WEBVTT - Lee Boyd Malvo [8] 0:00:00.800 --> 0:00:04.800 Welcome to Monster d C Sniper, a production of iHeartRadio 0:00:04.920 --> 0:00:08.280 and Tenderfoot TV. The views and opinions expressed in this 0:00:08.360 --> 0:00:11.840 podcast are solely those of the podcast author or individuals 0:00:11.880 --> 0:00:15.600 participating in the podcast, and do not represent those of iHeartMedia, 0:00:15.760 --> 0:00:20.360 Tenderfoot TV, or their employees. Listener discretion is advised. 0:00:21.920 --> 0:00:25.680 Three weeks into the d C Sniper investigation, police connected 0:00:25.680 --> 0:00:29.000 a fingerprint from an Alabama crime scene to two names, 0:00:29.720 --> 0:00:34.440 John Alan Mohammed and Lee Boyd Malvo. Last episode, we 0:00:34.600 --> 0:00:38.599 explored mohammed story. After his wife asked for a divorce, 0:00:38.800 --> 0:00:43.080 he disappeared with his three children. This episode, Who was 0:00:43.159 --> 0:00:46.960 Lee Boyd Malvo, the seventeen year old from Jamaica and 0:00:47.000 --> 0:00:51.080 how was he connected to Mohammed? At the time, investigators 0:00:51.080 --> 0:00:54.600 were stumped, but years later we finally started to get 0:00:54.640 --> 0:00:58.200 the answers. Many of those answers came from the work 0:00:58.280 --> 0:01:03.560 of criminologist and criminal profiler Anthony Meoli. Meoly spent nine 0:01:03.680 --> 0:01:06.880 years corresponding with Lee and listening to his side of 0:01:06.920 --> 0:01:10.639 the story. Me Only recorded a series of phone calls 0:01:10.640 --> 0:01:14.199 with Lee titled Interview with the d C Sniper, which 0:01:14.240 --> 0:01:17.919 you will hear clips from throughout this episode. Lee also 0:01:17.959 --> 0:01:22.880 wrote an autobiography, which Meoly helped edit and publish. 0:01:22.800 --> 0:01:26.360 Dire the d C Snipers sa verbatim transcript from Lee 0:01:26.360 --> 0:01:30.440 Boyd Malvo word for word. This is a very rare 0:01:31.040 --> 0:01:36.200 time where you're able to understand how an individual develops 0:01:36.760 --> 0:01:39.440 from the day he's born to the day he was 0:01:39.560 --> 0:01:43.959 arrested for one of the most sensational crimes of our 0:01:44.000 --> 0:01:49.120 modern time. The takeaway from it is not the grisly 0:01:49.280 --> 0:01:52.640 nature of what happened at the end, but what led 0:01:52.760 --> 0:01:59.880 him to that. Lee Boyd Malvel was born February eighteen, 0:02:00.560 --> 0:02:04.120 nineteen eighty five, in Kingston, Jamaica. He was born to 0:02:04.440 --> 0:02:09.120 Leslie Malvo and Una James, his mother. He took the 0:02:09.240 --> 0:02:13.160 name Malvo from his father, but they were never formally married, 0:02:13.400 --> 0:02:17.200 at least according to Lee. At the time Lee was born, 0:02:17.360 --> 0:02:20.440 his mom was twenty one and his father was thirty seven, 0:02:20.560 --> 0:02:24.040 so there was a sixteen year age gap in Kingston. 0:02:24.040 --> 0:02:29.200 That wasn't tremendously unusual, but that separation of age did 0:02:29.320 --> 0:02:33.520 lead to many differences between how their relationship developed. 0:02:34.440 --> 0:02:38.880 Lee remembers his father, Leslie, as kind and permissive. Lee 0:02:38.960 --> 0:02:42.160 says he spent his early years on a tricycle, and 0:02:42.280 --> 0:02:44.800 Leslie would pull him through the neighborhood by a rope 0:02:44.919 --> 0:02:50.359 tied to the tricycles handlebars. Lee's mother, Una, on the 0:02:50.400 --> 0:02:52.320 other hand, was the disciplinarian. 0:02:53.600 --> 0:02:58.280 Una was very strict in many ways. She would be calm, 0:02:58.400 --> 0:03:01.760 cool and collected one moment, and then violent the next. 0:03:02.600 --> 0:03:05.520 Lee told me only that when his mother got angry, 0:03:05.639 --> 0:03:08.639 she would sometimes beat him to the point of drawing blood. 0:03:09.560 --> 0:03:12.880 At the same time, she did care for him, and 0:03:12.919 --> 0:03:16.560 she did provide for the family, but she was gone 0:03:16.720 --> 0:03:19.160 most of the time, so it would not be unusual 0:03:19.200 --> 0:03:21.600 for Lee to be fending for himself at a very 0:03:21.680 --> 0:03:25.639 young age. One day, while she was out at work, 0:03:26.120 --> 0:03:29.280 he was left alone, and he was awfully young. He 0:03:29.360 --> 0:03:34.120 was five six years old. She had some jade figurines 0:03:34.160 --> 0:03:37.080 that she kept around the house. They were small, trivial 0:03:37.200 --> 0:03:41.200 objects to some, but to her they meant something. He 0:03:41.240 --> 0:03:44.160 was playing with an airplane and running around the house 0:03:44.400 --> 0:03:47.320 and bumped into one of these jade figurines and it broke. 0:03:48.080 --> 0:03:51.160 I a break one of these things, and I'm I'm crying. 0:03:51.240 --> 0:03:55.920 Before she comes from he was expecting a beating. He 0:03:56.000 --> 0:03:58.560 knew she was going to hit him and hit him hard. 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:03.640 After hour, she sheltered me and charged Dowary. 0:04:05.320 --> 0:04:08.520 She came home in a rage and was about to 0:04:09.040 --> 0:04:14.520 well off on Lee and his father stepped in. 0:04:15.680 --> 0:04:18.880 And eat grabbed me up. He said, this is the person. 0:04:19.560 --> 0:04:23.160 This is the thing that can be replate each or not. 0:04:24.360 --> 0:04:27.120 You know, this is a thing pointing to the object, 0:04:27.240 --> 0:04:29.479 and this is your son, and you need to be 0:04:29.520 --> 0:04:33.440 able to separate those two right now. Whether that message 0:04:33.520 --> 0:04:35.839 rang true with Una remains unclear. 0:04:36.800 --> 0:04:37.960 My father was like to go. 0:04:38.040 --> 0:04:41.520 Get He was my protect because he would always know 0:04:42.000 --> 0:04:45.080 what to do or what to say in those moments. 0:04:45.680 --> 0:04:49.240 It really stuck with him that this is what a 0:04:49.279 --> 0:04:53.680 father does. A father protects his child. And he had 0:04:53.800 --> 0:04:57.640 some fond memories of his father until eventually his father 0:04:57.839 --> 0:05:01.080 left him, and that's when things started to go sour. 0:05:02.600 --> 0:05:04.919 There is a ruthless person on the loose. 0:05:05.400 --> 0:05:08.599 What unnerves this community the most is the randomness of 0:05:08.600 --> 0:05:12.480 the murders, ordinary people doing ordinary things. 0:05:12.839 --> 0:05:15.400 They killed the five people in one day and then 0:05:15.560 --> 0:05:17.960 went on the rampage for the next month. 0:05:18.240 --> 0:05:19.400 It is quite a mystery. 0:05:19.600 --> 0:05:22.000 The police say they have never had a crime quite 0:05:22.160 --> 0:05:22.400 like this. 0:05:22.880 --> 0:05:25.560 Be careful, these guys are using weapons that are going 0:05:25.640 --> 0:05:27.840 to go right straight through our bulletproof vests. 0:05:28.080 --> 0:05:29.240 The white bag. 0:05:31.000 --> 0:05:36.719 From iHeartRadio and Tenderfoot TV. This is Monster DC Sniper 0:05:40.440 --> 0:05:44.400 criminologist Anthony Meoli has made a career of interviewing some 0:05:44.480 --> 0:05:46.359 of America's most heinous criminals. 0:05:47.120 --> 0:05:50.280 I literally have spoken or written to over three hundred 0:05:50.320 --> 0:05:54.200 serial killers. What I find most interesting about them is 0:05:54.240 --> 0:05:57.480 that they are people. I don't harp on the horrific 0:05:57.600 --> 0:06:00.600 nature of their crimes, but rather try to learn who 0:06:00.680 --> 0:06:03.440 they were and how the crimes came about. 0:06:04.040 --> 0:06:07.080 Me only says people often completely write off killers it's 0:06:07.160 --> 0:06:10.920 just evil people or monsters. But he thinks that's a mistake. 0:06:11.240 --> 0:06:13.560 As soon as we find out who did it, we 0:06:13.880 --> 0:06:17.480 can't get enough of how evil or how monstrous this 0:06:17.560 --> 0:06:21.320 person is without understanding what it was that brought the 0:06:21.320 --> 0:06:26.000 person to that particular moment in time. Unfortunately, they are 0:06:26.040 --> 0:06:32.000 not monsters, they are not some mystical beasts. Unfortunately, these 0:06:32.040 --> 0:06:35.640 are human beings with human DNA, and we have to 0:06:35.960 --> 0:06:40.360 be willing to accept that and understand that. Just as 0:06:40.360 --> 0:06:43.840 there are some fantastic human beings who do some incredible 0:06:43.960 --> 0:06:47.400 things and change people's lives, there are other human beings 0:06:47.440 --> 0:06:50.279 who go down a wrong path and take people's lives. 0:06:51.000 --> 0:06:54.080 It's not to condone what they did. Make no mistake there, 0:06:54.120 --> 0:06:55.960 it's not to condone at all what they did. 0:06:56.880 --> 0:06:59.880 As a criminologist, me only thinks that if we want 0:06:59.880 --> 0:07:02.679 to prevent these sorts of crimes from happening in the future, 0:07:03.240 --> 0:07:06.200 we need to understand the people that commit them and 0:07:06.360 --> 0:07:10.040 examine their lives. That's why he's corresponded with so many 0:07:10.120 --> 0:07:15.120 serial killers. Meoldi was particularly interested to speak with Lee 0:07:15.160 --> 0:07:18.400 Boyd Malvoe. He first wrotally in two thousand and three, 0:07:19.040 --> 0:07:21.640 but starting a correspondence proved challenging. 0:07:22.160 --> 0:07:24.720 Letters that I sent would be mailed back and saying 0:07:24.880 --> 0:07:27.800 the inmate is not here. So it took a while, 0:07:27.840 --> 0:07:30.720 and it wasn't until May of two thousand and five 0:07:31.040 --> 0:07:34.600 where I received his first letter. What was interesting was 0:07:34.640 --> 0:07:38.640 it was a two page letter, handwritten in black ink. Normally, 0:07:38.880 --> 0:07:42.280 it takes a long time for many of these individuals 0:07:42.320 --> 0:07:43.600 to trust others. 0:07:43.720 --> 0:07:47.400 But Meoldi says Lee's first letter to him was different. 0:07:48.040 --> 0:07:51.960 It was very personal. I think that's what struck me. 0:07:52.080 --> 0:07:56.880 He even left the letter by saying, wherever you want 0:07:56.880 --> 0:08:00.000 to go from here, I'm willing to go with you. 0:08:00.520 --> 0:08:04.720 So that's sort of where it all began. We were 0:08:04.920 --> 0:08:08.120 corresponding one to two letters a week. We did that 0:08:08.240 --> 0:08:11.800 for about four years, and then I had the ability 0:08:11.920 --> 0:08:15.200 to speak to him on the phone. My first phone 0:08:15.200 --> 0:08:18.440 call with him was in twenty ten. It struck me 0:08:18.560 --> 0:08:24.880 immediately how intelligent he actually was. His formal education stopped 0:08:24.920 --> 0:08:29.240 far before college, but he was far more well read 0:08:29.640 --> 0:08:32.840 than most of those who I knew who held master's degrees. 0:08:33.200 --> 0:08:37.120 Maybe the single most well read individual out of over 0:08:37.200 --> 0:08:39.079 three hundred inmates that I've written. 0:08:38.880 --> 0:08:43.720 To during these years of communicating back and forth. Meoli 0:08:43.760 --> 0:08:47.520 says Lee asked him to help edit and publish his autobiography. 0:08:48.400 --> 0:08:49.240 Meoli agreed. 0:08:50.160 --> 0:08:54.200 What came across with Lee Boyd Malvo's intellect, his ability 0:08:54.240 --> 0:08:58.120 to jump from topic to topic. He knew anything and 0:08:58.160 --> 0:09:02.000 everything about anything related to the weather, It could be 0:09:02.040 --> 0:09:07.040 related to inmate rights, it could be related to racial tensions. 0:09:07.480 --> 0:09:09.760 And that was one dynamic that we talked a lot about. 0:09:10.320 --> 0:09:14.120 As a Caucasian male, obviously we came from two different worlds. 0:09:14.920 --> 0:09:17.840 Zara Burden is a journalist and host of the Jamaican 0:09:17.880 --> 0:09:22.160 news program eighteen Degrees North. She was also interested in 0:09:22.240 --> 0:09:24.200 understanding Lee Boyd Malbose. 0:09:23.840 --> 0:09:25.360 Roots oh Well. 0:09:25.520 --> 0:09:29.960 First interview back in twenty thirteen was an interview with 0:09:30.200 --> 0:09:31.360 Lee Boyd Malville. 0:09:31.760 --> 0:09:32.360 He agreed to. 0:09:32.360 --> 0:09:35.320 Do the interview, he said, because it was allowing him 0:09:35.360 --> 0:09:38.560 to speak to his Jamaican people. You know, it's a 0:09:38.600 --> 0:09:42.320 strange kind of thing. Jimmy cons are four jamay cns. 0:09:42.360 --> 0:09:45.480 We coss each other on this rock, but we back 0:09:45.720 --> 0:09:49.679 the best of us and we disagreees together the worst 0:09:49.720 --> 0:09:54.160 of us. It was important for us to understand host 0:09:54.200 --> 0:09:58.880 somebody raised on our soil could leave here and go 0:09:58.920 --> 0:10:03.400 to the United States, where most Jamaicans go to become prosperous, 0:10:03.760 --> 0:10:08.320 and he instead of going that route, he instead chose 0:10:08.400 --> 0:10:12.440 to kill Americans. And we don't have any hate for Americans. 0:10:12.480 --> 0:10:16.520 We love Americans in Jamaica. So why would you be 0:10:16.640 --> 0:10:22.760 motivated to carry out such an atrocity on your fellow man? 0:10:23.600 --> 0:10:24.520 That was the big question. 0:10:25.840 --> 0:10:29.920 He explained. Violence was something that occurred constantly. 0:10:30.800 --> 0:10:33.199 This is criminologist Anthony Meoli again. 0:10:33.520 --> 0:10:35.760 So there would often be one or two parents on 0:10:35.840 --> 0:10:38.880 a whole block watching fifteen twenty kids. 0:10:39.640 --> 0:10:42.720 Yes, an aunt might be present, but is that aunt 0:10:42.800 --> 0:10:45.160 going to give as much attention as a mom would, 0:10:46.240 --> 0:10:48.840 is that uncle going to have enough energy to take 0:10:48.880 --> 0:10:52.600 care and discipline that child in the right way? Sometimes yes, 0:10:53.000 --> 0:10:53.920 sometimes known. 0:10:55.080 --> 0:10:58.280 Often the only way, sadly, to keep them in line 0:10:58.320 --> 0:11:01.320 was to know that if they did something in bed while, 0:11:01.679 --> 0:11:05.240 a beating was coming. And so it wasn't uncommon for 0:11:05.360 --> 0:11:08.679 Lee to see violence or to experience violence. 0:11:11.240 --> 0:11:14.320 In his autobiography, Lie says one time, when he was 0:11:14.320 --> 0:11:17.600 around five, his father brought home a paycheck that was 0:11:17.640 --> 0:11:21.160 short on cash. His mother suspected he was cheating on 0:11:21.240 --> 0:11:24.319 her and accused him of giving the money to another woman. 0:11:25.200 --> 0:11:29.200 This led to an argument, which escalated into a violent fight. 0:11:30.160 --> 0:11:33.239 Here's Lee, I'm never driving a qualification. 0:11:33.720 --> 0:11:37.160 My dad basically felt that my mother's departured Pteropie. 0:11:37.760 --> 0:11:40.240 Lee says that two days later he was sitting on 0:11:40.280 --> 0:11:43.000 a bed watching his dad clean a mirror on the 0:11:43.040 --> 0:11:45.720 bedroom dresser when his mother snuck up from. 0:11:45.600 --> 0:11:48.560 Behind my mom to chop the pand off of the ship. 0:11:50.160 --> 0:11:53.400 His mom had picked up a machete and was about 0:11:53.480 --> 0:11:58.000 to attack his father from behind when Lee yells out 0:11:58.040 --> 0:12:00.560 to his father charged. 0:12:00.360 --> 0:12:03.760 A vote, and that's when he fell the reflection in 0:12:03.760 --> 0:12:04.200 the mirror. 0:12:05.440 --> 0:12:09.000 He turned it she missed his rich but she basically 0:12:09.080 --> 0:12:10.360 filled off the entire film. 0:12:11.440 --> 0:12:15.720 Una strikes Leslie's thumb and nearly severs his thumb with 0:12:15.800 --> 0:12:16.559 the machete. 0:12:16.880 --> 0:12:19.440 He was hard on his hand because I mean this 0:12:19.840 --> 0:12:21.560 my mother is my father's those. 0:12:23.040 --> 0:12:27.520 Lee was very emotional from that moment because he was 0:12:27.600 --> 0:12:30.840 too young to know what it meant to have an infidelity. 0:12:30.880 --> 0:12:34.040 He had no idea what that was, but he knew 0:12:34.120 --> 0:12:37.760 that his mother and his father had severe arguments to 0:12:37.800 --> 0:12:40.840 the points where his mother would be willing to almost 0:12:41.080 --> 0:12:44.640 kill his father. So he saw violence at a very 0:12:44.720 --> 0:12:47.600 early age and continued to do so for many years. 0:12:48.559 --> 0:12:51.240 They always in fight that it does this the uncle 0:12:52.200 --> 0:12:53.720 my mom called it, she re least. 0:12:53.520 --> 0:12:54.080 About the time. 0:12:55.120 --> 0:13:00.760 Eventually, Una had had enough of Leslie's infidel with various 0:13:00.800 --> 0:13:05.760 women on the island, and she told Leslie to decide 0:13:05.800 --> 0:13:08.760 whether to be with her or to move on to 0:13:08.840 --> 0:13:09.480 the other women. 0:13:10.120 --> 0:13:12.720 He used to work with Kyan Island as a contract 0:13:12.800 --> 0:13:15.240 to make a whole deal and stuff like that, and 0:13:15.559 --> 0:13:18.199 one occasion when he left worked up my mom she 0:13:18.520 --> 0:13:21.680 did again, so she decided she moved out the house 0:13:21.679 --> 0:13:23.320 and his Disappearod didn't tell anyone. 0:13:23.480 --> 0:13:25.320 He didn't know where to find them. 0:13:25.720 --> 0:13:28.959 Lisa has Buna packed up all their things and emptied 0:13:28.960 --> 0:13:31.840 out the bank accounts. She left with Lee to start 0:13:31.840 --> 0:13:34.800 a new life and didn't tell Leslie where they'd gone. 0:13:35.920 --> 0:13:41.560 And this left Lee pretty much without a father from 0:13:41.800 --> 0:13:44.080 about the age of nine. 0:13:44.320 --> 0:13:46.560 He did find them after a couple of months. I 0:13:46.559 --> 0:13:48.720 think to a certain extent, he took it out on me. 0:13:49.640 --> 0:13:52.120 Didn't want to do after that or have anything to 0:13:52.160 --> 0:13:52.480 do with me. 0:13:52.920 --> 0:13:54.200 He just pretty much abandoned me. 0:13:55.320 --> 0:13:57.160 Here's journalist Zara Burden again. 0:13:58.679 --> 0:14:02.120 His father was absent for or a large part, and 0:14:03.160 --> 0:14:07.640 emotionally that created a void. There's a lot of hurt 0:14:08.200 --> 0:14:12.120 for youngsters in Jamaica. A lot of it is based 0:14:12.160 --> 0:14:17.800 on absent parents that allow predators to come and pray, 0:14:18.440 --> 0:14:23.280 whether it's sexually, emotionally or recruiting in gangs, youths in 0:14:23.320 --> 0:14:26.800 this country, in Jamaica, youths all over the world who 0:14:26.840 --> 0:14:30.080 have no role model, who feel like they have no purpose. 0:14:30.760 --> 0:14:34.320 It's so easy for a gang leader or even an 0:14:34.400 --> 0:14:37.760 organization like Isis to recruit and to give them a 0:14:37.800 --> 0:14:41.880 sense of purpose. And so it is so important that 0:14:42.120 --> 0:14:47.280 parents in Jamaica and the world ovo ensure that the 0:14:47.400 --> 0:14:50.760 time is there, that the investment is there in their children, 0:14:51.120 --> 0:14:54.120 and that when they see them around that company, that 0:14:54.200 --> 0:14:55.880 they steer them in a different direction. 0:15:13.440 --> 0:15:17.520 After leaving Leslie, Una struggled to make ends meet. She 0:15:17.680 --> 0:15:21.600 moved with Lee to Endeavor, a rural town north of Kingston, 0:15:22.120 --> 0:15:23.560 where they lived in a small home. 0:15:24.400 --> 0:15:27.360 It was pretty much a shock. It was just enough 0:15:27.360 --> 0:15:32.360 to get by. They suffered to often have proper plumbing. 0:15:33.040 --> 0:15:35.640 Una did not have the money to fix things. 0:15:36.400 --> 0:15:39.520 Despite being strapped for cash, Una was able to get 0:15:39.520 --> 0:15:41.960 alane and open a small grocery store. 0:15:42.200 --> 0:15:44.440 It was a sundry shop, so to say. 0:15:44.680 --> 0:15:48.480 UNA's store went well until a power outage ruined all 0:15:48.520 --> 0:15:51.920 of the refrigerated goods. She didn't have enough money saved 0:15:51.920 --> 0:15:55.120 to restock the inventory, so she was forced to close 0:15:55.160 --> 0:15:58.720 the store and unable to find work and Endeavor, she 0:15:58.880 --> 0:16:03.040 and Lee moved back to Kingston. For Lee, this was 0:16:03.040 --> 0:16:06.560 the first of many moves. 0:16:05.360 --> 0:16:10.320 In Jamaica, it's not uncommon for people to be somewhat transient. 0:16:10.800 --> 0:16:14.240 In the let's say late eighties early nineties, work was 0:16:14.400 --> 0:16:17.440 very hard to come by, especially for a woman who 0:16:17.600 --> 0:16:21.040 was not building homes or something or doing labor, so 0:16:21.080 --> 0:16:24.120 it was not uncommon for Una to look for work 0:16:24.440 --> 0:16:28.440 at various places and move around so that she could 0:16:28.720 --> 0:16:29.880 support the two of. 0:16:29.840 --> 0:16:33.680 Them, And according to Lee, his mother would do whatever 0:16:33.760 --> 0:16:35.640 it took to get what she needed. 0:16:36.520 --> 0:16:40.120 When she purchased a home, she knew that one of 0:16:40.160 --> 0:16:44.080 the men who was selling the land was prone to 0:16:44.400 --> 0:16:49.720 drinking alcohol, and she waited until he was inebriated and 0:16:49.920 --> 0:16:54.400 he signed over another acre for a relatively paltry sum 0:16:54.440 --> 0:16:57.600 to Una so that she could have more land. She 0:16:57.760 --> 0:17:00.960 was a smart woman in knowing what she needed to 0:17:01.000 --> 0:17:02.960 do in order to get things done. 0:17:03.560 --> 0:17:07.000 And that often meant moving for work. Me Only says 0:17:07.080 --> 0:17:10.400 Lee bounced around fifteen to twenty times in his adolescence. 0:17:11.160 --> 0:17:14.359 Sometimes she took Lee with her, other times she left 0:17:14.400 --> 0:17:15.760 him with family and friends. 0:17:16.480 --> 0:17:20.680 In many cases, Lee would refer to the family as cousins. 0:17:20.960 --> 0:17:24.640 They may not have been cousins legally, but just friends 0:17:24.680 --> 0:17:28.240 who his mom would leave him with and then she 0:17:28.280 --> 0:17:31.480 would be gone for several months. So yes, he would 0:17:31.480 --> 0:17:35.880 be completely abandoned, if you will, by today's standards, while 0:17:35.920 --> 0:17:40.479 his mom looked for more steady work, and this was 0:17:40.960 --> 0:17:48.879 at the unfortunate negative impact to Lee's life. 0:17:49.480 --> 0:17:52.160 There's a huge problem in this country where barrel kids 0:17:52.200 --> 0:17:55.720 are concerned, they're called barrel kids. Baryl just means that 0:17:55.880 --> 0:17:59.639 your parents, to show love and affection, will send a 0:17:59.640 --> 0:18:06.159 barrel filled with good is, with school products, with whatever 0:18:06.240 --> 0:18:09.160 is necessary to allow you to have things. 0:18:09.720 --> 0:18:13.400 Journalist Zara Burton says that many times parents seek better 0:18:13.440 --> 0:18:16.800 opportunities abroad, but they can't take their families with him. 0:18:17.880 --> 0:18:20.240 Jamaica is a tough spot to earn a dollar, I'm 0:18:20.240 --> 0:18:23.600 telling you, And so you get an opportunity to go 0:18:23.640 --> 0:18:26.680 to the States to earn a doll you're going to 0:18:26.760 --> 0:18:30.439 take it. For a lot of Jamaicans, Kman Turks and 0:18:30.520 --> 0:18:35.679 Caicos Bahamas. Those are the hot spots where we go 0:18:35.800 --> 0:18:40.960 to for better economic opportunity. But guess what, sometimes your 0:18:41.000 --> 0:18:44.880 status there ain't fully started, and so you're there kind 0:18:44.880 --> 0:18:48.920 of illegally overstay your visa and you're working, and all 0:18:48.960 --> 0:18:51.920 you can to show you love is to get on Skype, 0:18:52.320 --> 0:18:53.560 get on the phone. 0:18:53.640 --> 0:18:54.600 And cene barrel. 0:18:55.760 --> 0:19:01.480 But invariably some of them are not being supervised in 0:19:01.520 --> 0:19:05.919 their homes and so there definitely is a deficit in 0:19:06.000 --> 0:19:10.920 their emotional development, their ability to be disciplined the way 0:19:10.960 --> 0:19:14.000 that it manifests in this country is our crime level, 0:19:14.000 --> 0:19:18.879 which remains extremely high compared to maybe other populations that 0:19:18.920 --> 0:19:20.399 are similar in size. 0:19:21.119 --> 0:19:24.720 Jamaica's homicide rate consistently ranks as one of the highest 0:19:24.720 --> 0:19:25.280 in the world. 0:19:26.200 --> 0:19:30.959 The most brutal individuals sometimes on the street creating havoc 0:19:31.560 --> 0:19:36.320 are the teens because they've been recruited the wrong people 0:19:36.760 --> 0:19:40.880 are there to pick up the slack where parenting has failed. 0:19:46.119 --> 0:19:50.080 Over the next few years, Lee bounced between relatives apartments. 0:19:50.920 --> 0:19:54.840 According to me only Lee jumped around anywhere from fifteen 0:19:54.920 --> 0:19:56.760 to twenty times during that period. 0:19:57.960 --> 0:20:00.639 His biggest struggle in life was between the ages of 0:20:00.680 --> 0:20:03.560 five and nine. Those were the times where he had 0:20:03.640 --> 0:20:08.280 moved from various places and he had seen a lot 0:20:08.320 --> 0:20:11.720 of violence, experienced a lot of violence, so it made 0:20:11.760 --> 0:20:16.040 it very difficult for him to understand what life really 0:20:16.080 --> 0:20:20.240 looked like as he approached his early teen years. 0:20:21.320 --> 0:20:24.080 I remember I was sitting down writing my journal and 0:20:24.119 --> 0:20:25.560 I said, I. 0:20:25.520 --> 0:20:27.520 Mean, I have no one. 0:20:27.400 --> 0:20:28.959 Even if I walk off a bridge, they no one 0:20:29.000 --> 0:20:31.399 get the flu is cold life of power. And I 0:20:31.480 --> 0:20:33.960 decided that I would never cry, and I would never 0:20:33.960 --> 0:20:37.679 complain about anything. I'm going to find a way he 0:20:37.720 --> 0:20:40.280 could be I don't find a way a law. 0:20:42.040 --> 0:20:46.479 He did not have the stability that most children need 0:20:47.160 --> 0:20:50.280 during the formative years of his life. At the most, 0:20:50.520 --> 0:20:54.119 he had nothing. He didn't have his parents, he didn't 0:20:54.119 --> 0:20:58.280 have any structure, and all he had was instability. So 0:20:58.800 --> 0:21:03.560 it probably had a traumatic impact on him, knowing that 0:21:04.440 --> 0:21:07.360 this was going to be how my life is. It's 0:21:07.400 --> 0:21:10.520 going to be a tumultuous, violent life that I'm going 0:21:10.560 --> 0:21:13.760 to live, and he started to develop a lot of 0:21:13.840 --> 0:21:15.160 anger inside himself. 0:21:16.800 --> 0:21:20.159 Around this time, Lee went searching for his father in 0:21:20.320 --> 0:21:24.600 Kingston the way Lee remembers it. He eventually found Leslie 0:21:24.600 --> 0:21:27.719 walking down the street. Lee told him that Una had 0:21:27.800 --> 0:21:30.960 left him behind to go work on another island, hoping 0:21:31.000 --> 0:21:32.359 that his father would take him in. 0:21:33.080 --> 0:21:34.480 Well, I went to see it. 0:21:35.040 --> 0:21:36.960 He was looking at Faith like I'm happy to see, 0:21:37.080 --> 0:21:39.800 but why are you here? I mean I could kill 0:21:40.160 --> 0:21:44.520 that five minutes earlier. He did not terrify eat if 0:21:44.560 --> 0:21:49.119 I was safe, I mean none of that. He couldn't 0:21:49.160 --> 0:21:52.159 find me, he had all these accuses. He gave me 0:21:52.160 --> 0:21:54.360 some buff fear and arm put me on my way. 0:21:55.560 --> 0:21:58.760 I gave it to a ball and Lee took that 0:21:59.400 --> 0:22:02.560 as I think that's it. With my father. That's about 0:22:02.600 --> 0:22:05.040 the only acknowledgment I'm going to get. 0:22:06.400 --> 0:22:10.320 When later asked about the incident, Lee's father said he 0:22:10.359 --> 0:22:13.119 didn't take him in because he didn't want to re 0:22:13.240 --> 0:22:17.320 engage with Una. Leslie Malvo wouldn't see his son again 0:22:17.440 --> 0:22:24.800 until he was an adult. Despite all these challenges, Lee 0:22:24.920 --> 0:22:28.480 worked hard at school. He was intelligent and made good grades, 0:22:29.400 --> 0:22:32.119 and although she was gone for long stretches of time, 0:22:32.720 --> 0:22:36.159 Lee's mother watched closely over his performance in school. 0:22:36.880 --> 0:22:39.360 He can be terrified to go home because as soon 0:22:39.359 --> 0:22:41.160 as I go over here by name to door. 0:22:43.200 --> 0:22:46.240 I honestly think that Lee, if there was a word 0:22:46.640 --> 0:22:49.280 for it, I think Lee was more of an academic 0:22:49.640 --> 0:22:52.960 really than he gave himself credit for it. He knew 0:22:52.960 --> 0:22:57.000 that his mom expected one hundred percent. Anything under one 0:22:57.080 --> 0:23:00.359 hundred percent he was going to get punished. He would 0:23:00.359 --> 0:23:05.199 often sit outside the home waiting to go inside and be. 0:23:05.280 --> 0:23:07.760 Petrified the going I didn't didn't want to go home, 0:23:07.760 --> 0:23:09.880 but if An nacked to go home, so I went home. 0:23:10.280 --> 0:23:11.119 She was waiting for me. 0:23:11.800 --> 0:23:15.440 She had a if every thick never built. 0:23:16.920 --> 0:23:20.840 He explained that for every incorrect answer he got, he 0:23:20.880 --> 0:23:24.040 would receive three blows from a belt. If he got 0:23:24.080 --> 0:23:26.760 ten incorrect answers for the day, he would get hit 0:23:26.880 --> 0:23:31.000 thirty times. He knew that because he knew if he 0:23:31.040 --> 0:23:33.359 had a bad day or a bad grade on his paper, 0:23:33.400 --> 0:23:35.320 what was going to happen when those doors opened? 0:23:35.560 --> 0:23:40.000 I mean everywhere, faith back, he everwhere. I kept looking 0:23:40.000 --> 0:23:40.520 at her in the eye. 0:23:40.600 --> 0:23:41.720 Pages would not cry. 0:23:42.280 --> 0:23:45.320 He just kept going and going. There was a look 0:23:45.359 --> 0:23:46.400 on her face that was. 0:23:47.080 --> 0:23:48.000 A look of hate. 0:23:49.880 --> 0:23:53.240 When Lee was about twelve, his mom left Kingston again 0:23:53.359 --> 0:23:56.320 for work on another island, so he went to live 0:23:56.359 --> 0:23:58.639 with a teacher who he called Aunt Simon. 0:24:00.000 --> 0:24:03.760 Had a much more humanistic approach. She would sit down 0:24:04.400 --> 0:24:09.080 and tell Lee exactly what she expected of him. Lee 0:24:09.200 --> 0:24:12.320 was sort of shocked. She treated him almost like a 0:24:12.359 --> 0:24:17.400 young adult. She always would encourage Lee, explain to Lee 0:24:17.680 --> 0:24:20.080 the things that he did well and the things that 0:24:20.119 --> 0:24:23.280 he needed to work on. She didn't raise her voice 0:24:23.280 --> 0:24:26.840 at him, which was something that he hadn't really experienced before. 0:24:28.200 --> 0:24:32.520 That separated her from Una. In Lee's mind, he didn't 0:24:32.560 --> 0:24:35.480 have to worry about that beating formula of three times 0:24:35.520 --> 0:24:38.880