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Speaker 2: December two thousand, the island of Antigua, fifteen year old
Speaker 2: Lee boy Malvo lay alone in bed in a dark shack.
Speaker 2: He shivered, sick with rheumatic fever. He needed medicine but
Speaker 2: didn't know how to get it. He was all alone
Speaker 2: in a foreign country, with no family and few friends.
Speaker 2: There was a knock at the door. A man came in.
Speaker 2: It was John Mohammed, the American, the man who had
Speaker 2: smuggled Lee's mother into the United States. John had just
Speaker 2: come by to check on the boy, who he knew
Speaker 2: was living alone, but when he saw Lee's dire state,
Speaker 2: brought him to the doctor. Lee got an antibiotic shot
Speaker 2: and John stayed with him while he recovered.
Speaker 3: Mohammed he stated me the entire time of nurse and
Speaker 3: back to health, and I told him my entire life story,
Speaker 3: my parents, my situations when I bounced around what I felt.
Speaker 3: I told him everything. I left nothing out Because I
Speaker 3: trusted this guy. He gave me his time. It's that simple.
Speaker 3: He was one of the only people who listened I
Speaker 3: lead on him. I trusted him. I did not trust
Speaker 3: my mom. I didn't trust anyone else, but I trusted him.
Speaker 2: Before long, Lee asked John if he could live with him.
Speaker 2: John agreed, and Lee moved in with him and his children.
Speaker 4: He was so desperate to have a father figure. My
Speaker 4: name is doctor Chonathan Harold Meck. I am a clinical
Speaker 4: nurse psychologist. Very quickly, Malvo starts calling Muhammed dad.
Speaker 3: He said, everything that you've been taught from your religion,
Speaker 3: your morals, your education, you've basically been brainwashed. And he
Speaker 3: would explained to me a mixture of his worldview and
Speaker 3: the nation of Islam. He twisted a lot of things.
Speaker 4: It certainly wasn't you know, standard religion. He would have
Speaker 4: him listen to tapes even when he was falling asleep.
Speaker 3: Speaches and all sorts of stuff, thousands of hours, over
Speaker 3: and over.
Speaker 4: Again, giving him subliminal suggestions that there is essentially a
Speaker 4: war going on between blacks and whites.
Speaker 5: There is a ruthless person on the loose.
Speaker 6: What I nerves this community the most is the randomness
Speaker 6: of the murders, ordinary people doing ordinary things.
Speaker 2: They killed the five people in one day and then
Speaker 2: went on the rampage for the next month.
Speaker 3: It is quite a mystery.
Speaker 7: The police say they have never had a crime quite
Speaker 7: like this.
Speaker 8: Be careful, these guys are using weapons that are going
Speaker 8: to go right straight through our full of proof best.
Speaker 2: From My Heart Radio and Tenderfoot Teva.
Speaker 5: This is Monster DC sniper.
Speaker 3: Very quickly when I met Mom and I assimilated everything
Speaker 3: about him.
Speaker 2: At the beginning of two thousand and one, after Lee
Speaker 2: had moved in with John in Antigua, friends and teachers
Speaker 2: remember seeing Lee change. His good grades began to slip.
Speaker 2: He started bringing a Koran to his Christian high school
Speaker 2: and arguing with other students about religion, and Lee also
Speaker 2: started talking a lot about guns.
Speaker 3: I just became someone. It was something I'm used to doing.
Speaker 3: I can bouncing around from home to home, place to place,
Speaker 3: and I became what I call a change in him.
Speaker 3: Whoever I'm around, whoever the authority is, I changed the
Speaker 3: suit that person.
Speaker 4: The attachment to a mother or a father is really
Speaker 4: core to developing a stable mentally health the adult.
Speaker 2: Doctor Jonathan Mack is a neural psychologist and co author
Speaker 2: of the book The Making of Lee Boyd.
Speaker 5: Malvo.
Speaker 2: Max studied Lee's life extensively. He thinks Lee's readiness to
Speaker 2: trust John was due to an attachment disorder, a disorder
Speaker 2: in how kids connect with adults.
Speaker 4: I felt that Malvo met the criteria for disinhibited social
Speaker 4: engagement disorder.
Speaker 2: With disinhibited social engagement disorder, kids are so desperate for
Speaker 2: a caregiver that they are overly trusting of strangers. They
Speaker 2: will latch onto any authority figure they can, ignoring signs
Speaker 2: that the adult might not have their best interest at heart.
Speaker 4: If you look at Malvo's history, his father in the
Speaker 4: first years of his life was in his life, out
Speaker 4: of his life. His mother was also in and out
Speaker 4: and had a habit of shipping him off, and just
Speaker 4: as soon as he was developing an attachment to the
Speaker 4: new people, he was moved somewhere else. So the fact
Speaker 4: that that Malvo had so many broken attachments from so
Speaker 4: many of the people that he lived with, he had
Speaker 4: this social disengagement disorder and was basically ready to attach
Speaker 4: on to anyone.
Speaker 3: I went to him because I felt alone in this world.
Speaker 3: I assimilated everything about him, from his mannerisms, is religion.
Speaker 3: I lost my accent. I just became someone different once
Speaker 3: he gained my trust. That was the lost copse.
Speaker 2: Throughout early two thousand and one, John continued to forge
Speaker 2: documents and helped smuggle people into the United States. On
Speaker 2: April fourteenth, John was detained at Miami International Airport. He'd
Speaker 2: flown there from Antigua alongside to Jamaican women. The women
Speaker 2: were caught presenting forged documents to customs agents, and the
Speaker 2: agents suspected John was helping the two women enter the
Speaker 2: United States illegally. They couldn't prove it, so they had
Speaker 2: to release John, but they contacted Antiguan authorities and relayed
Speaker 2: their suspicions. Lee says that John called him in a panic.
Speaker 2: John told Lee to hide the kids and the cash
Speaker 2: that he kept in the house. Lee took the children
Speaker 2: to John's girlfriend's place, but when he went back to
Speaker 2: get the money, it had already been seized by Antiguan authorities.
Speaker 2: Lee says John lost at least one hundred sixty thousand
Speaker 2: dollars because of the raid. John feared he would be
Speaker 2: arrested if he returned to Antigua, so he decided to
Speaker 2: lay low in the US. John instructed Lee, who was
Speaker 2: just sixteen years old himself, to watch over his kids.
Speaker 2: John also asked Bale to help out with the business
Speaker 2: by delivering fake birth certificates to clients. Lee dropped out
Speaker 2: out of school to help. John then traveled back to
Speaker 2: Washington State, and on April twenty third, he legally changed
Speaker 2: his name from John Williams to John Muhammad, perhaps to
Speaker 2: try to avoid raising any red flags when he returned
Speaker 2: to Antigua.
Speaker 9: Okay, mister Williams taching to have your name change.
Speaker 10: Just what is your current legal name?
Speaker 9: My current legal name is Allen, Okay, and what is
Speaker 9: the new name by which you wish to be known?
Speaker 11: Allen Muhammad?
Speaker 9: And why do you desire to be known.
Speaker 11: By this new name?
Speaker 10: For our religion partner?
Speaker 9: Are you changing your name for any other reason? Are
Speaker 9: you changing your name to defraud or mislead any person
Speaker 9: or creditor? Are you involved in any legal proceeding other
Speaker 9: than this name change? And have you ever been convicted
Speaker 9: of a felony? Are you under supervision of any probation
Speaker 9: department that requires you to report a change of address
Speaker 9: MILCA ahead you grant.
Speaker 11: Your name change there.
Speaker 2: While in Washington State, John also visited Earl Donze.
Speaker 12: I met John when I used to work for Horizon Airlines.
Speaker 12: I was actually interested in a printer that I saw
Speaker 12: at a store. This printer was an ALPS MD five
Speaker 12: thousand CERI. Printer had a big.
Speaker 10: Reputation during the early nineties of making counterfeit money.
Speaker 12: It views film as inking, so it was really expensive
Speaker 12: printers I wouldn't afford at the time. And this cowork
Speaker 12: of mine knew a friend as did it.
Speaker 10: So I met John that way. John was really flashy.
Speaker 10: He had nice suits. He become different cars all the time,
Speaker 10: Jaguar Diamante.
Speaker 12: He said, I can get the printer for you if
Speaker 12: you can help me out. He want to know if
Speaker 12: I can alter some documents because for a hobby I
Speaker 12: do graphics designs. Okay, so a fairy deal. So John
Speaker 12: got it for me.
Speaker 10: I don't know how he got it. He asked me
Speaker 10: to stand a birth certificate with.
Speaker 12: His name on it and asked me if I can
Speaker 12: raise the name that was on the birthday. So I
Speaker 12: used a simple program on computer to erased a name,
Speaker 12: and he asked me to type another name.
Speaker 13: Man.
Speaker 12: Okay, sure, so he wanted me to type I'm guessing
Speaker 12: could have been Lee.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 12: This is where I realized that he was actually involved
Speaker 12: with smuggling people across the border.
Speaker 10: He was charging thousand bucks ahead I think maybe more.
Speaker 2: On May twentieth, two thousand and one, John traveled back
Speaker 2: to Antigua with his new name and altered documents in hand.
Speaker 14: When John returned to the island, the government had already
Speaker 14: seized over one hundred and sixty thousand dollars, but John
Speaker 14: did not scold Lee.
Speaker 2: This is criminologist and co author of Lee Boyd Malbo's
Speaker 2: autobiography Anthony Meoi.
Speaker 14: When he got back, John pulled him tight, hugged him
Speaker 14: and said, great job, son. And it was that very
Speaker 14: moment that really select that defies their relationship. Lee said,
Speaker 14: from that moment on, I was willing to do anything
Speaker 14: for that man.
Speaker 2: A week and a half later, on May thirty first,
Speaker 2: John returned to the United States with his three children
Speaker 2: and Lee Boyd Malville. They traveled through Puerto Rico to
Speaker 2: Fort Myers, Florida, where Lee's mother was living and working
Speaker 2: at a red lobster restaurant. Lee says that John was
Speaker 2: planning on setting up a counterfeiting operation with friends from
Speaker 2: the Caribbean. John wanted Lee to watch over the kids
Speaker 2: while he traveled to get the equipment they needed to
Speaker 2: print fake currency. According to Lee's diary, John asked Lee's
Speaker 2: mother if the boy could continue staying with him, but
Speaker 2: she was having none of it. Una thought John was
Speaker 2: a bad influence on her son. Lee remembers his mother saying,
Speaker 2: he is my child. What I eat, he eats. If
Speaker 2: he cannot be satisfied with that, that greed will kill him.
Speaker 2: She then looked at Lee and said, you met this
Speaker 2: man no more than six months ago, and you've completely
Speaker 2: forgotten where you come from. Reluctantly, John left Lee with
Speaker 2: Una and disappeared again with his kids. Back in Washington State,
Speaker 2: Mildred Muhammad was still searching for her children. It had
Speaker 2: been fifteen months since she had seen or spoken to them.
Speaker 2: Following her hospitalization, Mildred had moved into a women's shelter
Speaker 2: where her friend and former accountant, Eisen Nichols volunteered. Mildred
Speaker 2: took a pair ofegal course to learn about what legal
Speaker 2: options she had to get her children back. She divorced
Speaker 2: John in his absence and legally gained full custody of
Speaker 2: the children. The problem was no one knew where they were,
Speaker 2: so she also filed a red of habas corpus, which.
Speaker 15: Meant that anywhere they found my children, they needed to
Speaker 15: pick them up and bring them back to me. So
Speaker 15: I had all of my paperwork notarized. And my sister
Speaker 15: calls and says, Mama sick, can you come to Maryland.
Speaker 15: I have not found my children, but I can wait
Speaker 15: over there.
Speaker 2: Mildred moved to the town of Clinton in Prince George's County, Maryland.
Speaker 2: Three more months passed without any sign of the children.
Speaker 2: It was now August two thousand and one, and the
Speaker 2: shelter where Mildred had been staying got a call. Her
Speaker 2: friend Issa Nichols was volunteering there when it happened.
Speaker 16: We get a call and it is the Department of
Speaker 16: Social Health Services in Bellingham, Washington. They're calling following up
Speaker 16: an application for support, but John had completed with his
Speaker 16: three kids. Well, what John didn't know the three kids
Speaker 16: were already in the system.
Speaker 2: John Muhammad had returned to Washington State with his children
Speaker 2: and tried to register them for welfare, but Ath already
Speaker 2: suspected him of committing welfare fraud, so they looked up
Speaker 2: the children's previously listed contact information and tried calling Mildred
Speaker 2: at the shelter.
Speaker 15: I get a call from the executive director of the
Speaker 15: shelters in and she said, Millie, I think we found
Speaker 15: your children. You need to fax all of your paperwork
Speaker 15: to Detective McCarthy. So I did that, followed up with
Speaker 15: a phone call. I said, did you get my paperwork?
Speaker 15: He said yes, Smam, I did. But Ms Muhammed, do
Speaker 15: you know where we are? I say, you're in Bellingham, Washington.
Speaker 15: He said correct, but we're on the border of Canada.
Speaker 15: If he gets across the border with your children, there
Speaker 15: will be nothing we can do. I said, I appreciate
Speaker 15: that information, but if you could just go get my children,
Speaker 15: I would appreciate that too. August thirty first, four thirty
Speaker 15: five pm. He called and he said, Miss Mohammed, we
Speaker 15: got your children. I screamed, and my brother in law
Speaker 15: came downstairs.
Speaker 8: What's going on?
Speaker 2: I said, hey found my children.
Speaker 5: Can you please talk to him.
Speaker 15: I'm running up and down the stairs, running outside and
Speaker 15: in and he said, nol, do you want to talk
Speaker 15: to him?
Speaker 16: I stopped.
Speaker 15: I hadn't heard their voices in eighteen wards. So the
Speaker 15: first person I talked to is Taliba and she says, hi, mommy.
Speaker 15: I said, hey, honey, how you doing? She said, I'm good.
Speaker 16: You want to talk to my sister. Let's said, yes,
Speaker 16: say me talked to your sister.
Speaker 15: She said, hi, mommy. I say, hey, honey.
Speaker 16: She said guess what.
Speaker 15: I said, what honey, I'm nine years old and you
Speaker 15: missed two birthdays. I said, oh, I'm sorry. I'll make
Speaker 15: it up to you.
Speaker 17: I promise.
Speaker 15: She said, okay, mommy, but John doesn't want to talk
Speaker 15: to you because he's angry. I said, okay, that's fine.
Speaker 15: So Detective McCarthy gets back on the phone and he said,
Speaker 15: it's Mohammad. We need for you to come back to
Speaker 15: Tacoma for any emergency custody hearing.
Speaker 16: Mildred flies out the next day and she calls me
Speaker 16: up that next morning and she says, will you go
Speaker 16: with me to the courthouse? And I said sure. I
Speaker 16: didn't think anything about it. You know, eighteen months have
Speaker 16: gone by. I want to see the kids.
Speaker 15: I so went with me to court and We're standing
Speaker 15: in the hallway and I said, oh, my god, there's John.
Speaker 16: Mildred looks at John. John stares at Mildred. Mildred starts
Speaker 16: running and screaming. She's just scared. She hasn't seen John
Speaker 16: in eighteen months. The sheriff's apartment is in the courthouse,
Speaker 16: and they come out and they get her and they
Speaker 16: put us in a room somewhere until the court case.
Speaker 15: So we walk in the courtroom and as soon as
Speaker 15: I get in the door, I see John on the
Speaker 15: back road to the right side, and I froze and
Speaker 15: I just remember feeling that I was so scared. But
Speaker 15: he was just sitting there, just oh, nonchalant. And I
Speaker 15: used to say, Mildred, just.
Speaker 16: Breathe, breathe. What do you mean, just breathe.
Speaker 15: Do you know how fast this man can move?
Speaker 17: She said, Mildred, we just have to breathe.
Speaker 16: So we're calming her down. She's holding my hand. Were
Speaker 16: sitting by her attorney. They're going over the paperwork, and
Speaker 16: the judge hiss the.
Speaker 7: Gavel morning, please be seated.
Speaker 11: This is enery the marriage of Mildred Denise Williams, John
Speaker 11: Allen Williams Council, Your honor, Heather Smith on behalf of
Speaker 11: the petitioner. This is Mildred Williams. She is present in
Speaker 11: the court. Let me swear both parties in before it begins. Sir,
Speaker 11: if you raise your right hand, ma'am you both saw
Speaker 11: me swear from the name testimony. You're about to provide
Speaker 11: the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Yes, yes, sir, sir,
Speaker 11: what is your name? Legal name is John Allen Muhammad
Speaker 11: and ma'am what is your name mild Muhammas. But they
Speaker 11: said that we needed to use the ninth that we
Speaker 11: were married on their death wives under William Council. You
Speaker 11: have if I believe a return on a rid of
Speaker 11: habeas corpus. I do have at Commissioner Dickie issued it
Speaker 11: back in June of two thousand and this is the
Speaker 11: first contact with these children since that time. Yes, it
Speaker 11: is your honor. The divorce decree and apparenting plans were
Speaker 11: entered in October of two thousand, after the writ that
Speaker 11: the final parenting plan gives who custody the children?
Speaker 3: All three children? Yes, I can I say something just
Speaker 3: a moment, okay.
Speaker 11: The concern I have right now is I don't know
Speaker 11: who's got these children where they're at and speaking with
Speaker 11: a deputy right this morning. All they would need was
Speaker 11: an order releasing the children from protective custody to the
Speaker 11: mother's custody. Cyah, would you like to say, Yohna, can
Speaker 11: you please tell me what's going on? There is a
Speaker 11: parenting plan was entered by the court on October six,
Speaker 11: two thousand. Awarepons, there was an order of default taken
Speaker 11: against you because you did not respond to divorced summons.
Speaker 11: It was published against you. As part of that Mother
Speaker 11: obtained on her own without the help of an attorney,
Speaker 11: for ritt of habeas corpus, which allows her to have
Speaker 11: the physical possession of the children, so the children to
Speaker 11: have a mission the waradots whenever known by mother. That's
Speaker 11: why the court apparently issued the writ you never responded
Speaker 11: to the published summons for divorce. Are you telling me
Speaker 11: the reason why I don't have my children won't be
Speaker 11: to keep my children because I don't have the proper
Speaker 11: paperwork ynt No, I'm saying that you've been divorced. The
Speaker 11: court has entered orders that mother had sole residential placement,
Speaker 11: care and custody of the children, and then you've got
Speaker 11: no visitation at present without for the court order. So
Speaker 11: I'm not able to see my children by virtue of
Speaker 11: the private court order, not today's court order. So if
Speaker 11: you believe that the allegations are not valid, you should
Speaker 11: bring that to the court's attention, all right. If you
Speaker 11: do not have copies of the court orders, I suggest
Speaker 11: that sir, you ask for copies of those documents so
Speaker 11: you can look at them and reflect on what you'd
Speaker 11: like to do next.
Speaker 13: Thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 16: John finds all of that information out in the courtroom
Speaker 16: that day that he is divorced for Mildrid and she
Speaker 16: has sole custody of the children. He was so angry
Speaker 16: he flipped. It was that look that I will never forget.
Speaker 16: John leaves the courtroom. We come out and we're standing
Speaker 16: against the wall.
Speaker 15: And all of a sudden, I fell a presence and
Speaker 15: I turn and it's John. I take off down the hallway,
Speaker 15: My shoes go everywhere.
Speaker 16: Mildred takes off sprinting down the corner. I look up
Speaker 16: and John passes by me, heading towards Mildred. He was
Speaker 16: just so focused, he just had this dead stare. He
Speaker 16: was so angry, and I look back.
Speaker 15: John puts his hand on the courtroom door, looks at
Speaker 15: me and says, gotcha.
Speaker 16: He turned around and he walked back the other direction,
Speaker 16: and I was just up against the wall, hoping he
Speaker 16: wouldn't see me.
Speaker 15: My attorney said, oh, hell no, we gotta get out
Speaker 15: of here.
Speaker 16: I'm scared. I'm letting my daughter know. Lock the doors,
Speaker 16: don't answer if anybody comes to the door, because I
Speaker 16: figured he would probably come there looking.
Speaker 15: So we take the stairs to go down to the
Speaker 15: police station and we explained to them what happened, and
Speaker 15: can we please go out of their back door. They
Speaker 15: say no, we need to go out the front door.
Speaker 17: Just like everybody else, John was no joke.
Speaker 15: I believed everything he said to me. He was gonna
Speaker 15: kill me. It was gonna be a headshot, and he
Speaker 15: was gonna bury me when nobody would be able to
Speaker 15: find me. I was terrified, and the terror came because
Speaker 15: nobody believed me. They thought I was being dramatic. They
Speaker 15: were actually gonna let me die. And then what were
Speaker 15: they going to say? Oh, she was a good old girl,
Speaker 15: you know, she loved the children. We did not see
Speaker 15: that coming, Yes you did. When I hear people say that,
Speaker 15: oh I didn't see that, Yes you did. Victims always
Speaker 15: give signs, they always tell somebody. So we walk out
Speaker 15: of the court like a triangle where everybody's watching each
Speaker 15: other's back.
Speaker 16: Get to the car.
Speaker 15: I slouched down in the car so no one could
Speaker 15: see that I was in the car. We go over
Speaker 15: to the Department of Health and Human Resources because that's
Speaker 15: where my children were, and the first person I see
Speaker 15: is my son. He's tall, he's skinny, he's trying to
Speaker 15: wear afro, but it's in a dome, you know. And
Speaker 15: I walk up to him and he got his pants
Speaker 15: on his butt sagging.
Speaker 16: Oh geez whiz.
Speaker 15: And I should have said, honey, I'm so glad to
Speaker 15: see you, but I'm pulling up his pants, sayings, this's
Speaker 15: gonna be an issue, and he starts laughing. And then
Speaker 15: I hear my daughters, mommy, mommy, mommy, they're coming down,
Speaker 15: and I'm just so overwhelmed.
Speaker 16: I'm crying might in my eyes.
Speaker 14: I can't see you.
Speaker 16: I can't see you.
Speaker 15: And Selena said, Mommy says, honey, Daddy said he was
Speaker 15: looking for you, but he couldn't find you. I said, really,
Speaker 15: I was trying to find you, but he changed your names.
Speaker 15: So you were looking for us? Absolutely, Mommy. I just
Speaker 15: want to let you know that God answered my prayer
Speaker 15: because I was.
Speaker 16: Praying and praying and praying for him.
Speaker 15: To send you back to me, and you're finally here.
Speaker 15: I say, honey, no one will have for take you
Speaker 15: away from me again.
Speaker 16: Okay, okay.
Speaker 15: So we get in the car and we drive over
Speaker 15: to the airport. Security picked us up from the car,
Speaker 15: brought us to their security office. Once the pilot was
Speaker 15: ready to go, security took us to the plane. We
Speaker 15: landed BWI September fifth, two thousand and one.
Speaker 5: Did you speak to John again?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 10: Why would I?
Speaker 16: No career?
Speaker 17: Why would I?
Speaker 5: Did he ever try to reach out to you.
Speaker 15: He didn't know where I was. I wasn't hiding.
Speaker 5: So the last thing you remember hearing from John was
Speaker 5: got you.
Speaker 16: Yes.
Speaker 13: One story is the John is just a psychotic killer.
Speaker 13: I guess that's plausible. But the other story is that
Speaker 13: he melted down under the pressure of not being ever
Speaker 13: able to either see his kids or even get into
Speaker 13: court to talk about seeing his kids.
Speaker 5: This is J.
Speaker 2: Mills, a divorce attorney who took on John's case at the.
Speaker 13: Court hearing the kids were turned over to Mildred. The
Speaker 13: judge did that on a temporary basis, told John Muhammad
Speaker 13: that he should come back and set up a hearing
Speaker 13: to discuss the kids further. And so it was after
Speaker 13: that hearing where he lost the kids that he came
Speaker 13: to see me.
Speaker 2: Mills didn't know much about John's background. He thought John
Speaker 2: was just going through a rough divorce. Mills actually felt
Speaker 2: sorry for John, so he took on the case pro bono.
Speaker 13: He was a pretty normal, routine sort of person, fairly focused.
Speaker 13: He wasn't very happy about how things had turned out
Speaker 13: in court, but he understood would had gone on. The
Speaker 13: judge wasn't permanently depriving him of contact with the kids.
Speaker 13: The judge wanted him to set up a hearing to
Speaker 13: discuss what sort of a parenting plan would be appropriate,
Speaker 13: and that's very routine. I did set up a hearing
Speaker 13: which would require Mildred to show up in court and
Speaker 13: then talk about the kids, but we never had a
Speaker 13: court hearing because we can never find Mildred. Mildred vanished
Speaker 13: with the kids. After I had set up a couple
Speaker 13: of the hearings without being able to serve Mildred with papers,
Speaker 13: I went to him and said, look, let's find Mildred.
Speaker 13: Because I can set up hearings all day, but what
Speaker 13: difference does it make if we can never locate Mildred?
Speaker 13: And so he set off to do that. I've given
Speaker 13: this story to other people, and sometimes the blowback is
Speaker 13: that I am trying to justify what John did, or
Speaker 13: that I don't think he's a bad guy. I mean, clearly,
Speaker 13: the guy is a bad person with very, very severe problems,
Speaker 13: and I wouldn't try to justify that. But there's more
Speaker 13: to this story. These preliminary decisions get made, and people
Speaker 13: freak out about him because they're dealing with people's real
Speaker 13: personal lives and their intimate relationships with kids. People who
Speaker 13: go through the process get really disturbed by that. And
Speaker 13: I've been involved in a number of cases where the
Speaker 13: end result is shootings. Tacoma was fairly famous for an
Speaker 13: incident where the chief of police shot is soon to
Speaker 13: be ex wife and killed her. That was the chief
Speaker 13: of police, right, so that guy must have had some
Speaker 13: degree of normal personality, but then he lost it and
Speaker 13: he melted down. And it's not uncommon for these things
Speaker 13: to result in a lot of violence. One way to
Speaker 13: hopefully avoid that. If it's possible is to have people
Speaker 13: air their grievances in court, win or lose, they've at
Speaker 13: least been able to tell their story or Now. I'm
Speaker 13: not saying that that should require Mildred to come stand
Speaker 13: with John by her side, but John Muhammed's out there.
Speaker 13: There was some process that could have played out where
Speaker 13: everybody could have had their day in court, and he
Speaker 13: never did so. I again, I try to make clear
Speaker 13: that I think what he did was horrific, and.
Speaker 5: I think it's it's just evil stuff.
Speaker 13: But the kind of background story to it that should
Speaker 13: be aired is that I think there were ways that
Speaker 13: the system failed to diffuse that kind of problem, and
Speaker 13: instead it just sort of threw gasoline on a fire.
Speaker 13: If we do not address the systemic failures that occurred
Speaker 13: in this case, I worry that there are other people
Speaker 13: like that wandering the streets, and people are going to
Speaker 13: die if this problem isn't addressed in a better way.
Speaker 2: Just a week after John lost, the Kid's tragedy struck.
Speaker 11: Apparently a plane has just crashed into the World Trade
Speaker 11: Center here and knew New York City had happened just
Speaker 11: a few moments ago.
Speaker 13: I had been meeting with John in my office when
Speaker 13: the World Trade Center was burning to the ground. He
Speaker 13: had no interest in any of the politics. He wanted
Speaker 13: to see his kids.
Speaker 2: John would later say that losing his kids was his
Speaker 2: own personal nine to eleven. It was surely a low
Speaker 2: point in his life. He'd lost his money in the
Speaker 2: rate of Antigua, he was living in a homeless shelter,
Speaker 2: and now he'd lost his children. John's friend Robert Holmes,
Speaker 2: the same friend who reported John to the FBI, says
Speaker 2: John was devastated. Holmes told Vanity Fair in two thousand
Speaker 2: and four, quote, I think that after his kids got
Speaker 2: taken away, John had a nervous breakdown. I'm not a
Speaker 2: professor or a doctor, but John changed in a million
Speaker 2: subtle ways. He'd spend all day some days just crying.
Speaker 2: All he could think of was getting his kids back.
Speaker 5: Back.
Speaker 2: In Fort Myers, Florida, Lee Boyd Malva was also struggling.
Speaker 2: He was trying to adjust to yet another new living situation.
Speaker 2: Lee had enrolled as a junior at Cypress Lake High School.
Speaker 2: He was getting good grades in his classes, but he
Speaker 2: was struggling to navigate the American system. Lee wanted to
Speaker 2: go to college and one day become an airline pilot,
Speaker 2: but he didn't have the necessary documentation to sign up
Speaker 2: for the SATs, so he turned to John for help.
Speaker 2: Una thought that John had been a bad influence on
Speaker 2: her son and had forbidden Lee from talking to him,
Speaker 2: But on weeknights, while Una worked at Red Lobster, John
Speaker 2: would secretly.
Speaker 3: Call I was unable to distinguish between Mohammad's father I
Speaker 3: had wanted and Mohammad and nervous wrecks. That was his
Speaker 3: falling to pieces.
Speaker 2: John told Lee he could get him into college, but
Speaker 2: John wanted something in return, and he needed Lee to
Speaker 2: join him in Washington. Fired leave money for a greyhound ticket.
Speaker 2: Lee says that sometime late in two thousand and one,
Speaker 2: after his mother fell asleep, he packed up his clothes,
Speaker 2: a tennis racket, and a portable CD player. He snuck
Speaker 2: out of the house at four thirty am and got
Speaker 2: on a bus headed northwest. Lee arrived in Bellingham, Washington
Speaker 2: a week later.
Speaker 3: When I first arrived in Bellingham, he told me that
Speaker 3: he's searching for the children. He said, in order to
Speaker 3: get the children, we're going to have to do whatever
Speaker 3: it takes. I looked at him as my family, and
Speaker 3: they had my siblings, so I'm like, okay, we're going
Speaker 3: to do whatever it takes. I didn't understand, but that
Speaker 3: man at the.
Speaker 10: Time I read.
Speaker 2: In Bellingham, John introduced Lee to everyone as his son.
Speaker 2: Lee stayed with John at the homeless shelter and soon
Speaker 2: enrolled at Bellingham High School, but one school was out
Speaker 2: for the day. Lee says, John was of his education.
Speaker 3: Day in day out. He controlled what I read, what
Speaker 3: I did, what I ad when I slept, in every
Speaker 3: single aspect from diets, studies, my activities, every single aspect
Speaker 3: and fastt of my life. And he didn't give me
Speaker 3: a time to rest. He understood exactly how to motivate
Speaker 3: me by giving approval or denying approval, and he verse
Speaker 3: it wasn't violent at all. It was I mean, it's
Speaker 3: like with a temp does to a woman. That's the
Speaker 3: best description I can offer.
Speaker 2: Sometimes they'd leave the homeless shelter in Bellingham and stay
Speaker 2: with John's friends in Tacoma. One friend they would often
Speaker 2: visit was Earl Dante, the friend you heard from earlier
Speaker 2: who photoshopped a birth certificate for John.
Speaker 12: John didn't dress up as much the more he wasn't
Speaker 12: flashing more. He had come around her with a white truck.
Speaker 12: One time he popped my door and had leave with him. Hey, Earl,
Speaker 12: this is my son Lee. Oh, how you don't want
Speaker 12: to call a processor? That'd be a nice to you.
Speaker 2: After a while at Dante's, Lee says they would play
Speaker 2: video games and watch movies. They'd watch some movies over
Speaker 2: and over. One favorite was The Matrix. Another was Carlos
Speaker 2: Hathcock Marine Sniper. It was a sort of instructional video
Speaker 2: with advice for snipers.
Speaker 5: Continue your training. You cannot do it too much. You
Speaker 5: cannot do it too much, So do it as much
Speaker 5: as you can. Put all your men and body into it.
Speaker 11: Train Train, Train.
Speaker 2: And John and Earl began giving Lee's shooting lessons as well.
Speaker 3: He had a friend Earl. He just said, look, I
Speaker 3: need you to go to the range and just tell early.
Speaker 3: Teach me how to shoot. It's amazing how quickly I
Speaker 3: would pick on these things.
Speaker 10: Let go shooting.
Speaker 12: I couldn't go as often as he could because I
Speaker 12: had to work. He is a I'm gonna take your
Speaker 12: god to the range. So okay, I had a six
Speaker 12: hour forty five. I had a smith and Wesson forty
Speaker 12: four caliber. I had a AK forty seven, I had
Speaker 12: a Winchester TO seventy, and I had a Remington seven
Speaker 12: hundred Model three eight series and a Twin to calibist.
Speaker 2: Back in Florida, Lee's mom, Una James, had been searching
Speaker 2: for Lee since he'd left. Una paged through her caller
Speaker 2: ID and found a strange number. It was for a
Speaker 2: homeless shelter in Washington State, and she had a feeling
Speaker 2: that Lee might be staying there with John. So for
Speaker 2: weeks she called the number but could never get through
Speaker 2: to either of them. In an interview with Vanity Fair,
Speaker 2: Una said that she kept calling and one day finally
Speaker 2: she heard John's voice on the other end. She demanded
Speaker 2: that John Sendley back to her in Florida. She remembers
Speaker 2: John saying, I have a job to do and I
Speaker 2: can't rely on some cookeead to do it. Terrified of
Speaker 2: what that meant, Una got on a Greyhound bus and
Speaker 2: headed for Washington State. When Una arrived, she confronted John
Speaker 2: at the homeless shelter and some one called the cops.
Speaker 2: When the cops arrived, they reunited Lee and Una, but
Speaker 2: the cops suspected they were both undocumented immigrants, and reported
Speaker 2: them to Border Patrol. They were arrested and finger printed.
Speaker 2: These were the finger prints and the rest report that
Speaker 2: would later supply authorities with the names Lee Boyd Malvow
Speaker 2: and John Mohammad. Following their arrest, Una and Lee were
Speaker 2: separated and detained. Then on January twenty third, both were
Speaker 2: released into an I and S safe house to await
Speaker 2: a deportation hearing. In an interview at Vanity Fair, Una
Speaker 2: said that Lee told her mom, we are being followed
Speaker 2: and if I don't go, they'll kill you. Two days later,
Speaker 2: Lee climbed out of a bathroom window and ran off.
Speaker 2: Lee ran back to John.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 2: Lee's grooming began in earnest. Lee says he and John
Speaker 2: would go shooting for hours a day.
Speaker 3: He'd stand behind me and he would taught me through
Speaker 3: the process. He would explain to me all the things
Speaker 3: that I hated about myself and why this has to die.
Speaker 2: Lee Boyd Malvoe says John told him to visualize his
Speaker 2: own face onto the targets, to imagine that with each
Speaker 2: shot he was destroying his own weakness.
Speaker 3: Heat needs killed myself over and over and over and over.
Speaker 3: He told me, the old person has to die. Lee
Speaker 3: Malville has to die it because Lee Malvau cannot do this.
Speaker 2: Lee says they would go to nearby woods and pretend
Speaker 2: they were hunting each other with sniper rifles to practice
Speaker 2: stealth and camouflage techniques. Lee says that on one of
Speaker 2: those outings, when it was snowing, John stripped off Lee's
Speaker 2: shirt and chained him to a tree. John left him
Speaker 2: there for hours and told him it was an exercise
Speaker 2: to mentally hardened him.
Speaker 3: It's like a woman messing in a music relationship. Someone
Speaker 3: looking from the outside said, man, they're a multiple opportunities.
Speaker 3: Why couldn't she leave? Why she stayed for twenty years?
Speaker 3: It's not that simple. The body is just obsessed. Once
Speaker 3: someone has me emotionally, they have your mind.
Speaker 2: Lee Boyd Malvo's training was almost over. Soon John would
Speaker 2: give him his first real mission. Not too far away
Speaker 2: in Tacoma, Ia, Nichols had been keeping in touch with
Speaker 2: Mildred Muhammad.
Speaker 16: We were having different conversations, probably maybe once or twice
Speaker 16: a month as she begins to re establish her life
Speaker 16: after eighteen months without her children.
Speaker 2: Isa was glad all the drama with John seemed to
Speaker 2: be over and that the kids were back with their mom.
Speaker 16: My life was so intertwined with hers in terms of
Speaker 16: her children and keeping her alive and keeping her safe.
Speaker 16: Now I'm faced with where I left off in my life.
Speaker 2: Asa had her own struggles at home. Her niece, Kenya Cook,
Speaker 2: had just gotten out of an abusive relationship.
Speaker 16: Before they had fought, but they had a baby. Now
Speaker 16: now she's scared for the baby, and she's decided to leave.
Speaker 16: And I said, yes, I'll take her home. She can
Speaker 16: come with me. So now I have her, her three
Speaker 16: month old child, my teenage daughter who's now fourteen, and
Speaker 16: my husband, and it's working. I'm very proud of her.
Speaker 16: She's enrolling in school. She had gotten a job and
Speaker 16: got up to a supervisory position, and the baby's thriving,
Speaker 16: and Kenya saving money. She was helping me around the house,
Speaker 16: and we would go shopping together and different things of
Speaker 16: that nature. And one day, February sixteenth, two thousand and two,
Speaker 16: we had went grocery shopping and I was gonna make
Speaker 16: some chicken tacos that I do pretty good, and we
Speaker 16: forgot the taco shells, and so I was going back
Speaker 16: to the store I told Kenya to watch the food
Speaker 16: in the pot because I was boiling the chicken, and
Speaker 16: she said, okay, Auntie and I left, and then my
Speaker 16: fourteen year old, who was at a sleepover, decided she
Speaker 16: didn't want to stay, so she called me and asked
Speaker 16: me to come pick her up, and I did, and
Speaker 16: then we went to the store. We were gone about
Speaker 16: an hour, maybe an hour and a half, and I
Speaker 16: pull in and our driveway remote control wasn't working. So
Speaker 16: I sent my daughter into the house to open the
Speaker 16: garage door, and I'm waiting. Garage door doesn't open, and
Speaker 16: my daughter finally comes back to the car and she's
Speaker 16: standing there and it's starting to rain, and I said, hey,
Speaker 16: what are you doing. My daughter has the look of
Speaker 16: trauma on her face. I said, girl, what is it?
Speaker 16: What's wrong? She sent Mommy, Kenya's lying on the floor
Speaker 16: and the house is all smoky. So I go to
Speaker 16: the house and just as she said, my niece was
Speaker 16: lying on the floor in the doorway, and the house
Speaker 16: was covered with smoke. The pot and its contents had
Speaker 16: disintegrated and melted. And so somehow, by the grace of God,
Speaker 16: I was able to get that stove turned off with
Speaker 16: all of that heat, my daughter standing in the doorway,
Speaker 16: just staring. I called nine one one. I ran upstairs
Speaker 16: to check on the baby, because I'm thinking that they
Speaker 16: had to succumb to smoke in elation. And so I
Speaker 16: ran upstairs and the baby was on the edge of
Speaker 16: the bed. All around her was the diaper, the nighty
Speaker 16: wram bottle was still there, and I didn't know if
Speaker 16: the baby was alive or not. I didn't know if
Speaker 16: the baby was breathing, and so I touched the baby
Speaker 16: gently and she jumps up and she's screaming from where
Speaker 16: she left. So I grabbed the baby diaper and took
Speaker 16: the baby downstairs, and handed the baby to my daughter
Speaker 16: and told her to go to the neighbors and went
Speaker 16: back to Kenya. And I got over Kenya's body and
Speaker 16: I saw a little bullet casey and a little hole
Speaker 16: in her face. I stayed there. I had already called
Speaker 16: nine one one, and I can hear the ambulance in
Speaker 16: the background. They're on their way, and I'm talking to
Speaker 16: Kenya hanging there and I'm praying and I'm telling her
Speaker 16: help is coming, and the ambulance get there, and I'm
Speaker 16: sitting on the step and they come into the house
Speaker 16: and they get her body and they pull her from
Speaker 16: the fourier into the living room where they start working
Speaker 16: on her, trying to revive her. And they finally say
Speaker 16: she's gone. And I just stared and looked in just dismay.
Speaker 16: I couldn't process what they meant by saying she's gone.
Speaker 16: And I saw where Kenya's head had laid. The bullet
Speaker 16: casing was still there, and I just saw blood. The
Speaker 16: back of her head had just been blown out. I
Speaker 16: just went into a cold state. I was just on
Speaker 16: auto pilot. I was just following commands.
Speaker 2: According to Lee's autobiography, that very same night, John Muhammad
Speaker 2: gave Lee his first test.
Speaker 3: One night, he says, Okay, this is what I need
Speaker 3: for you to do. There was a house on the hill.
Speaker 3: I want you to go there. I want you to go.
Speaker 3: I want you to talk to this parson.
Speaker 2: Lee says, John drove him to a house, ranting about
Speaker 2: politics and wars and necessary sacrifices. John dropped Lee off
Speaker 2: and told him he'd be watching. Lee was wearing a
Speaker 2: dark hoodie and he was holding a brown paper bag.
Speaker 2: He tried to calm himself as he walked up to
Speaker 2: the house. He knocked on the door, and after a
Speaker 2: short delay, it opened. A young woman greeted him. He said,
Speaker 2: good evening, is missus Nicholls in. He remembered that she
Speaker 2: seemed lonely and eager to talk. She gave him a
Speaker 2: long answer, explaining that Isa was at home. John had
Speaker 2: prepared Lee for this possibility. I have a message for her,
Speaker 2: Lee said. He reached into the brown paper bag and
Speaker 2: pulled out a forty five caliber pistol, one they borrowed
Speaker 2: from Earl Dance. John had told Lee to visualize his
Speaker 2: own face on top of hers, just like in the training.
Speaker 2: Here's what Lee wrote about that moment in his autobiography,
Speaker 2: read by a voice actor.
Speaker 6: A voice deep inside me said, don't, don't, don't, I thought, Lee,
Speaker 6: you cannot face John unless you do this. I pointed
Speaker 6: the forty five caliber gun to her face, and in
Speaker 6: an instant I saw not her but me, my old
Speaker 6: self that I hated, that scared hurt self. That night,
Speaker 6: Lee boy Malvo died. I pulled the trigger. In an instant,
Speaker 6: she too was gone.
Speaker 2: Next time on Monster DC Sniper, I.
Speaker 16: Was sudden, there's these helicopters flying all over the Tacoma community.
Speaker 16: They are actually saying the DC Sniper is linked to Tacoma.
Speaker 8: Again a note found, this time it's an angry note.
Speaker 1: You did not respond to the message.
Speaker 5: You departed from what we told you to say.
Speaker 1: Your incompetence has cost you another life.
Speaker 8: We need to find these guys, and we need to
Speaker 8: do it now.
Speaker 7: She's got sources telling her that they're getting close, that
Speaker 7: they have names, and that they have a vehicle that
Speaker 7: they're looking for.
Speaker 8: By about nine thirty ten o'clock at night, we had it.
Speaker 8: We knew who we were looking for, we knew what
Speaker 8: they were in. We just didn't know where to find them.
Speaker 8: When do we release the information about the Caprice to
Speaker 8: the media.
Speaker 7: Police were there to see if John Muhamma showed up.
Speaker 7: While we were down there, we got a call on
Speaker 7: I seventy in northern Maryland. They believe that the snipers
Speaker 7: are there and they're waiting.
Speaker 5: To move in.
Speaker 1: Monster DZ Sniper is a fifteen episode podcast hosted by
Speaker 1: Tony Harris and produced by iHeartRadio and Tenderfoot TV. Matt
Speaker 1: Frederick and Alex Williams are executive producers on behalf of
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio alongside producers Trevor Young, Ben Keebrick, and Josh Thain.
Speaker 1: Paint Lindsay and Donald Albright are executive producers on behalf
Speaker 1: of Tenderfoot TV, alongside producers Meredith Stedman and Christina Dana.
Speaker 1: Original music is by Makeup and Vanity Set. This episode
Speaker 1: included segments of a phone interview with Lee Boyd Malvo
Speaker 1: conducted by journalist Josh White. This interview was from The
Speaker 1: Washington Post copyright twenty twelve The Washington Post, All rights reserved,
Speaker 1: used under license. This episode also included a passage from
Speaker 1: Lee Boyd Malvo's autobiography, The Diary of the d C Sniper,
Speaker 1: re enacted by actor Alec Bay. This episode included a
Speaker 1: recorded interview of Earl Donza provided by the Tucson Police Department.
Speaker 1: Earl Donzi was contacted by our team for this podcast,
Speaker 1: but he did not respond for comment.