen, something that absolutely had to happen before he turned 18 or he is out of there. So meanwhile, John was in Washington State fighting a court battle. The thing is with John, he really fucks up in late August of 2001 when he signed his kids up for a public school in Washington because his ex-wife, Mildred, had actually been granted a divorce by the courts

and she'd also been given full custody of the kids. But remember, he's abducted the kids and run off so she given full custody of the kids but remember he's abducted the kids and run off so she doesn't actually know where they are but the courts had issued a habeas corpus writ for them obviously habeas corpus writ means like if you are in possession of a person you need to present that person in court is what that writ says so he has to take these kids to court right well at least he's been ordered to by the courts. So when the children's names appeared on a school enrolment roster, authorities picked them up and handed them straight over to Mildred. When this happened, Mildred is obviously happy that she's got her kids back, but she knows full well that her life is now in grave danger. So she secretly

moved to the suburbs with her children. John had previously warned Mildred that he would not allow her to raise his children and that she had become his, quote, enemy. And that as his enemy, he would kill her. And Mildred knew that John was a man of his word. He rarely made empty threats. So after his kids were taken away from him, John suffered a nervous breakdown and became increasingly withdrawn, until one day he realised what he needed to do to get his children back.

And to carry out his master plan, he needed his right-hand man, Malvo. One Friday evening in late September, Malvo received a phone call from John. John told him that they had taken the children and that he needed his help. At 4.30am the following day, Malvo packed his things and snuck out of the house, hopped on a bus to Bellingham, Washington, and he reunited with John. John moved Malvo in with him at the Lighthouse Mission, a Christian homeless shelter where he was living. Malvo enrolled at the Bellingham High School, and every day after school, John would give Malvo his own version of schooling. And this education was somewhat extracurricular.

John, along with his friend Earl Downsie, took Malvo to a local shooting range for training. John had never been a sniper, but he had been in the military. And during that time, he had earned himself the rating of expert in marksmanship due to his ability to hit 36 out of 40 targets from distances of 25 to 300 metres. John had always wanted to be a career soldier, but things changed after the Gulf War. He was full of rage at the racial discrimination that he experienced in the military. And according to his friends, he was never quite the same again. I think a lot of people came out of the Gulf War feeling like that.

Yeah. I didn't look into this, but obviously that's where PTSD was really first noticed. Gulf War syndrome. Gulf War syndrome. And I think it was noticed, I don't know how many years after the Gulf War it was, but at some point after the Gulf War,

they realised that more soldiers who had come back had taken their own lives than had actually died over there. There's a really interesting philosopher called Baudrillard, who's one of the forefront philosophers. It's like, oh, we're already living in a simulation. And one of his most famous works is The Gulf War Never Happened. There's actually a really, really good YouTube lecture on it by, I can't remember his name, but it's a lecturer of anthropology at Duke. I think he's dead now, does he was very good at explaining and essentially the idea is the Gulf War never happened is like because it was one of the first wars that was fought almost entirely in

the air so the pilots were playing a video game they weren't you know so it's all about that and he also simulacra and simulation anyway you know go and go and do some hardcore philosophy reading this week yeah so yeah we are we already live in a simulation it's already happened well there's that but arguably also all the people who died he's not literally saying it never happened it's a comment on i'm like i don't know what to say to that no no no no it's a the book is a commentary on how it's much easier to kill people if you think they're in a game i see like a ready player one that horrible yes yeah for some reason

steven spielberg made anyway moving on and like this malvo's bizarre basic training continued every day on john's orders malvo would play video games like tom clancy's ghost recon a sniper game where you hide and carry out assassinations. And again, you're right, like that kind of getting him prepared by playing these games and starting to get Malvo, who has, you know, your brain doesn't finish fully developing until you're 26. He's like 15, 16 at this point, getting him to start thinking about killing people in the same way that it is in the game. And they'd also sit and watch movies about snipers on repeat. And John hoped that this would serve as some sort of

instructional tutorial for Malvo. And when they weren't doing this, John would lecture Malvo on African-American history, revolutions, and Elijah Muhammad's teachings. John gave Malvo a crash course on what he referred to as the clash of the races, essentially trying to instill in Malvo a hatred for white people. At this point, Malvo would have believed John if he told him that OJ didn't do it, that Jews controlled the weather, and that Robert Patterson would make a good Batman. Lol, I saw it. It was such a pile of shit. I've never been so... Actually, no, I'm lying.

I was more angry after I watched Uncut Gems. I was furious after I watched that. Everybody kept telling me that was so good. Honestly, mate, you would literally jump out the window if you watched it. It's so awful. But the most recent Batman,

I went to go and see it and like, for a start, it's enormously long. Nothing happens for the first two hours and every single female character that's in it, nothing would be different if they weren't there. They do nothing to drive the plot at all. And they're only in there to pass the Bechdel test,

like fucking barely. There's three women in the whole film. And I love Zoe Kravitz. She's my hall pass. And like, I'm still like, I hate this. And yeah, it's don't waste your time. It would be my advice. I think it's just like everybody knows now that nobody goes to cinema anymore because it's uh don't waste your time it would be my advice it's just like everybody knows now

that nobody goes to cinema anymore because it's too expensive unless it's for a big action blockbuster so they're like here's a fucking weekly big action blockbuster that's two and a half hours long and then it's just a disappointing yeah it was more than disappointing it was rage inducing actually well i'll give it a miss then yeah it. It's no Dark Knight. No, but nothing is. So the thing that Malvo feared the most was disappointing his new dad and being abandoned again. So Malvo hung on John's every single word. And John told him that they needed to become one and of one mind. Uh-oh.

Danger. Danger, danger. Danger zone. Danger. Run for the Danger. Danger, danger. Danger zone. Danger. Run for the hills. Danger, danger. High voltage. That's a very good pop reference for you.

Thank you very much. I'm full of them today. You are. It's fucking on all over it. I'm going to shut up about simulacrum simulation. Right. So during their time together, according to Malvo, there was only one occasion when John, the loving father, ever hurt him. They were playing one-on-one basketball.

And that was something that John always dominated Malvo at, no matter what. And I don't know if my mixed feelings around this are what other people's opinions are. So like, if as a parent you're playing against your child in something like basketball monopoly fucking connect for whatever do you let them win to build their confidence or do you beat them every single time so that they know they have to try harder I know which one you would do I think to be honest I think I feel like you don't get trophies for taking part I'm sorry that's how we're ruining this generation stop it stop it immediately and you'd that. I think it's almost a bit of a trope now. Like everyone's got a story of like a dad jumping farther than their daughter just to

be like, she's got to learn. Yeah, yeah. And she's two. Fuck's sake. Anyway, but like, I think. But when does the learning begin, Hannah? I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know. That's one for our parenting podcast. Don't. But I think it depends how easy the game is. If it's something that they can win by doing it properly, then I think maybe you can give them one or two. But if it's something like chess. Take them to the cleaners. Take them down. Take them down. Yeah, I think it's just like about teaching resilience and standards. Beat them. Don't beat them up like he does, but beat them.

Yeah, honestly. Saruti wants to homeschool her children, which is such a terrifying concept to me. resilience and standards beat him don't beat him up like he does but yeah beat him yeah honestly sarita wants to homeschool her children which is such a terrifying concept to me i just don't i don't know schools what's going on in them you're slowly becoming such a like recluse you're just gonna have a house on the side of a mountain and be like leave me alone i just i just think there are very few things in my life hannah you know this as somebody who spends um the most time with me there's very few things that i trust other people to do yep even if it comes to like cooking for me i am particular let's say she only lets me do it sometimes and if i have kids the idea that somebody else will teach them all sorts of things that what if I disagree with those things? Don't want it. Homeschool. All right. You can ball a dictatorship. Well.

You don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't. I didn't either until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. I've taken people along with me into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness, and inside some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more. Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada, as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained.

Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show American Scandal. We bring to light some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history. Presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our latest series, NASA embarks on an ambitious program to reinvent space exploration with the launch of its first reusable vehicle, the Space Shuttle. And in 1985, they announced they're sending teacher

Krista McAuliffe into space aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, along with six other astronauts. But less than two minutes after liftoff, the Challenger explodes. And in the tragedy's aftermath, investigators uncover a series of preventable failures by NASA and its contractors that led to the disaster. Follow American Scandal on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Experience all episodes ad-free and be the first to binge the newest season only on Wondery Plus. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Start your free trial today. Okay, so John is not of the let them win school. He absolutely dominates Malvo at basketball. And then Malvo intentionally fouled John a few times by grabbing his waist as a joke.

And when he went to do it again, John showed him a side of himself that Malvo had never seen before. He elbowed Malvo in the ribs and twisted his wrist until he fell to his knees in pain. Then he threw him about 10 foot across the court. John stared at the boy for a while before simply walking away. Neither of them ever brought up that incident ever again. In Malvo's mind, he was to blame for the abusive reaction by John. His self-blame is obviously tied to his fear of abandonment and he was entirely dependent on John and he vowed to himself that he would never disappoint him again. This was the first and last time John ever physically abused Malvo. The abuse that followed would be psychological. And all John would

need to do would be to give Malvo a look and the boy would just do what he was told he would comply with any order sent his way. After the basketball incident, the weekend trips to the shooting range continued. And for the first month at least, there was no talk of actually shooting human beings. When Malvo asked why were they training, John told him, quote, every young black man should know who he is, that he is a god, not god himself, but a god, and he must never forget the wailing of his forefathers and that bloodshed begets bloodshed. Meanwhile, Una had decided that maybe the US wasn't the best place for her after all. And she decided that she was going to get her child back, even if it meant that they had to return to Jamaica. And so, on the 19th of December 2001,

Una left Florida and arrived in Washington. She made two attempts to get Malvo back from John, even going as far as to call the police and then call immigration officers on herself and Malvo. Because remember, they're there illegally. And on the 23rd of January 2002, Una and Malvo were sent to an INS safe house while deportation actions were taken against them. But Malvo climbed out of a window during the night and ran back to John. After this, Malvo climbed out of a window during the night and ran back to John. After this, Malvo's training schedule became more demanding than ever. You can tell obviously John is starting to sense that time is running out. So first thing every morning, they would go to the gym, followed by the shooting range. They would then spend the rest of the day shooting

paintball guns, reading, playing violent video games, and re-watching either Roots or The Matrix. And this is an interesting little part of the education that John was dishing out because he would tell Malvo that he, John, was Morpheus and that Malvo was Neo. And that John was in the process

of opening Malvo's mind to the Matrix that he'd been living in as a slave to the system of the white man yikes uh when we did a we did an event at um so house this week so i was in an uber going from my house in stoke newington to soho on the way you pass the warner brothers office and they have a big cinema screen that you can see from the road and it was like a pretty chatty uber driver and i was just not in the mood. And they were advertising Batman and also The Matrix.

And we were stuck in traffic. So he was like, oh, have you seen The Matrix? And I was like, no. And I just wanted to see what summary he would give me. Obviously, I have seen The Matrix. He was like, oh, yeah, you can watch it on Netflix now. It's been out for ages. I was like, oh, no, I've never heard of it.

And he was like, well, basically. and I don't need to fucking do, but he gave me a whole rundown of the matrix and then I didn't have to say a word and I could just get out and walk from seven dials. Perfect. Perfect. Please explain the long plot of this movie to me. Oh no, I've never heard of Keanu Reeves.

What are you talking about? On the 15th of February, 2002, two days before Malvo's 17th birthday, he's so young. John sent Malvo on his first killing mission and he told him that failure was just not an option. John dropped Malvo off at the home of a woman called Issa Nichols. This woman had testified on behalf of John's ex-wife during

their child custody case. Malvo's instructions were clear. Knock on the door, ask for Issa. If she's not in, tell the person who answers that you have a message for her. Then, shoot them in the face. Simple. John handed Malvo a.45 caliber semi-automatic and pushed him out of the car. The young woman who answered the door was not Issa. It was actually her niece, Kenya Cook. She was living there with her baby to escape an abusive relationship. She had nothing to do with John. She was simply in the wrong place at

the wrong time. And she paid the price for her aunt siding with Mildred Mohammed in the custody battle. Malvo shot her in the face at close range and ran back to the car where John was waiting for him. Malvo was sweating and shaking. He couldn't stop thinking about how he'd just killed another human being for the first time, and he wet himself as tears rolled down his face. John told Malvo that he'd done perfectly and handed him a new ID with a smile on his face. The name read John Lee Muhammad. John told Malvo that Lee Boyd Malvo no longer existed before starting the engine and driving off. The once promising student Lee Boyd Malvo was now John Lee Mohammed, the murderer.

Oh dear. Again, it's just the perfect profiling, isn't it? And he's a fucking forger. It's just a shit fucking fake ID that he's made. But he knows that Malvo is going to freak out after he shot this person. And he is like, I know how to pacify him. I'll give him this fucking fake ID. So after this incident, John began to introduce what he called counter-interrogation tactics into Malvo's training. This consisted of John tying Malvo to a tree in the woods for six hours a day in order to prepare him for any tactics that authorities might use on him if they were ever caught. So basically, let me torture you in case you're caught one day and they torture you. Over the following week, John and Malvo spent their time watching a golf course in Tucson.

John told Lee that they were there on an information gathering mission. He also told Lee that he needed the names of everyone there, and trails marked down on maps that showed the busiest areas and the best escape routes. John handed Lee a sleeping bag, some food and water, and left him at a park neighbouring the golf course. The following day, Malvo showed John everything he'd learnt and that's when he realised that John was planning for him to kill more people. Lee returned to the golf course and lay in hiding with his gun fitted with a silencer. On the 19th of March, their target, a 60-year-old man named Jerry Taylor,

met his end when Malvo shot him in the chest, killing him instantly. Towards the end of May 2002, John finally discovered the location of his ex-wife, Mildred, through a Fathers for Justice group. She was, after all, his ultimate target, and it's suspected that John's grand plan was to kill her in order to win custody of his children. But he knew that if he had just killed her alone, then it would make it far too obvious that he was responsible. After all, it's always the spouse. I'm in the midst of writing a speech that I have to do at a wedding. And I absolutely will put in how statistically now they are the most likely to kill each other. You a ray of joy bring the house down raise the roof

i really hope it does and it doesn't oh it'll be fine i need i just need to set it up in the right way and then it'll it'll murder him it'll be fine oh well i really want after well maybe before the wedding we can have a preview have a workshop have a workshop on that episode that leads up to the wedding. And then afterwards you can give us a review of the situation. Can't wait. Can't wait. Yeah.

Anyway, enough of Hannah talking about herself. After the murder of Jerry Taylor, John felt Malvo was now ready for the grand plan. He explained to Malvo that there were three phases. Phase one was to commit 25 murders per week for four weeks. How many murders is that? A hundred. A hundred. Yes. Phase two was to murder a police officer and then blow up his funeral using homemade explosives, killing hundreds of other officers in one go. And then phase three was to demand $10 million in order for the killings to stop. It's ambitious. Very ambitious. Yeah. It's interesting as well,

because he crosses, I mean, I know people refer to him as a spree killer, but what he seems to be is a wannabe terrorist. Yeah, I was just gonna say, because yes, it is an ambitious plan, specifically for a government who, as a rule, don't negotiate with terrorists. No. And you can also say like, well, is it terrorism? It just sounds like he's a wannabe mass murderer. Well, I would say it's terrorism because he has a lot of political ideology. Yeah, it's ideologically driven. I think you'd have to say it is terrorism, domestic, but terrorism nonetheless. Yeah, yeah, yeah. John explained that this $10 million would be wired to an overseas account, and then they'd use that money to start their own black colony in Canada or Africa.

Different environments, different climates. And in either the freezing cold or the scorching heat, they would train and school 70 black boys and 70 black girls who they then would send out into the world to change it for the better if you haven't by this stage got to your thought process conclusion on john muhammad he's fucking mental yeah yeah it's Yeah. It's a lot. It's a lot. And he set this plan into motion on September the 26th, 2002. Lee and Malvo left Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and made their way to Camden in New Jersey.

Here, John bought an old blue Chevrolet Caprice that he would go on to modify into a killing machine. The pair spent the following days carrying out surveillance on John's ex-wife's house. John wanted to know everything, who visited her, what time the kids went to school, where she worked, everything. And when John was satisfied that they had enough information, he and Lee began the real operation. The Chevrolet Caprice was modified so that Malvo could pull a lever to fold down the back seat, which meant that he could crawl into the trunk and lie down flat.

A bungee cord was attached to the lid of the trunk and the inside seat, so when John popped the trunk, the lid would only open about two inches, which is just about all you need for a barrel of a gun to be poked through. According to John, it was perfect. He's like a cult leader without a cult. Yeah, a one-man band. So as for their targets, people and places were chosen pretty much completely at random. So they're keeping an eye on Mildred, but they're continuing the killing spree.

Because remember, they can't just kill her, it'll be too fucking obvious. And the first shooting took place at a Michael's craft store. But Malvo missed his target and shattered the window instead. John pulled away and they drove to the next spot, a Shopper's Fair warehouse car park, opposite a very busy street. Their victim here was 55-year-old Vietnam Army veteran James Martin. And before their victim had even hit the concrete, John reversed the car out of the car park and told Malvo, son, let's call it a night.

We've got a long day ahead of us tomorrow. And he wasn't kidding because by 5am the next day, they were in Rockville, Maryland, and planned to kill as many people as they could by 10pm. He's really gamifying the kills. Yeah, absolutely. It's like a PB. How can we have a PB today? How many people can we kill by 10pm? Exactly. The Gulf War never happened. Same thing.

So John spotted a man mowing his lawn. He was 39-year-old landscaper Sonny Buchanan, who had just moved in with his fiancée. John wanted to take this shot himself, so he pulled over, slithered into the trunk and shot Sonny, killing him instantly. The lawnmower was still going and rolled off the lawn onto the side of the curb as Sonny laid there dead. They then made their way to a busy mobile gas station where they chose to shoot Prem Kumar Wallaker, a 54-year-old cab driver from Pune in India. John shot him in the chest as he was placing the nozzle into his cab. The next

stop was a car park near a busy street where John spotted a Hispanic lady sitting on a bench. Her name was Sara Ramos and she was a 34-year-old former law student from El Salvador. Malvo watched as blood flew out of her head on impact before her lifeless body slumped on the bench. John and Malvo then stopped at a supermarket car park with a clear view of a Shell gas station. Malvo chose his victim, nanny and mother of one, Laurie Ann Riviera. She was bent over her car seats with her back to the caprice, vacuuming when Malvo's bullet took her life. At 3.30, John and Malvo ate their one meal for the day at a Jamaican restaurant and afterwards they killed their next victim in that restaurant's car park. 72-year-old Pascal Charlotte was a Haitian migrant and skilled carpenter. He died instantly, taking a bullet to

the chest as he crossed the street. The next day didn't go quite as planned. They shot a woman, 43-year-old Caroline Swell, in the face outside Michael's craft store, but thankfully the mother of two survived. John then insisted that they needed to go somewhere where they could kill at least seven people in quick succession before getting away in order to meet their personal best target of 25 murders per week. And next, John had his mind set on Benjamin

Tasker Middle School in Bowie, Maryland. John instructed Malvo that he needed to kill at least five kids and sent him to camp in the wooded area between the school and a row of houses. Again, I know we've said it's kind of this gamification thing, but it is really like someone setting you these quests or these tasks or these missions that you have to complete. Like, it's so perverse. And that Sunday night, Malvo took his gun 10 rounds and made his camouflage nest with leaves about 80 yards from the school. At 6.20am on Monday morning, Malvo was ready with his weapon, anticipating buses full of children to turn up. But the buses never came. Instead, he saw parents running with their children into the school, or kids sprinting from their parents'

car into the building. If he was going to get a kill, he had to do it quickly. Because remember, by this point there's a shootings breed, like people are fucking scared. Malvo shot 13-year-old Iran Brown through the stomach. Fortunately, the boy survived. Before leaving, Malvo left behind a tarot card where he knew the police would find it. It was the tarot card of death, and on it, John had written, call me God. For you, Mr you mr police do not release to the press fundamental misunderstanding of the death card there yeah isn't that about like something else rebirth it's about new beginnings yeah so the death card is uh is actually a pretty good card the tower run if you get that upside up it's over that's true arguably less ominous oh we found a tower

phew it's the tower i don't know the tower like the in the original imagery of it because it's it's the tower of babel right and so it's um people on fire jumping out of the window so it's a pretty ominous card that'll do it yeah but i think the key point here is is that you're starting to see John crossing the lines into yet more types of odd behavior like he is such a unique killer in the sense of you have the vibe of him being a spree killer obviously you have him being a revenge mission orientated killer because he's going after Mildred for a very practical reason I wouldn't say he's a family annihilator because he doesn't want to kill his kids, but, you know, there's this destruction for revenge.

And then you also have the terrorism angle. And now you have this very, like, serial killer-esque aspect of him taunting authorities. Yeah, and for someone who's so hardline Muslim to suddenly be fucking with occult stuff like tarot cards as well, it's kind of like he wants to get his message across. He doesn't care how he does it. On the 9th of October, around 7pm,

John and Malvo waited in a car park for the evening to get a little bit darker. Across the street from them was a gas station where they shot and killed 53-year-old civil engineer Dean Myers. They killed him with a single bullet to the head. Two days later, they shot and killed a man pumping gas. He was called Kenneth Bridges. He was an entrepreneur, father of six, and founder of MATAH, which is a distribution network that supported black-owned businesses. As John and Malvo pulled

out of the exit, they spotted a state trooper who'd heard the shot, but they calmly drove past him without rousing suspicion, because they're still in phase one. John then spent the next few days trying to contact authorities, eager to get negotiations started on phase three, which is, of course, the $10 million that he believed he'd be able to get from them. But John wasn't able to get any of his calls to go through to the right people. So where's the admin that'll get you? And the FBI had actually opened up a toll-free phone line to receive any tips from the public about the identity of the snipers.

And over the course of their investigation, they received over 60,000 calls. On the 14th of October, the pair posted up across from a Home Depot car park and laid in wait. Malvo spotted a woman loading something large into her boot and gave John the signal. The woman was 47-year-old FBI analyst Linda Franklin. She had just undergone a double mastectomy for breast cancer, had two children and was about to become a grandmother when John shot her dead in front of her husband of eight years. The following Friday night, John dropped Malvo off at a cemetery behind a strip club. What a location. And the target area was a McDonald's across the street. John told Malvo, quote, I don't care how long it takes you, shoot a pregnant woman. He wanted a killing that was going to enrage the public. Malvo sat there until 2am, but he just couldn't bring himself to do it.

John forgave him, saying that it didn't matter because phase two of the plan would get the message across regardless. And now he'd changed phase two from killing a policeman and blowing up the funeral, to blowing up a succession of school buses instead. On the 19th of October, a man named Robert Holmes was on the phone to the police. He claimed to know the identity of the shooters who'd been terrorising the nation. He'd seen the shootings on TV and he was certain that the shooters were John Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo. Robert had served in the military alongside John and knew him pretty well. Malvo and John had even stayed with him a couple of times when they visited Tacoma. Robert knew that John was obsessed with guns, that he was more than a little disgruntled about losing custody of his kids,

and he knew that John's ex-wife lived in Washington. Holmes told the police that John and Malvo would practice shooting a tree stump in the back of a garden of a house that they rented, and when the police compared the ballistics of the bullets from that tree stump to those found at some of the scenes, they found that they were fired from the same gun, a.223 Bushmaster rifle, AR-15. Another break in the case came from John himself two days before, when on the 17th of October, he phoned the FBI. And remember from the card, from his attempts to want to contact the police,

we know that he's already going down that slippery slope of wanting to taunt authorities. And he told the FBI that he was the sniper calling, and hinted that he was also responsible for the murders of two women from a month ago during a robbery at a liquor store in Montgomery, Alabama. What John wasn't banking on was that the police had collected cartridges from the scene, cartridges which had fingerprints on them. The FBI analysed the prints, and just a few days later, they found a match for the fingerprints on the cartridges

with prints that they already had on record for Lee Boyd Malvo from the time that his mother had had him arrested in Washington. They also found in his arrest notes that Malvo was linked with a man named John Allen Muhammad, the name of the man mentioned by none other than Robert Holmes on the FBI hotline just a few days beforehand.

It's quite rare that you get such a single-handed takedown. Absolutely. And again, we'll go on to talk about this later, but like the FBI make a lot of mistakes in the investigation of this case. And the only reason they caught the DC snipers when they caught them, I mean, they'd already killed 10 people and injured three, but they caught them when they caught them was because Robert Holmes, man, what a fucking dude. Like to be like, I know who this is.

Like there wasn't that much information. And the FBI were out there saying it's a lone white. Well, they do later say that they thought it was a team, but they're basically out there being like, it's either a lone wolf white man killer or it's a pair. Like for him to be like, no, no, no, I know who this is. Like, well done. And they just got incredibly lucky with the forensics. And while the FBI were unraveling all the information they'd just been gifted by Holmes,

John and Lee carried on their killing spree. On Saturday afternoon, they shot a man called Geoffrey Hopper as he walked out of a restaurant with his wife. Geoffrey survived. As they drove away from this shooting, they were pulled over by the highway police who asked them if they'd seen anything suspicious. John said that he hadn't, and then he asked him, Are you going to catch these people? To which the officer replied, we're doing the best we can, sir. Two days later,

on Monday the 21st of October, they shot and killed their last victim, Conrad Johnson, who is a bus driver, who, like Malvo, was a Jamaican migrant. On the 23rd of October, the FBI finally discovered that a blue Chevy Caprice with a license plate NDA21Z was registered in John's name, and they spread the word to every news outlet in the country. And just a few hours later, at around 1am, the police received a phone call from a truck driver, Ron Lance, saying that he'd spotted the very same car. It was parked up outside a rest stop on Interstate 70 in Myersville, Maryland, with two men sleeping inside. Ron and another truck driver blocked the exit from the highway by parking their rigs across the road,

whilst the police and SWAT teams made their way there. John and Malvo were arrested without struggle. And the nightmare was finally over. For the majority of the investigation, everyone was searching for a disgruntled middle-aged white man in a white van. People were in disbelief when it was found that the killers were two black men. Well, one black man and one black teenager. It just didn't fit the profile that experts had built. But this might also have been part of John's plan. I don't know,

I think some people say this, they say that his randomness and his like being all over the place and sort of flipping MOs and flipping his like behaviour constantly was to throw off authorities. I don't know how much of it was as calculated as that and how much of it was just because John is an incredibly erratic person. I'm leaning towards erratic rather than stealthily planned because he also he's changing his plan all the time. This is true. Yeah. I think if he was, you know, doing it strategically, he would have thought about the plan for years and years and years and he would be furious if he had to change it. Yeah. And I also think that the reason that you see such mixed MOs and such mixed behaviour, which absolutely,

like we people do give the FBI very hard time in this in terms of their profiling, they make mistakes. But I think that the reason the profiling was so difficult is because John shows so many different aspects of different types of killers. And I think the reason is part of his anger and like the reason he's going through with this was obviously to get back at Mildred and get his kids back, but also part of it was ideologically motivated. So he is a man who was approaching this series of crimes through a very mixed set of ideas. Yeah. So after they were arrested,

John and Malvo were separated, obviously, for questioning. And it didn't take Malvo very long to try and escape. He had to be forcibly restrained by officers. And then they managed to interview him. It became clear that Malvo had a distorted sense of reality and was living in some kind of altered state of mind. He refused to communicate verbally, gesturing with his hands in response to every question.

And it was only when he was handed over to authorities in a different county, Fairfax in Virginia, that he began to speak. Malvo took responsibility for every killing in an attempt to protect John. And he also said that if he had been given the chance, he'd do it all over again. When he was asked why they'd been caught, Malvo said it was due to his weakness and that he had allowed himself to have five minutes of sleep, when actually he was supposed to be staying awake to keep watch.

Leiboyd Malvo stood trial in Chesapeake, Virginia in November 2003 for the murder of FBI analyst Linda Franklin. Testimony was heard from a number of mental health experts on the topic of indoctrination and cultic processes, as well as character witnesses from Malvo's biological father Leslie, other relatives, schoolmates, teachers, and people who'd witnessed Malvo's and John's relationship over the years. Strangely, Malvo's mother, Una, refused to testify unless she was granted a full visa for America. This didn't happen. The defence's main position was that John had orchestrated the shootings

as part of his mad plan to kill his wife and get his kids back, and that he'd simply used Malvo as a pawn that he'd manipulated for his own ends. The prosecution argued that Malvo, however, was an equal and willing participant in the murder spree, and that their mental health experts, who had interviewed Malvo eight times, claimed that they saw no sign of mental illness, and that he knew the difference between right and wrong. I would argue that for coercive control to be in place, you wouldn't need to necessarily show signs of mental illness or not knowing the difference between right and wrong. On the 18th of December, after 14 hours of deliberation,

the jury convicted Malvo of capital murder. They later recommended that Malvo be handed life without parole instead of the death penalty. And to this day, Lee Boyd Malvo remains incarcerated at Red Onion State Prison in Virginia. Pardon? I know. Why? Why?

Is there so many prisons in America that they've run out of names for them? Red Onion State Prison. Sounds like a fucking vegetarian red lobster. What is this? It's so weird. And Malvo, who remember he was so young when he went to prison and he's there in solitary confinement. As for the ringleader, John Muhammad, he was sentenced to death

and was executed by the state of Virginia on the 10th of November 2009, which is quick time for death row. In an interview in 2012, Malvo claimed that John had sexually abused him from the age of 15 until the day that they were arrested. How true that is, we'll never know for certain,

but it doesn't seem particularly unlikely to me. In 2020, Malvo got married to a lady named Sable Noel Knapp, who is a millionaire heiress, apparently, and the granddaughter of a wealthy property developer. We don't know that much else about her. And now let's have a look at this case in reverse, if you will, because there is undeniably a factor of race. The profile the FBI provided was fundamentally flawed. The only thing that they got right about who the DC

snipers were was that it was two people. They predicted that the killers would be in their 20s, that they would be white, and that they would be weekday warriors. So two men who had full-time jobs and families, blah, blah, blah, but shot people in the face as a murderous side hustle. And obviously that's like completely wrong because yes, it was two people, but they're both black. One is in his 40s with John Allen Muhammad and Malvo is a teenager. And also they aren't kind of weekday warriors who were holding down steady jobs and steady families, which in and of itself was such a weird thing to put in the profile,

because this idea that people who held down steady jobs and had like had family home lives, how they would just be like running around the country shooting people in such an erratic way, also doesn't really fit with what they were seeing. So it was kind of a weird thing for them to assume anyway. Yeah, yeah. In the end, John and Malvo were caught because of John's arrogance. Wasn't really anything to do with the FBI. But the profile did narrow law enforcement's thinking quite considerably because they had predicted that the snipers would be white. So

that meant that the FBI, for once, weren't looking at black people for this one. So maybe some things were missed and it could have been shut down sooner. And this idea seems pervasive in our culture. Caroline Pickard and John Browning, in their book, which is called Speaking of Monsters, posit that the popular misconception that all serial killing is done by white men is due to the continuous cinematic depiction of just that. So here we're talking not about the FBI sort of predictions, but you know, maybe it's also a part of that discussion. But why people like in wider society, in pop culture, tend not to ever think of non-white serial killers being perpetrators. And honestly, I think we've made this reference

before and it's definitely in the book the idea of like i still can't think of another hollywood film that depicts a non-white serial killer other than switchback i can't think of one i mean obviously now people started watching like more foreign movies i'm not saying let's talk about the latest k horror that everybody watched. I'm saying like Hollywood movies. Yeah. Tell me one where there is a non-white serial killer. I honestly can't think of anything. And all of that is despite the fact that serial killers are active in every single nation in the world. And while yes, the US does by quite a considerable country mile top the charts, there are lots of reasons for that. But even still, serial killers in a country like the United States are as racially diverse as the population

itself. There's no like magic allotment of serial killers per capita based on race. It doesn't work like that. In fact, in his 2005 paper, African Americans and Serial Killing in the Media, the Myth and the Reality, Anthony Walsh, an American criminologist and professor at Boise State University, examined 58 years of serial killing activity in the US between 1945 and 2004 and found that not only were black serial killers most certainly a thing, they're actually over-represented in the US in the serial killer pool. So if the existing data shows this, then why is the reality of the

non-white serial killer not really talked about? The most obvious reason that jumps to mind is, of course, that since serial killers typically tend to kill within their own race, most serial killers of colour possibly kill victims of colour and victims of colour are usually considered less dead when we're talking about the media and law enforcement investigating them, therefore maybe we just don't hear about them because of that reason. But given that killers like Gary Heidnik and Jeffrey Dahmer, who both targeted victims of colour, are very, very well-known household name serial killers, I just don't think that can be the whole story. One other theory out there is that media outlets limit coverage of black and possibly non-white serial killers because of a fear of being accused of racism. We have definitely seen things like this, not with serial killers, but with things like the

Rochdale grooming gangs, stuff like that in the UK. There is absolutely a precedent for the media, authorities, social services, etc. not wanting to point the finger at particular crimes that are happening because they don't want to be called racist. But we also do know that the media has absolutely no issue going after different races with regards to other crimes. Like, for example, if it's gangs, drugs, terrorism, pick your favourite. So I think this is possibly quite a generous theory in some cases, but not always. So we have to say that it's

probably because as a society, we are completely in love with serial killers. They totally dominate pop culture and entertainment. Obviously, you're listening to a fucking true crime podcast, one of probably millions in your rotation. Serial killers are very clearly fetishized by society as being geniuses. You need to look no further than the likes of Hannibal Lecter. The idea is that they outsmart everyone, that they're always 10 steps ahead, they're omnipotent, dominant, powerful. It's all very sexy, right? So do we ignore serial killers of colour because society and the media are only too happy to apply these traits to white men, but possibly not men of colour? Probs. Is my academic opinion on that one. So yeah, I think it's a combination of the two.

We see it in terms of like positive discrimination and negative discrimination, like when people don't want to investigate certain stuff and then they overgeneralise with other things. So it's a mixed picture. But that is it, guys. That is the case of the DC snipers. Yeah, you've been asking for it for ages and lo, we have bestowed upon you what you wanted. If you want to come in here

and talk about cults and stuff like that, you can bop on over to Spotify for our Spotify exclusive show, Sinister Societies, where we talk about some stuff that I can't remember because I'm very hungry and I need a wee.

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Absolutely. See you then. Bye. Bye. He was hip-hop's biggest mogul, the man who redefined fame, fortune, and the music industry. The first male rapper to be honored on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Sean Diddy Cone. Diddy built an empire and lived a life most people only dream about. Everybody know ain't no party like a Diddy party, so. Yeah, that's what's up.

But just as quickly as his empire rose, it came crashing down. Today I'm announcing the unsealing of a three-count indictment, charging Sean Combs with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, interstate transportation for prostitution. I was f***ed up. I hit rock bottom, but I made no excuses. I'm disgusted. I'm so sorry.

Until you're wearing an orange jumpsuit, it's not real. Now it's real. From his meteoric rise to his shocking fall from grace, from law and crime, this is The Rise and Fall of Diddy. Listen to The Rise and Fall of Diddy exclusively with Wondery Plus. I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mom's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now exclusively on Wondery Plus. In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met.

But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part, Three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance, but it instantly moved me and it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding, and this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free

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