The Trials [13]

Good evening. One of the most terrifying crimes in recent years left ten people dead the nation's capital and two neighboring states, and a frenzy of fear for three weeks. The Sniper case a year ago today, the first of two suspects in the case went on trial, and the opening day was surreal. I remember feeling very nervous prior to both trials. Prior to the trial, we're told we weren't allowed to speak to other witnesses. But then afterwards, I remember being in the room with family members who

had lost people. That was so sad, so horrific. I remember speaking to I believe Laurie, with us husband. I was just still angry, you know, I just you know, I don't know. I just want to do something, you know, and and be over with and make them pay for what they did, to go and testify it was not the problem. The real problem was just to go and see them right in front of you. That was the hard part. It was hard to be there in the same room with them. It's was hard to see them

over there. It was hard to see their faces. They don't have no remorse at all, both of them, not at all, like it was normal for them. And that's where you know, get me, you know, for people like that. You know, I always say, these those those kind of people, they don't deserve to be here. This is so horrific to realize that these people is so impacted by the actions of these two cruel people, and their lives will never ever be the same. You know, I'm lucky merely

go along. You know, in my life, I do thank God that it wasn't me. But you know, it's difficult to remember that on an everyday basis because humans are not like that. We just get on with our lives. But these people, they think about it every day that they lost a family member because of this totally senseless, horrific act. There is a ruthless person on the loose. What I nerves this community the most is the randomness of the murders. Ordinary people doing ordinary things. All that

the victims appear to have had in common. Each was shot to death by a single bullet. Be careful, these guys are using weapons that are going to go right straight through our bullet proof ess. The massive man odd continues, but police admit they don't know who are, what they're dealing with, or what their motive might be. From my Heart Radio and tender Foot TIV, this is monster d C sniper. The trials of John Mohammed and Lee Boyd Malvo were scheduled to begin in October of two thousand three.

After they were caught, it was decided that the two would be tried in Virginia. At the time, Virginia permitted the death penalty for sixteen and seventeen year olds. Prosecutors were hoping to convict both Malbo and Mohammed and sentenced

them to the ultimate punishment. Prince William County would prosecute Mohammed for the murder of Dean Harold Myers, led by Attorney Paul Ebert and Fairfax County would prosecute Malvo for the murder of Linda Franklin, led by attorney Robert Horran, but attorneys from Malvo and Mohammed made an early trial motion to move the cases from those counties. Everybody who lived in this area, in the Washington, d C. Area, was essentially a victim. This is Mark Petrovitch, one of

the lawyers from Malvo's defense team. We all were afraid to be shot at any given time. We all pumped our gas and moved around as we pumped our gas. We all dealt with the fear, the anger, the frustration, just the outrage of the situation. And so anyone who dealt with that would hold a grudge against anyone who's accused of being involved in it. So we wanted jurors who hadn't been in the middle and essentially this big

ground zero. We wanted jurors from outside that area to objectively, in an unbiased way, determine what should happened with the case. Petrovitch says. Transferring jurisdiction in capital cases is very uncommon, but in this case, it was clear that Mohammed and Malvo would not get an impartial jury anywhere near the d C area. And so the motion was approved and the trials were moved to Virginia b in Chesapeake Bay

in southeast Virginia. But Prince William County and Fairfax County we're still in charge of putting together the prosecution and Fairfax Police Lieutenant Bruce Gooth was in charge of assembling the prosecution task force. We now have Malvo and Prince William has Mohammed. Our jurisdictions are right next to each other. I called a meeting with the A T F D FBI Secret Service to discuss prosecution task force. We would put all the evidence together in one packet, if you will,

for both trials. So if Mr Eber needed for Mohammed, he could grab it. If Mr Harran needed it for Malvo, he could grab it. You know, it's hard enough work in one murder, and to have these thirteen shootings just in our area, let alone what else went around the country. You know, we knew it was going to be a monumental task. Gooth says. They found an empty office building. Within a week, they had filled the entire space with dozens of desks, interview rooms, and computers. For over fifty

Task Force members. They quickly pulled a massive team together and started preparations in Fairfax. Anything in a blue binder is a murder file. So the blue file thing popped up in my head that for each major thing we need, we're going to make a blue file. For instance, the Bushmaster to two three rifle, we had a book that

had everything you could want about the rifle. There was a blue book made on the Caprice, where they got the caprice, the history of the caprice, the interview of the guy who sold them the caprice up in New Jersey. And that guy was a great witness because Mohammed climbed into the trunk of the car and he thought that was weird. So I really liked this car. You mind if I climb in the trunk and it goes yeah, you know, you can climb in wherever you want the

car six bucks, I don't care. So we ended up in this fire room with about eighty blue books. We had a file cabinet probably on thirty yards long. Over the course of a year, prosecutors collected information and prepared their case. Then, come the fall of two thousand three, the task Force moved to southeast Virginia, where the trials were about to begin. We basically rented out a whole half side of this hotel had a big task force room.

They wired for computers and phone lines and now we have to fly everybody in from all over the country into Virginia Beach instead of the dollies. It was a monumental task. We had two trials with hundred and fifty witnesses in each trial. After m court, we'd meet in Mr Harand's suite or Mr. Ebert Suite and we talked about who they want the next two or three days.

And then we'd call these witnesses and get them lined up with airplane reservations and tell them where to come, and then we have rooms at Stout for them, and then we had to get back to the airport to send them back home. And I was just it worked out really well, amazingly. We didn't lose anybody, and everybody showed up. John Mohammed's trial was scheduled to begin first. He was being tried on four counts, two of which

were for capital murder. Prosecutors were hoping Virginia Long would provide a path to the death sentence for John Mohammed. Here's Virginia. Prosecutor Paul Ebert in Virginia, is our call, like sixteen different categories that they can mount to capital punishment, killing them, a minor robbery, rape, a number of thing which it has to be an underlying predicate before you can get to death penalty or even charged the death penalty with any success. Strangely enough, Virginia, for kilmore than

one person in three years, that's a capital case. We had the opportunity to bring in every one of those murders to prove that. Aspect of the trial. Mohammed was being tried for one count of capital murder in the shooting of Dean Harold Myers on October nine, two two. The second capital murder charge came from a new anti terrorism law implemented in Virginia after the events of nine eleven.

Under that statute, a jury would not have to conclude that Mohammed had actually pulled the trigger to be found guilty, only that he had intentionally terrorized a large population of American people. This case would be the first use of the law in a criminal trial. Because it was so new, it was possible for the statute to be challenged and potentially overturned. But it found guilty on either count of capital murder, Mohammed would be eligible for the death penalty.

The third and fourth counts were for conspiracy to commit murder and illegal use of a firearm, respectively. On October two thousand three, Mohammed's trial began in Virginia Beach. So the Mohammed trial starts, and they pick a jury and it turns into a zoo. The first trial for the sniper attacks that left the Washington d C. Area traumatized

a year ago began with a stunning development. Sniper defendant John Mohammed suddenly asked to represent himself, but judge said he thought Mohammed was making a mistake, but granted the request anyway, ordering the defense lawyers to stay on as advisors. One of the really most alarming moments was when Mohammed stood to represent himself. This is Washington Post journalist Josh White.

He had two of the best lawyers possible. Johnathan Shapiro and Peter Greenspun are two of the most experienced trial attorneys in Virginia. They're the people you want representing you in a capital case. They have an immense amount of experience and had been making the right constitutional arguments and had been preparing for it for a very long time, and he rested the case away from them. We had never heard from Mohammed at that point, and he stood

up in court and presenting a case. Here's an excerpt from John Mohammed's opening statement, read by a voice actor. Good evening. I would like to thank the judge for giving me the opportunity to speak. I like reading and learning about words. One of the things I was fascinated by coming into this strange world. It's three truths, the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I always thought it was just the truth. Apparently I was wrong. So I did some checking to find out what is

it about these three truths? Same thing, but yet they are different in an interesting way. It gave you a little bit of insight into how he was thinking. What he essentially presented was logical. He made the argument that no one had seen him do anything, which was true. No one had seen him do anything. No one saw him with the gun except when he was arrested with it in his car. His argument was he told him an allegory about how his daughter had reached into a

cookie jar, or so he thought. I remember an incident when I was in the Caribbean. My favorite daughter, believe, but she loves chocolate cookies. As I was leaving one day, she said, Daddy, can I have some chocolate cookies? And I said, sure, I'll come back. We'll go to the store and we'll get some chocolate cookies, but don't go in the cookie jar and get no chocolate cookies until I come back. She said, I won't, Daddy, I won't.

So I leave. I come back an hour later. I see my baby daughter out in the yard like the cookies in her head. I am upset now because from what I seen, she disobeyed. I got the evidence in her hands. I got her eating cookies. I even got her sister saying she saw her going in the cookie job. So I'm very upset now because my baby daughter lied to and he blamed her for taking the cookies. But he had not seen it, and it turned out that he was wrong to have blamed her, that she didn't

take the cookies. She was actually putting cookies in the job and I didn't know. I thought to leave, but had disobeyed me. But she really, she really hadn't disobeyed me. She actually got cookies from the store and not out of the cookie job. I asked her not to take cookies out of the cookie job, and she didn't. But I was basing that on what I saw. I was basing that or what I guessed at what happened. But

I didn't know that what happened. And his explanation to the jury was, how can you hold me responsible for something that no one saw me? Do you know? I think, like in any criminal case, when a defendant starts representing themselves, it's something that their lawyers really don't want to see. And he stepped into a number of problems for himself.

Bruce Scooth says Mohammed's decision to represent himself was more of a stunt than anything, and that stunt cost him any amount of pity he might have gotten from the jury. This is him. He's cocky, and he's making a complete joke out of the judicial system. The court room has family members in her of these victims, and he's basically making fun of them. It is how cold this guy was.

He's trying to cross examine people. Oh, it was just a complete zoo and a judge kept saying, you know, use your lawyers, and the lawyers are mad and they wanted a mistrial. After making his opening statement, Mohammed began to question witnesses. So talk about crazy circumstances and weird events in your life. I was being questioned by the guy who tried to kill me. He wasn't the guy that pulled the trigger, but he was the brains behind it. This is Paul Larufa, the victims shot on September five,

two thousand two, in Clinton, Maryland. Larufa was sitting in his car that night, about to leave his restaurant when five shots rang out from the driver's side, shattering the window and badly injuring his left arm and torso. It had been just over a year since that traumatic event. Larufa was dealing with PTSD and was still wearing a brace on his arm. Since he was one of the initial victims in the d C sniper case, he was

one of the first witnesses to testify. My fear was is that, like you see on TV, the lawyer comes right up to the witness box and gets pretty close to you. And I said, that's gonna make me feel really weird. And they said, now you'll be okay because the judge made a ruling that he can't do that. He can't get close to you. He was fifteen feet away, and that made me feel better. It was still hard testifying. I had told the story many many times, and it

was different telling it in the courtroom. When they called me, I was waiting outside and they call you in and you walk in. Talk about all eyes being on you. A couple of hundred people are there, and it is quieter than a church. You could hear a pin drop, and you make the walk from the back door to the front of the courtroom and they swear you in and they asked me questions. You know, I broke down a little bit when they asked me about being shot.

It was a lot more emotional for me than I thought. And that was from the prosecution side asking me all those questions. They're on my side now. Mohammed, acting in his own defense, he said something initially that was crazy, and the judge told him he couldn't say stuff like that. He said, I know what it's like to have my life on the line, or something like that, and what he was implying was that me being shot and him facing the death penalty was somehow the same. We were

both facing death. I didn't say anything. I probably could have said, what are you talking about? You're crazy? And then he asked me something simple. He asked me if I saw the person's face who shot me. I said no, I didn't. I didn't see his face. And that was it. To this day, it's just crazily ironic that. I don't know how many people have that experience of being questioned in court by the person who tried to kill you. The same day that Larufa testified, prosecutors also called forensic

experts to the stand. The firearms examiner named Walter Dandridge. He was the one guy that examined all the bullet fragments and the gun. He's the one that made all the matches taller cases. He was so good. The whole world was watching, and so there was a lot of pressure. Dandridge presented his findings from the investigation. Forensics had linked all of the bullets from the DC shootings to the same gun. Those bullets also matched the ammunition used by

the Bushmaster found in the Blue Caprice. Work in the evidence and then testifying it was much more stressful because of the visibility. I was cross examined by Mohammad when he was acting as his own defense attorney, and he didn't think I knew what I was talking about as far as the handling of the fire arm, and he was kind of lecturing me on how this firearm work. Mohammed only represented himself for one full day. Eventually Mohammed

relented and gave the case back to his attorneys. He claimed he had a toothache and could no longer represent himself. But we did get some really amazing moments of hearing him speak and question witnesses. And you know, one of his most effective questions was did you see me do anything?

And the answer was no. The basis of his argument would ultimately be his official legal defense that there was no direct evidence linking Mohammed to the crimes without a confession or witness who saw him at a crime scene. All the prosecution had was circumstantial evidence. The problem, I think ultimately was it was a very strong circumstantial case against him. All of the evidence was in his car, was on the gun, but still no one has ever

proven who he killed or didn't kill. The argument prosecutors made was it didn't matter who fired the gun. It didn't matter whose finger was on that trigger. They used some novel legal arguments to show that it was essentially one system that killed the vehicle, was the weapon just as much as the gun was, and that it was a team that carried out these crimes. Records show that the blue Caprice had been seen or identified at a

number of the crime scenes. Although neither Malvo nor Mohammad were spotted at those scenes, both of them were found in the car and that implicated them in the murders. Here's Virginia Prosecutor Paul Ebert. Again, snipers are not solitary. They have two or three mallion teams typically, and I wanted you to know that right off the bat. The most important part the sniper team is a spotter. They look to make sure no cars were coming. A lot of things into spotder, to do aid and a bed.

The actual shooter, an actual shooter, really had an as your job allow export shot. Question is when do you do it and how do you do it? To demonstrate how the pair operated, prosecutors made a full size model of the back half of the Caprice. They showed how the car had been altered and likely utilized to make shooting easier. Here's Bruce Gooth. We reenacted getting in the back of that caprice with the back seat in it.

We used swat guys the same size, and we had them crawl into the back trunk and how would you position yourself and you know, pop the trunk open and put the barrel out through the hole they cut in the car and blah blah blah. Mohammed's trial in Virginia lasted just over a month. On November two, three closing arguments were made by both sides. Attorney Peter Greenspun gave the defenses closing argument. Here's an excerpt read by a

voice actor. You may convict John Alan Mohammed uncircumstantial evidence alone, which is what prosecutors have sought to do here effectively. When the Commonwealth relies upon circumstantial evidence, the circumstances must be consistent with guilt and inconsistent with innocence. It is not sufficient that the circumstances proved create a suspicion of guilt, however strong, or even a probability of guilt. The evidence as a whole must exclude every reasonable theory of innocence.

So that's where you get into what I call the gut feelings. I know it, but can't explain it. This instruction tells you that that is not sufficient to find anyone guilty in a trespass case, but most importantly in a capital murder prosecution, you're going to have to find your own sense of comfort as far as what that is. Then Attorney Richard Conway gave the prosecutions closing argument. Here's an excerpt of that, read by a voice actor. He's

charged with the two offenses of capital murder. He's charged with conspiracy to commit murder, and he's charged with using a firearm during the commission of a murder. Yes, in order to convict Mr Mohammed of capital murder of killing more than one person in three years, you have to find he was a principal in the first degree. But for the capital murder during an act of terrorism, you don't have to find that. We have the same first two elements. That Mr Dean Myers was killed, no question

that the killing was willful, deliberate, and premeditated. No question that the killing occurred during the commission of or attempted commission of an act of terrorism, and that either he was the principle in the first degree or someone else was a principle in the first degree acting at his direction or order. So either way, and I suggest to you that these two, him and Malvo are both principle in the first degree. Over the course of two days,

the jury deliberated for six and a half hours. Judge LeRoi Mollett Jr. Told jurors that they did not have to find that Mohammed actually fired the gun in any of the killings. He instructed them that Mohammed merely had to be a joint participant to be found guilty. On novem the verdict came back. John Mohammed was found guilty on all counts in the DC sniper shootings. He was also found guilty of carrying out the attacks to terrorize

the population. Here's Virginia Police Lieutenant Bruce Gooth. I mean, it was pretty clear that there's no way that jury was not going to convict him. The evidence was so overwhelming and it was pretty clear that you know, he was directing the orchestra with him in Malbow. Prosecutors were confident that John Mohammed would be found guilty, but their primary goal was to get the death penalty. His actual sentencing would be decided in the next phase of the trial.

For this phase, prosecutors had to call new witnesses who demonstrated that Mohammed was in fact deserving of a death sentence. One of the people to testify was Isa Nichols, John and Mildred Mohammed's former accountant. I entered the courtroom. I hadn't seen John since the day of his custody case in Tacoma. So I entered the courtroom and he's there to orange jumped suit. I was asked to identify him in the courtroom, and I pointed to him, and I wanted him to look at me, but he wouldn't look

at me. He just sat there in the stair. I'm answering the prosecutors questions about who he was. He wasn't the same man that I knew at all. He was disassociated. He was still maintaining his innocence in this whole entire case. Finally, on November three, after another five hours of the liberation, the jury reached a verdict. As he has throughout the trial, John Mohammed displayed no emotion when the verdict was read.

Death on two counts. Death penalty reserved for the worst of the worst, and we thanking Mr Mohammed fell in that category, and the jury agreed. Some jurors said today they were moved by home video that showed a loving Mohammed with his children. One juror said he originally voted for life, but decided just last night that Mohammed was too dangerous. The lack of remorse, the possibility, no probability that down the road there will be more casualties from

this span. The big moment for me was when they actually sentenced Mohammed. This is Bruce Guth again. I became very close with Linda Franklin's daughter and her family. She lived in Virginia Beach ironically, and we'd pick her up every day and take her to court. One of the detectives and myself or somebody would pick her up and her husband at the time, and she had a young baby. She came to court every single day for both trials. We were all sitting in court the day when the

jury came back with what the penalty was. The jury comes back and they give the sentence of death from Mohammed multiple times, and there was somewhat of an outbreak in the courtroom. You know, the families were not excited because some of them didn't even believe in the death penalty, but they understood the law. There was like an initial out person. It got definitely quiet. The hair in the back of my head stood up. The court only allowed

a still photographer in the courtroom. They didn't allow TV cameras or any other photography. So there was one photographer way back in the corner the whole time of the trial. And you hear click click click click click all throughout the trial. So everybody gets up to leave, and Linda

Franklin's daughter comes over to me. The courtrooms pretty much three quarters four fifts cleared out, and she puts her arms around me, and she's weeping, and she just goes on about her mother and what we did for her and the Task Force and keeping her in touch and you know, getting justice for her mother, and she couldn't thank us enough. And I lost it. I break out crying, you know, I buried my head in my hands, and I hear the photographer click click click click click click click. Well,

the next morning, wake up. My picture is on the front page of every newspaper in the country, crying like a baby in the middle of this courthouse. I took a lot of ribbing for that. You know, it's just that whole moment with her and how it affected her, and you know, being exhausted, and it just finally hit me. The judge would later accept the jury's recommendation and officially condemned John Mohammed to death. He would go to Sussex one State prison while he awaited a date for his execution.

My only concern was for my children. This is Mildry Mohammed, ex wife of John Mohammed. When he went to trial, my son said, well, Mom, I don't want him to go to the court. I told them that whatever the jury comes back with, that's what we're going to accept. So when they decided that it would be the death penalty, I asked to be released from work so I could tell them. And so as they came in the door, I told my daughters and they say, well, are they

going to do it tomorrow? I said, no, They're not doing it tomorrow. There's a process. I'm pretty sure he has some appeals and then after he has exhausted all of his appeals, then they will determine a date and at that time he will be executed. As before, Mohammed refused to talk to anyone about what happened those many weeks during the sniper spree. Meanwhile, prosecutors had to shift

gears to focus on Lee Boyd Malvo's trial. Malvo was facing two counts of capital murder, one for the killing of Linda Franklin on October four, two thousand two, another under the same terrorism statute used to charge John Mohammed. Malvo pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. His trial began on November tenth, two thousand three, in Chesapeake, Virginia. The defenses opening statement was made by Attorney Craig Cooley.

Here's an excerpt read by a voice actor. May it please the court, gentleman and commonwealth, good morning to you. They have a saying in Jamaica that describes the form of child rearing that was used by Lee's mother and many of his caretakers. It's called save the Eye. Save the eye means you, as a parent, take your child to a teacher, to a caretaker, anyone who keeps them, and you say to them, use whatever is necessary to

make my child obey you. You can beat him. You can beat him with whatever you want to, but do two things. Don't kill him and don't put out his eye. Save the eye. That's what that phrase means. Save the eye is a concept that breeds, in fact, it mandates obedient. And every adult that you will hear from that newly malvo from a young child to his young adolescence is going to boil down to if you ask them, tell me one word, in one word, tell me about that child,

they're going to say obedient. And if you say, okay, you can use two words, they're going to say very obedient. And you are going to see from the evidence in this case how that seemingly favorable quality in a child made him incredibly vulnerable and susceptible to a man who was prepared to manipulate him and took him in and used him and trained him and indoctrinated him for his

own deluded purposes. The defense attorney's dressed him like a schoolboy, for lack of a better description, when we go to Catholic school, you had to wear, you know, little Khaki's long sleeve white shirt with a little vest on. So he'd come in dressed up like a young boy. We're not going to address him with a big old rifle across his chest, and we're not going to address him with, you know, maybe a pot leaf on the back of his shirt. You say, you dress them appropriately, and obviously

you're gonna dress him look at their age. This is attorney Tom Walsh. He worked alongside attorney Mark Petrovitch on Malbo's defense team. Here's Petrovitch again. To put him in a suit I think would be artificial, that wasn't a part of his background. That's not where it came from. Sure, we certainly didn't want to air on the side of making him look more mature. Of course, that would be foolish on our part, so we made sure that the clothes were more age appropriate for his age group, in

his age range. I think that's that's a fair way to put it. But Bruce Scooth says that during the trial Malvo didn't act at all like a polite young man. That little piece of ship started getting on everybody's nerve. The thing that really put me over the top how he acted in court when the jury would come in. He'd sit straight up like he was, you know, very polite, and he'd write notes, and he, you know, wouldn't make

any faces. The minute to jury would walk out, he would turn around and look at the families and smile at the families, you know, just rubbing it in their face, and you just wanted to go up and just grab them by the collar. He was just beyond mean and cruel. And then the jury walked back and he'd sit there like a young school child. Again, that did not happen. Those deputies wouldn't let him turn around. He sat beside us all day during court and then he was out.

He was not disrespectful. I don't ever remember seeing him laugh at a victim. A matter of fact, there's a rule on witnesses, and the victims would come in and testify and generally leave. They didn't want to stay in the courtroom, so they would have to leave the courtroom, so they wouldn't have a chance that breaks to turn around and laugh at anybody. The deputes wouldn't let that happen. Guth also says that Malvo would sit there and draw for most of the hearings. Usually he drew the people

who went up on the witness stand. We'd come into court for some motion, the judge would come out and sit down, a deputy or two deputies would be in between her and him. He would be able to draw exactly what he saw. You know, the judge even looked like the judge. The deputies was far down detail of their shaff patches, and he put like crosshairs on the judge's forehead or on the deputy's forehead. And he was so good. I mean, the guy could have gone professionally

and been an artist. He was unbelievable. We encouraged him to draw, and the drawings that he drew in court were amazing. He's very talented and I still have some of those drawings. There were some drawings that were out during the beginning of the course where he's drawing cross hairs of a scope on a sniper rifle, things of that nature. We found out about the drawings and did a search. Warran got all his drawings and we had a whole book, one of the Blue Book of pictures

he drew. Used him against him, not that the prosecution needed the drawings to prove his guilt. After Malvo admitted on tape during an early interrogation to most of the shootings, his guilty sentencing was all but guaranteed. When we go back and look at it, the whole goal really was just to avoid a death sentence. We knew there would be a tremendous amount of information against Lee. They had solidified a case that he at the very least participated

in all the shootings. His involvement may have been debated somewhat, but there was a mountain of evidence against him. So we knew we were going to be facing the death penalty, and given that there were so many victims in such a horrific path that they had gone through, we knew it was gonna be a huge, uphill battle. So from day one it was our goal just to avoid a

death penalty. Walsh and Petrovitch knew that prosecutors had the tape of Malvo admitting to the murders and that they would use it as direct evidence to convict Malvo, So to avoid the worst possible sentence, they decided to make the case that Malvo was under Mohammed's control the entire time, and that when he admitted to the murders on tape, it was because he had been brainwashed by Mohammed to take the fall. This is why Malvo pleaded not guilty

by reason of insanity. Part of Mohammed's indoctrination was to desensitize Lee to the violence, to shootings, to the consequences of what happened. Mohammed was having him with earphones in in Bellingham, Washington, watching video games, in violent video games, so that was part of it. That was part of the indoctrination on shooting things without any feelings. That was during the time when he started to shoot guns and stuff. Petrovitch says that in court, the defense played a video

tape that Mohammed often made Malvo watch. It was an instructional video with advice for snipers, Carlos Hathcock Marine sniper. It was an interview of him, and he would talk about how he would line his kills up and how he would shoot somebody from long distances yet could see that the he got the bullet right through the eye, and after each kind of anecdotal segment of his interview, he would kind of chuckle and say and it was

kind of a cadence throughout the interview. Just so it happened right way Zero comes home with a hamburger, and he stepped right across the spot where was he going and he been old, brush his teeth, get a drink, whatever you're doing. And if he handerstood up, I went over the head. But as luck would happen, East did up.

He caught that chuck lad. And then we drew the parallel between that interview and Lee's interview when they first brought him into the Massy building, when they first brought him into Virginia, and when you listen to the interrogation, that's how Lee answered the questions. He would say something and he would give it that chuckle, the exact same

cadence and the exact same chuckle. And that illustrated the point that this is how Mohammed controlled him and indoctrinated him and essentially programmed him what to do and how to do it. So their whole defense was a Malo was a kid. He didn't know what he was doing. He grew up in Jamaica, he didn't have a father, His father did nothing with them, spent little time, and

they just paraded witness after witness after witness. The defence team also wanted to prove that before John Mohammed came into Malboe's life, he was an intelligent, well mannered child. When you want to tell a story in court, it's best to tell that story through anecdotal witnesses that can provide details of what they actually observed and what the

people were actually doing at certain times. Why was it important to get the witnesses from the Caribbean, from Washington State, from Louis at it because they showed to the court directly to the jury directly what they observed with League growing up in the Caribbean, and then the interactions between Mohammed and Lee after Lee met him, and what was going on with regard to the indoctrination. And they also really highlighted how he was a good student and was

just really eager to learn. He wanted to pursue education, and he never got the chance to settle down in any one place. This was a good narrative that we wanted to present to the journey to show why he got into the predicament he got into. This wasn't Lee, this was John Mohammed. But the prosecution also had witness testimony that they could use to their advantage. Like Mohammed, Malvo had to face witnesses, family members, and the victims themselves.

Here's Bruce Gooth, the witnesses were even better than I anticipated. There was a doctor who was at the Exxon where a taxi driver was filling up gas and he gets shot while he's umping gas, and this pediatrician is in the car next to him, and she sees this blood spatter and him slide down and she runs over and helps him. That pediatrician was Dr Caroline Namro. She says it was jarring to come face to face with Malville for the first time. I remember feeling just basically shock

and disbelief that he could have done this. Where the witness stand was placed was very close, maybe a few feet away from the defense table. And I remember he was wearing a cream sweater, like almost like an Irish nit and you know, he was a good looking boy, and he was drawing on a pad the whole time that the prosecutor was asking me questions. I remember looking over and he was just drawing, and I remember the

he just looks so innocent. How shocking, how shocking that a person who could commit such evil acts could look like that, like this innocent young teenager. I've never been face to face with the murderer before. You sort of expect in your mind somebody's gonna look evil. But then when you actually faced with this young, innocent, good looking guy like he did this, he could do this, This was inside him to commit such horrific acts of violence.

It totally blows your mind. I was totally shocked. Namro recount at the morning of October three in grave detail for the jury. She told them how she was pumping gas when she heard a loud bang and prim Kumara Wallacker collapsed on the side of her car, his blood everywhere. She runs over and helps him, you know, does doctor stuff to try to save him. And he keeps saying to her, I'm gonna die or I'm going to die, And she said, I had to lie to him. She goes, I told him he was going to live, but I

knew he was going to die. She had the whole courtroom crying. You know, that was one of those moments, you know, it put the whole thing in Respective how they ruined families, the jury had to determine whether Malvo truly had been under the control of John Mohammed when he committed his crimes, but the question of whether Malvo was quote brainwashed is to this day a point of contention. I believe that Lee Malvo. When I looked at him,

I knew he was a victim. He was a child who had been brainwashed because I knew John and what he was capable of. This is Isa Nichols, again, the former accountant for John and Meldry Mohammed. She attended Malvo's trial as an audience member, and I think back as I stared at him, he had to be fifteen when he met John in Antigua. He was very young and considered John his father because he was calling him dad. He didn't have his father in his life. So whatever

they did in Antigua, John became that role. John had trained him and turned him into a killer. Isa believes the defense's argument that Malvo was brainwashed by John Mohammed, but Virginia Police Lieutenant Bruce Gooth is not so convinced. I don't think he was brainwashed. You know, I'm not a doctor, but you know been doing this a long time. Clearly Mohammed was influencing him, and Mohammed got him into this. It became almost a video game to Malvo, and he

liked it. He liked killing. You know, I'm convinced if he got out tomorrow he would do it again. His i Q was out of this world. So you know this notion that he didn't know what he was doing when he ceased. Linda Franklin's head getting blown off, or lady sitting on the bus stop read a book and the bullet goes through the book into her head. But many experts believed that Malvo was not in control of his actions, including psychologist Jonathan Mack, who co wrote a

book about Malvo. He was a juvenile at the time that this occurred. He was completely innocent at the time when Mohammed found him, and over the course of a year and a half two years, because Malvo was so susceptible to brainwashing, yes, he became essentially the puppet of this fortysomething year old bad actor, Mohammed. Max says that Malvo was especially vulnerable because he had experienced a lot of violence growing up in Jamaica, and because he had

little to no parental guidance or home stability. As a result, Malvo developed with mac colls reactive attachment disorder, where he coped by blindly attaching himself to whoever will care for him.

I don't think it can be stated strongly enough that you take an individual with reactive attachment disorder chronic depression, with one broken attachment after another, who is trying to do well, who is a model student new school for the most part, and abandon him in a shock and expect that he's not going to be vulnerable to a bad actor if the bad actor happens to be smart enough to show the kid what the kid needs and

it's desperately looking for you. Combine that with the fact that the adult brain is not fully mature, as we have learned in the past twenty years, until the age of five, and that in particular executive frontal function, which involves reflection on our behavior and making choices that disinhibit impulse or impulsive decisions in favor of doing the right thing, that part of the brain is not fully pruned and

developed until mid twenties. Mohammed got started when Malvo was ten years junior to that, at the age of fifteen. Max says that Mohammed used movies and video games as part of his indoctrination of Malvo. One of those movies was The Matrix, The Reality and the Matrix. There was no absolute right and wrong, right and wrong became relative to the Master's view. During one scene, the master in this case Morpheus, instructs the student Neo about the parameters

of reality within the matrix. Morpheus says, quote, the matrix is a system, Neo, that system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around. What do you see? Businessman, teachers, lawyers, carpenters, the very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part

of that system, and that makes them our enemy. He had to rewrite Malvo's conscience and begin to inculcate a structure in Malbo's mind where right and wrong were never absolute, but according to what the Master said, it was, And Mohammed put himself in the place of the Master, which was fairly easy to do with Malvo because he was

so desperate to have a father figure. Mac is of the opinion that Mohammed was enough of an influence on Malvo that he did, in fact brainwash him into doing his bidding, But not everyone is convinced that brainwashing, as we think of it, is even a real thing. I think the word is just so loaded. The word is just so electric and so powerful that to say brainwashing

basically dismisses everything. My name is Jenny Riker. I teach in the psychology apartment at Rocky Mountain College in Billings, Montana. I've published on brainwashing and Satanism, specifically how they relate to the legal system. Psychological techniques, no matter how well they're applied, cannot overcome free will. There's no amount of psychological coercion that would force somebody to, let's say, kill,

if they didn't already have some kind of predisposition. According to Record, it's highly unlikely that Mohammed's influence alone would completely change Mohammed's decision making ability. Somewhere, Malvo's own willpower had to come into play when he made certain choices. It's a combination of both, basically, as a combination of a person's predisposition and exposure to these techniques and circumstance that leads to this outcome. But brainwashing basically dismisses everything. Okay,

they were brainwashed, that's fine. No, it's just not that simple. Human beings are in incredibly complex. Still, Records suggests that Malvo's defense is a logical one, backed up by some science. In the academic study of quote unquote brainwashing. Many of the targets of brainwashing were typically American use. They were

typically pretty isolated from family and friends. You take somebody who doesn't have very strong social ties, who don't have clear paths ahead of them, You monopolize their time, you reward desired behaviors, then you can get some compliance. Much of Malvo's story backed up his susceptibility to something like brainwashing. That makes the question of whether Malbo had sufficient agency even muddier. But all that really mattered was whether the court believed he was in control of his actions and

if he could be rehabilitated. We asked record how the brainwashing defense might hold up for Malbo's insanity plea. Many times sentences are just ide it based on whether or not that person is considered kind of a danger to the community in the future, Like what's the likelihood that they'll commit this heinous crime again, And brainwashing is a pretty easy scapegoat. Well, if we deprogrammed them or we reverse this socialization, then there's no chance they'll ever commit

that kind of crime again. I think somebody might try to use something like brainwashed behavior to support something like an insanity please, but insanity please are so incredibly rare. Courts very rarely accept them even when defendants try to use them, And when they are accepted, they're very, very rarely successful. Most standards for admissibility of scientific evidence really don't allow for brainwashing to be entered as scientific evidence.

It really just it doesn't meet the hurdles. Essentially. Malvo's trial lasted roughly five weeks. On December three, both sides made their closing arguments. Attorney Michael arav gave the defenses statement. Here's an excerpt writ by a voice actor. Was Lee captive? What else can you call it? He could not escape from John Mohammed. The day he met John Mohammed, he lost Lee Malvo Without sounding overly melodramatic, the last victim of John Mohammed sits at the defense table today. That

is the last victim. Malvo is the last victim of John Mohammed. All we ask is that you do one of two things today. You can either find Lee not guilty by reason of insanity, and you have to reach down to your conscience to do that. It is a very difficult decision. I believe we've proved our case to you. If you cannot reach that conclusion. I ask you to find him guilty of murder in the first degree. Lee was not the shooter. He was not the operative behind

the letters, not the idea man. He was a follower. He was a pawn molded like a piece of clay to John Mohammed. Attorney Robert Horan gave the prosecution's closing argument. Here's an excerpt read by a voice actor members of the jury. There's no such thing as a good murder. They don't make them. They're all bad. And we submit to you that this one is as bad as any. The notion of killing innocent people, working people, ordinary citizens, killing them at random on the public streets. It's about

as reprehensible as you can get it. And we make no excuses for John Mohammed. He's as bad as he is. But for all intents and purposes, their peas in a pod. The only difference is Malvo's younger. But their willingness to kill, and their willingness to do it for money, that's common to both of them. The most reprehensible of killing should be called what it is. It is a capital killing under the terrorism statue. It is a capital killing under

the statute for killing two people within three years. We ask you, members of the jury, in all earnestness, to give him justice, give him a conviction for the two capital murders that he committed. Thank you. After closing arguments, the jury deliberated for two days. Then on December thousand three, the verdict came back. Lee Boyd Malvo was found guilty on both counts of capital murder. Based on Virginia law at the time, he was eligible for the death penalty.

Now his trial would move into the sentencing phase, where his fate would be decided. Each side had to present an argument for why Malvo should or should not be sentenced to death. Attorney Robert Iran again gave the prosecution's argument. Here's an excerpt read by a voice actor. What was particularly sinister about this defendant is there is not an ounce of remorse. You have heard him sobbing and crying on different occasions. He is crying for himself. Is not

prying for all those people he killed. He did not cry for Kenya Cook, He did not cry for Linda Franklin, He did not cry for Conrad Johnson. He sobs for himself. Remorse they have to invent it in order for you to find it. We submit to you it is not in this record. No remorse, Members of the jury, we submit to you. He is a major player. Is not only a major player, he is the sniper. Remember he says on that tape talking about Mohammed, we are a team, team, team,

that is what he said. And they were an unholy team, a team that was as vicious, as brutal, as uncaring as you could find. Talk about John Mohammed all you want. Maybe it was his plan, maybe it was his idea. But the evidence stamps this defendant as the shooting. The evidence stamps this defendant as the killer. Members of the jury, we ask you for the penalty of death because the

evidence calls for it. The evidence tells you you are dealing with the defendant who has proven by his actions that he has a depraved mind, and so we ask you for the ultimate punishment. Attorney Craig Cooley gave the defense his argument. Here's an excerpt read by a voice actor. Every life is precious, certainly the lives of innocent people who are lost by the delusions of John Mohammed. And

also so precious is the life of Lee Malvo. But what lesson does the Commonwealth seek for us to send to our children when it urges us to kill this child, to teach them that killing is wrong. Our children should know, and Lee should know, that when you commit terrible acts, there is terrible punishment to follow. There are consequences. But you and I need to remember that the two greatest qualities we as human beings possess our compassion and love, and it's by our exercise of those that we all

ultimately will be judged. Lee's life is about to be put in the hands of others. We're about to entrust the life of this child to you, and in a very real sense, you are the last of the very long line of caretakers to exercise your compassion. I leave you with a phrase. It's a phrase that both invites you to meet punishment, but also to temper it, to draw the line short of the ultimate punish the child, save the eye. The Virginia jury was faced with one

of the most difficult decisions imaginable. Should they sentence Malva, who was a minor during the time of his crimes, to death. There were so many questions to consider. Was Malvo so influenced by Mohammed that he lacked free will when he committed murder. Was his confessional authentic or did he confess under the direction of Mohammed? And if he was supposedly brainwashed, did that mean he could be rehabilitated

and thus safe to walk the streets again. And regardless of Malva, should anyone who commits a i'm as a teenager be sentenced to death, however heinous the crime? And what about the victims and their families? What was the right sentence to see that justice was served for them? Where these moral and ethical boundaries are drawn is completely in the eye of the beholder. But nonetheless, on December three, just two days before Christmas, the jury reached its decision.

Next time on Monster d C Sniper. I remember standing in court when that verdict came in, stand right beside him, and that was it. There was just a surge of emotion. People screamed out, Mom, you know, we really want to talk today. So I called the warden. The warden said, your children are under eighteen. He said, so that means, see, you have to come with him. I went to the execution, you know, with the pain and all the angler there.

Huh that was going to release me, all right, just a rifle of the scope, so you had him in your size. He didn't die immediately, and I had to go. I didn't get it. They shot people from Washington to Arizona to allegedly Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina. What we know is the d C Snipers is really the United States Snipers. Monster DC Sniper is a fifteen episode podcast hosted by Tony Harris and produced by iHeart Radio and

Tenderfoot TV. Matt Frederick and Alex Williams are executive producers on behalf of I Heeart Radio, alongside producers Trevor Young, Ben Kiebrick, and Josh Thayne. Paine Lindsay and Donald Albright are executive producers on behalf of Tenderfoot TV alongside producers Meredith Steadman and Christina Dana. Original music is by Makeup and Vanity Set. In this episode, John Allen Mohammed was

portrayed by actor Jason Williams. Additional voice acting was provided by Alex Williams, Noel Brown, Jonathan Strickland, Josh Clark, and Ben Boland. If you haven't already, be sure to check out the first two seasons at Lanta Monster and Monster the Zodiac Killer. If you have questions or comments, email us at monster at ihart media dot com, or you can call us at one eight three three to eight five six six six seven. Thanks for listening.