Speaker 1: Welcome to Monster d C Sniper, a production of iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: and Tenderfoot TV. The views and opinions expressed in this
Speaker 1: podcast are solely those of the podcast author or individuals
Speaker 1: participating in the podcast, and do not represent those of iHeartMedia,
Speaker 1: Tenderfoot TV, or their employees. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2: Three weeks into the d C Sniper investigation, police connected
Speaker 2: a fingerprint from an Alabama crime scene to two names,
Speaker 2: John Alan Mohammed and Lee Boyd Malvo. Last episode, we
Speaker 2: explored mohammed story. After his wife asked for a divorce,
Speaker 2: he disappeared with his three children. This episode, Who was
Speaker 2: Lee Boyd Malvo, the seventeen year old from Jamaica and
Speaker 2: how was he connected to Mohammed? At the time, investigators
Speaker 2: were stumped, but years later we finally started to get
Speaker 2: the answers. Many of those answers came from the work
Speaker 2: of criminologist and criminal profiler Anthony Meoli. Meoly spent nine
Speaker 2: years corresponding with Lee and listening to his side of
Speaker 2: the story. Me Only recorded a series of phone calls
Speaker 2: with Lee titled Interview with the d C Sniper, which
Speaker 2: you will hear clips from throughout this episode. Lee also
Speaker 2: wrote an autobiography, which Meoly helped edit and publish.
Speaker 3: Dire the d C Snipers sa verbatim transcript from Lee
Speaker 3: Boyd Malvo word for word. This is a very rare
Speaker 3: time where you're able to understand how an individual develops
Speaker 3: from the day he's born to the day he was
Speaker 3: arrested for one of the most sensational crimes of our
Speaker 3: modern time. The takeaway from it is not the grisly
Speaker 3: nature of what happened at the end, but what led
Speaker 3: him to that. Lee Boyd Malvel was born February eighteen,
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty five, in Kingston, Jamaica. He was born to
Speaker 3: Leslie Malvo and Una James, his mother. He took the
Speaker 3: name Malvo from his father, but they were never formally married,
Speaker 3: at least according to Lee. At the time Lee was born,
Speaker 3: his mom was twenty one and his father was thirty seven,
Speaker 3: so there was a sixteen year age gap in Kingston.
Speaker 3: That wasn't tremendously unusual, but that separation of age did
Speaker 3: lead to many differences between how their relationship developed.
Speaker 2: Lee remembers his father, Leslie, as kind and permissive. Lee
Speaker 2: says he spent his early years on a tricycle, and
Speaker 2: Leslie would pull him through the neighborhood by a rope
Speaker 2: tied to the tricycles handlebars. Lee's mother, Una, on the
Speaker 2: other hand, was the disciplinarian.
Speaker 3: Una was very strict in many ways. She would be calm,
Speaker 3: cool and collected one moment, and then violent the next.
Speaker 2: Lee told me only that when his mother got angry,
Speaker 2: she would sometimes beat him to the point of drawing blood.
Speaker 3: At the same time, she did care for him, and
Speaker 3: she did provide for the family, but she was gone
Speaker 3: most of the time, so it would not be unusual
Speaker 3: for Lee to be fending for himself at a very
Speaker 3: young age. One day, while she was out at work,
Speaker 3: he was left alone, and he was awfully young. He
Speaker 3: was five six years old. She had some jade figurines
Speaker 3: that she kept around the house. They were small, trivial
Speaker 3: objects to some, but to her they meant something. He
Speaker 3: was playing with an airplane and running around the house
Speaker 3: and bumped into one of these jade figurines and it broke.
Speaker 4: I a break one of these things, and I'm I'm crying.
Speaker 3: Before she comes from he was expecting a beating. He
Speaker 3: knew she was going to hit him and hit him hard.
Speaker 4: After hour, she sheltered me and charged Dowary.
Speaker 3: She came home in a rage and was about to
Speaker 3: well off on Lee and his father stepped in.
Speaker 5: And eat grabbed me up. He said, this is the person.
Speaker 4: This is the thing that can be replate each or not.
Speaker 3: You know, this is a thing pointing to the object,
Speaker 3: and this is your son, and you need to be
Speaker 3: able to separate those two right now. Whether that message
Speaker 3: rang true with Una remains unclear.
Speaker 2: My father was like to go.
Speaker 4: Get He was my protect because he would always know
Speaker 4: what to do or what to say in those moments.
Speaker 3: It really stuck with him that this is what a
Speaker 3: father does. A father protects his child. And he had
Speaker 3: some fond memories of his father until eventually his father
Speaker 3: left him, and that's when things started to go sour.
Speaker 2: There is a ruthless person on the loose.
Speaker 6: What unnerves this community the most is the randomness of
Speaker 6: 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 2: The police say they have never had a crime quite
Speaker 2: like this.
Speaker 7: Be careful, these guys are using weapons that are going
Speaker 7: to go right straight through our bulletproof vests.
Speaker 4: The white bag.
Speaker 2: From iHeartRadio and Tenderfoot TV. This is Monster DC Sniper
Speaker 2: criminologist Anthony Meoli has made a career of interviewing some
Speaker 2: of America's most heinous criminals.
Speaker 3: I literally have spoken or written to over three hundred
Speaker 3: serial killers. What I find most interesting about them is
Speaker 3: that they are people. I don't harp on the horrific
Speaker 3: nature of their crimes, but rather try to learn who
Speaker 3: they were and how the crimes came about.
Speaker 2: Me only says people often completely write off killers it's
Speaker 2: just evil people or monsters. But he thinks that's a mistake.
Speaker 3: As soon as we find out who did it, we
Speaker 3: can't get enough of how evil or how monstrous this
Speaker 3: person is without understanding what it was that brought the
Speaker 3: person to that particular moment in time. Unfortunately, they are
Speaker 3: not monsters, they are not some mystical beasts. Unfortunately, these
Speaker 3: are human beings with human DNA, and we have to
Speaker 3: be willing to accept that and understand that. Just as
Speaker 3: there are some fantastic human beings who do some incredible
Speaker 3: things and change people's lives, there are other human beings
Speaker 3: who go down a wrong path and take people's lives.
Speaker 3: It's not to condone what they did. Make no mistake there,
Speaker 3: it's not to condone at all what they did.
Speaker 2: As a criminologist, me only thinks that if we want
Speaker 2: to prevent these sorts of crimes from happening in the future,
Speaker 2: we need to understand the people that commit them and
Speaker 2: examine their lives. That's why he's corresponded with so many
Speaker 2: serial killers. Meoldi was particularly interested to speak with Lee
Speaker 2: Boyd Malvoe. He first wrotally in two thousand and three,
Speaker 2: but starting a correspondence proved challenging.
Speaker 3: Letters that I sent would be mailed back and saying
Speaker 3: the inmate is not here. So it took a while,
Speaker 3: and it wasn't until May of two thousand and five
Speaker 3: where I received his first letter. What was interesting was
Speaker 3: it was a two page letter, handwritten in black ink. Normally,
Speaker 3: it takes a long time for many of these individuals
Speaker 3: to trust others.
Speaker 2: But Meoldi says Lee's first letter to him was different.
Speaker 3: It was very personal. I think that's what struck me.
Speaker 3: He even left the letter by saying, wherever you want
Speaker 3: to go from here, I'm willing to go with you.
Speaker 3: So that's sort of where it all began. We were
Speaker 3: corresponding one to two letters a week. We did that
Speaker 3: for about four years, and then I had the ability
Speaker 3: to speak to him on the phone. My first phone
Speaker 3: call with him was in twenty ten. It struck me
Speaker 3: immediately how intelligent he actually was. His formal education stopped
Speaker 3: far before college, but he was far more well read
Speaker 3: than most of those who I knew who held master's degrees.
Speaker 3: Maybe the single most well read individual out of over
Speaker 3: three hundred inmates that I've written.
Speaker 2: To during these years of communicating back and forth. Meoli
Speaker 2: says Lee asked him to help edit and publish his autobiography.
Speaker 2: Meoli agreed.
Speaker 3: What came across with Lee Boyd Malvo's intellect, his ability
Speaker 3: to jump from topic to topic. He knew anything and
Speaker 3: everything about anything related to the weather, It could be
Speaker 3: related to inmate rights, it could be related to racial tensions.
Speaker 3: And that was one dynamic that we talked a lot about.
Speaker 3: As a Caucasian male, obviously we came from two different worlds.
Speaker 2: Zara Burden is a journalist and host of the Jamaican
Speaker 2: news program eighteen Degrees North. She was also interested in
Speaker 2: understanding Lee Boyd Malbose.
Speaker 3: Roots oh Well.
Speaker 6: First interview back in twenty thirteen was an interview with
Speaker 6: Lee Boyd Malville.
Speaker 3: He agreed to.
Speaker 6: Do the interview, he said, because it was allowing him
Speaker 6: to speak to his Jamaican people. You know, it's a
Speaker 6: strange kind of thing. Jimmy cons are four jamay cns.
Speaker 6: We coss each other on this rock, but we back
Speaker 6: the best of us and we disagreees together the worst
Speaker 6: of us. It was important for us to understand host
Speaker 6: somebody raised on our soil could leave here and go
Speaker 6: to the United States, where most Jamaicans go to become prosperous,
Speaker 6: and he instead of going that route, he instead chose
Speaker 6: to kill Americans. And we don't have any hate for Americans.
Speaker 6: We love Americans in Jamaica. So why would you be
Speaker 6: motivated to carry out such an atrocity on your fellow man?
Speaker 2: That was the big question.
Speaker 3: He explained. Violence was something that occurred constantly.
Speaker 2: This is criminologist Anthony Meoli again.
Speaker 3: So there would often be one or two parents on
Speaker 3: a whole block watching fifteen twenty kids.
Speaker 6: Yes, an aunt might be present, but is that aunt
Speaker 6: going to give as much attention as a mom would,
Speaker 6: is that uncle going to have enough energy to take
Speaker 6: care and discipline that child in the right way? Sometimes yes,
Speaker 6: sometimes known.
Speaker 3: Often the only way, sadly, to keep them in line
Speaker 3: was to know that if they did something in bed while,
Speaker 3: a beating was coming. And so it wasn't uncommon for
Speaker 3: Lee to see violence or to experience violence.
Speaker 2: In his autobiography, Lie says one time, when he was
Speaker 2: around five, his father brought home a paycheck that was
Speaker 2: short on cash. His mother suspected he was cheating on
Speaker 2: her and accused him of giving the money to another woman.
Speaker 2: This led to an argument, which escalated into a violent fight.
Speaker 4: Here's Lee, I'm never driving a qualification.
Speaker 5: My dad basically felt that my mother's departured Pteropie.
Speaker 2: Lee says that two days later he was sitting on
Speaker 2: a bed watching his dad clean a mirror on the
Speaker 2: bedroom dresser when his mother snuck up from.
Speaker 4: Behind my mom to chop the pand off of the ship.
Speaker 3: His mom had picked up a machete and was about
Speaker 3: to attack his father from behind when Lee yells out
Speaker 3: to his father charged.
Speaker 5: A vote, and that's when he fell the reflection in
Speaker 5: the mirror.
Speaker 4: He turned it she missed his rich but she basically
Speaker 4: filled off the entire film.
Speaker 3: Una strikes Leslie's thumb and nearly severs his thumb with
Speaker 3: the machete.
Speaker 4: He was hard on his hand because I mean this
Speaker 4: my mother is my father's those.
Speaker 3: Lee was very emotional from that moment because he was
Speaker 3: too young to know what it meant to have an infidelity.
Speaker 3: He had no idea what that was, but he knew
Speaker 3: that his mother and his father had severe arguments to
Speaker 3: the points where his mother would be willing to almost
Speaker 3: kill his father. So he saw violence at a very
Speaker 3: early age and continued to do so for many years.
Speaker 4: They always in fight that it does this the uncle
Speaker 4: my mom called it, she re least.
Speaker 5: About the time.
Speaker 3: Eventually, Una had had enough of Leslie's infidel with various
Speaker 3: women on the island, and she told Leslie to decide
Speaker 3: whether to be with her or to move on to
Speaker 3: the other women.
Speaker 4: He used to work with Kyan Island as a contract
Speaker 4: to make a whole deal and stuff like that, and
Speaker 4: one occasion when he left worked up my mom she
Speaker 4: did again, so she decided she moved out the house
Speaker 4: and his Disappearod didn't tell anyone.
Speaker 5: He didn't know where to find them.
Speaker 2: Lisa has Buna packed up all their things and emptied
Speaker 2: out the bank accounts. She left with Lee to start
Speaker 2: a new life and didn't tell Leslie where they'd gone.
Speaker 3: And this left Lee pretty much without a father from
Speaker 3: about the age of nine.
Speaker 5: He did find them after a couple of months. I
Speaker 5: think to a certain extent, he took it out on me.
Speaker 4: Didn't want to do after that or have anything to
Speaker 4: do with me.
Speaker 5: He just pretty much abandoned me.
Speaker 2: Here's journalist Zara Burden again.
Speaker 6: His father was absent for or a large part, and
Speaker 6: emotionally that created a void. There's a lot of hurt
Speaker 6: for youngsters in Jamaica. A lot of it is based
Speaker 6: on absent parents that allow predators to come and pray,
Speaker 6: whether it's sexually, emotionally or recruiting in gangs, youths in
Speaker 6: this country, in Jamaica, youths all over the world who
Speaker 6: have no role model, who feel like they have no purpose.
Speaker 6: It's so easy for a gang leader or even an
Speaker 6: organization like Isis to recruit and to give them a
Speaker 6: sense of purpose. And so it is so important that
Speaker 6: parents in Jamaica and the world ovo ensure that the
Speaker 6: time is there, that the investment is there in their children,
Speaker 6: and that when they see them around that company, that
Speaker 6: they steer them in a different direction.
Speaker 2: After leaving Leslie, Una struggled to make ends meet. She
Speaker 2: moved with Lee to Endeavor, a rural town north of Kingston,
Speaker 2: where they lived in a small home.
Speaker 3: It was pretty much a shock. It was just enough
Speaker 3: to get by. They suffered to often have proper plumbing.
Speaker 3: Una did not have the money to fix things.
Speaker 2: Despite being strapped for cash, Una was able to get
Speaker 2: alane and open a small grocery store.
Speaker 3: It was a sundry shop, so to say.
Speaker 2: UNA's store went well until a power outage ruined all
Speaker 2: of the refrigerated goods. She didn't have enough money saved
Speaker 2: to restock the inventory, so she was forced to close
Speaker 2: the store and unable to find work and Endeavor, she
Speaker 2: and Lee moved back to Kingston. For Lee, this was
Speaker 2: the first of many moves.
Speaker 3: In Jamaica, it's not uncommon for people to be somewhat transient.
Speaker 3: In the let's say late eighties early nineties, work was
Speaker 3: very hard to come by, especially for a woman who
Speaker 3: was not building homes or something or doing labor, so
Speaker 3: it was not uncommon for Una to look for work
Speaker 3: at various places and move around so that she could
Speaker 3: support the two of.
Speaker 2: Them, And according to Lee, his mother would do whatever
Speaker 2: it took to get what she needed.
Speaker 3: When she purchased a home, she knew that one of
Speaker 3: the men who was selling the land was prone to
Speaker 3: drinking alcohol, and she waited until he was inebriated and
Speaker 3: he signed over another acre for a relatively paltry sum
Speaker 3: to Una so that she could have more land. She
Speaker 3: was a smart woman in knowing what she needed to
Speaker 3: do in order to get things done.
Speaker 2: And that often meant moving for work. Me Only says
Speaker 2: Lee bounced around fifteen to twenty times in his adolescence.
Speaker 2: Sometimes she took Lee with her, other times she left
Speaker 2: him with family and friends.
Speaker 3: In many cases, Lee would refer to the family as cousins.
Speaker 3: They may not have been cousins legally, but just friends
Speaker 3: who his mom would leave him with and then she
Speaker 3: would be gone for several months. So yes, he would
Speaker 3: be completely abandoned, if you will, by today's standards, while
Speaker 3: his mom looked for more steady work, and this was
Speaker 3: at the unfortunate negative impact to Lee's life.
Speaker 6: There's a huge problem in this country where barrel kids
Speaker 6: are concerned, they're called barrel kids. Baryl just means that
Speaker 6: your parents, to show love and affection, will send a
Speaker 6: barrel filled with good is, with school products, with whatever
Speaker 6: is necessary to allow you to have things.
Speaker 2: Journalist Zara Burton says that many times parents seek better
Speaker 2: opportunities abroad, but they can't take their families with him.
Speaker 6: Jamaica is a tough spot to earn a dollar, I'm
Speaker 6: telling you, And so you get an opportunity to go
Speaker 6: to the States to earn a doll you're going to
Speaker 6: take it. For a lot of Jamaicans, Kman Turks and
Speaker 6: Caicos Bahamas. Those are the hot spots where we go
Speaker 6: to for better economic opportunity. But guess what, sometimes your
Speaker 6: status there ain't fully started, and so you're there kind
Speaker 6: of illegally overstay your visa and you're working, and all
Speaker 6: you can to show you love is to get on Skype,
Speaker 6: get on the phone.
Speaker 2: And cene barrel.
Speaker 6: But invariably some of them are not being supervised in
Speaker 6: their homes and so there definitely is a deficit in
Speaker 6: their emotional development, their ability to be disciplined the way
Speaker 6: that it manifests in this country is our crime level,
Speaker 6: which remains extremely high compared to maybe other populations that
Speaker 6: are similar in size.
Speaker 2: Jamaica's homicide rate consistently ranks as one of the highest
Speaker 2: in the world.
Speaker 6: The most brutal individuals sometimes on the street creating havoc
Speaker 6: are the teens because they've been recruited the wrong people
Speaker 6: are there to pick up the slack where parenting has failed.
Speaker 2: Over the next few years, Lee bounced between relatives apartments.
Speaker 2: According to me only Lee jumped around anywhere from fifteen
Speaker 2: to twenty times during that period.
Speaker 3: His biggest struggle in life was between the ages of
Speaker 3: five and nine. Those were the times where he had
Speaker 3: moved from various places and he had seen a lot
Speaker 3: of violence, experienced a lot of violence, so it made
Speaker 3: it very difficult for him to understand what life really
Speaker 3: looked like as he approached his early teen years.
Speaker 4: I remember I was sitting down writing my journal and
Speaker 4: I said, I.
Speaker 5: Mean, I have no one.
Speaker 4: Even if I walk off a bridge, they no one
Speaker 4: get the flu is cold life of power. And I
Speaker 4: decided that I would never cry, and I would never
Speaker 4: complain about anything. I'm going to find a way he
Speaker 4: could be I don't find a way a law.
Speaker 3: He did not have the stability that most children need
Speaker 3: during the formative years of his life. At the most,
Speaker 3: he had nothing. He didn't have his parents, he didn't
Speaker 3: have any structure, and all he had was instability. So
Speaker 3: it probably had a traumatic impact on him, knowing that
Speaker 3: this was going to be how my life is. It's
Speaker 3: going to be a tumultuous, violent life that I'm going
Speaker 3: to live, and he started to develop a lot of
Speaker 3: anger inside himself.
Speaker 2: Around this time, Lee went searching for his father in
Speaker 2: Kingston the way Lee remembers it. He eventually found Leslie
Speaker 2: walking down the street. Lee told him that Una had
Speaker 2: left him behind to go work on another island, hoping
Speaker 2: that his father would take him in.
Speaker 5: Well, I went to see it.
Speaker 4: He was looking at Faith like I'm happy to see,
Speaker 4: but why are you here? I mean I could kill
Speaker 4: that five minutes earlier. He did not terrify eat if
Speaker 4: I was safe, I mean none of that. He couldn't
Speaker 4: find me, he had all these accuses. He gave me
Speaker 4: some buff fear and arm put me on my way.
Speaker 3: I gave it to a ball and Lee took that
Speaker 3: as I think that's it. With my father. That's about
Speaker 3: the only acknowledgment I'm going to get.
Speaker 2: When later asked about the incident, Lee's father said he
Speaker 2: didn't take him in because he didn't want to re
Speaker 2: engage with Una. Leslie Malvo wouldn't see his son again
Speaker 2: until he was an adult. Despite all these challenges, Lee
Speaker 2: worked hard at school. He was intelligent and made good grades,
Speaker 2: and although she was gone for long stretches of time,
Speaker 2: Lee's mother watched closely over his performance in school.
Speaker 4: He can be terrified to go home because as soon
Speaker 4: as I go over here by name to door.
Speaker 3: I honestly think that Lee, if there was a word
Speaker 3: for it, I think Lee was more of an academic
Speaker 3: really than he gave himself credit for it. He knew
Speaker 3: that his mom expected one hundred percent. Anything under one
Speaker 3: hundred percent he was going to get punished. He would
Speaker 3: often sit outside the home waiting to go inside and be.
Speaker 4: Petrified the going I didn't didn't want to go home,
Speaker 4: but if An nacked to go home, so I went home.
Speaker 5: She was waiting for me.
Speaker 4: She had a if every thick never built.
Speaker 3: He explained that for every incorrect answer he got, he
Speaker 3: would receive three blows from a belt. If he got
Speaker 3: ten incorrect answers for the day, he would get hit
Speaker 3: thirty times. He knew that because he knew if he
Speaker 3: had a bad day or a bad grade on his paper,
Speaker 3: what was going to happen when those doors opened?
Speaker 4: I mean everywhere, faith back, he everwhere. I kept looking
Speaker 4: at her in the eye.
Speaker 5: Pages would not cry.
Speaker 4: He just kept going and going. There was a look
Speaker 4: on her face that was.
Speaker 5: A look of hate.
Speaker 2: When Lee was about twelve, his mom left Kingston again
Speaker 2: for work on another island, so he went to live
Speaker 2: with a teacher who he called Aunt Simon.
Speaker 3: Had a much more humanistic approach. She would sit down
Speaker 3: and tell Lee exactly what she expected of him. Lee
Speaker 3: was sort of shocked. She treated him almost like a
Speaker 3: young adult. She always would encourage Lee, explain to Lee
Speaker 3: the things that he did well and the things that
Speaker 3: he needed to work on. She didn't raise her voice
Speaker 3: at him, which was something that he hadn't really experienced before.
Speaker 3: That separated her from Una. In Lee's mind, he didn't
Speaker 3: have to worry about that beating formula of three times
Speaker 3: a day. There was no more verbal and physical abuse
Speaker 3: going on. Aunt Simone had intimate knowledge of the beatings
Speaker 3: that Lee had taken because Lee had told her, and
Speaker 3: I think in her own way, even though she wasn't
Speaker 3: his mother, she knew that Una was not good for
Speaker 3: him at that time in his life, so she did
Speaker 3: everything to protect him from going back to her by
Speaker 3: trying to sort of say, I got this, I can
Speaker 3: take care of Lee. This was a time where he
Speaker 3: finally had a little bit of love in his life.
Speaker 2: Me Only says that Lee was often very affected by
Speaker 2: small things, words, gestures, with the tone of a person's voice.
Speaker 3: He even spoke about the most simple phrase that an
Speaker 3: simone would say. She would say good morning, Lee, and
Speaker 3: that would mean the world to him because he didn't
Speaker 3: get that from his mom. He did not get that
Speaker 3: from Leslie. He got that from a woman who he
Speaker 3: really barely knew at that time, and yet she was
Speaker 3: willing to take him in as her son. His life
Speaker 3: looked much more like a regular child. He was now
Speaker 3: experiencing the ability to play with board games. She would
Speaker 3: read Bible lessons to him, she would show him how
Speaker 3: to do homework. She even showed him what he could
Speaker 3: be if he did further education.
Speaker 2: But it wouldn't last. Eventually, Una showed up at Simone's
Speaker 2: house and demanded that Lee come back and live with her.
Speaker 3: When it came to a head to where he had
Speaker 3: to choose between Aunt Simone and his mother, he really
Speaker 3: didn't have a choice because he was still a minor.
Speaker 3: Una had the final say because she was, you know,
Speaker 3: his mother, and unfortunately he had to leave. There's nothing
Speaker 3: Aunt Simone could do about it. She couldn't protect him anymore,
Speaker 3: you know. Reluctantly she had to give him up.
Speaker 2: Una came to realize how much happier Lee had felt
Speaker 2: without her. She resented him for wanting to stay with
Speaker 2: Simone instead of coming back to live with her.
Speaker 3: So once he was reunited with Una, he would face
Speaker 3: daily beating, sometimes twice a day, just simply for no
Speaker 3: reason at all. So now it had escalated with the
Speaker 3: violence at home. It went from being a good morning
Speaker 3: with Aunt Simone to an unknown, hellish day with his
Speaker 3: own mother.
Speaker 2: Eventually, Lee reached his breaking point.
Speaker 4: I decided open a film work help and I a
Speaker 4: makeshift will walk down to the Mangua tree and it
Speaker 4: does to an myself.
Speaker 3: The suicide attempt with Lee occurred, according to him, around
Speaker 3: age thirteen. He had been on a farm with Una
Speaker 3: and a caretaker who lived on this farm. He went
Speaker 3: up in a tree and sat there for quite some time,
Speaker 3: debating what is his life going to be like? If
Speaker 3: my life is going to be like this for the
Speaker 3: rest of my life, I don't want to live it.
Speaker 3: So he finally decided that he is going to take
Speaker 3: his life. When he made the knot placed it around
Speaker 3: his neck, he yelled his mom's name as loud as
Speaker 3: he could. He wanted to make sure that she saw him.
Speaker 3: He wanted her to worry about him. He wanted to
Speaker 3: see what look was on her face when she knew
Speaker 3: that her son was about to take his life. And
Speaker 3: that's a very telling moment because you would think that
Speaker 3: a mom would have finally realized, wow, you know, look
Speaker 3: what I've done to my son. But Una does not
Speaker 3: have that inward looking moment, and her demeanor doesn't change
Speaker 3: a whole lot. You know, she did say are you okay?
Speaker 3: Do you want to talk? But I think the damage
Speaker 3: was so far done. And the story, as he describes it,
Speaker 3: was he let go of the tree and just as
Speaker 3: the rope begins to tighten, the caretaker on the property
Speaker 3: grabs him and make sure that it doesn't snap his neck.
Speaker 3: They undo the rope and untie him. But he still
Speaker 3: harbored that feeling that he was willing to take his life,
Speaker 3: which is very significant. He had internalized the anger. He
Speaker 3: didn't take it out on his mom. He didn't stab
Speaker 3: or shoot his mother, He didn't stab or shoot anyone else.
Speaker 3: He took it all out on himself. And from what
Speaker 3: we know with child psychology, if a child is willing
Speaker 3: to take their life at thirteen, they've suffered dramatic trauma
Speaker 3: in order to come to that place, because that's a
Speaker 3: very early age to grasp the idea that if I
Speaker 3: jump off this branch and this rope tightens, I'm dead.
Speaker 3: And yet his mother was not really willing to change
Speaker 3: her ways.
Speaker 4: The worst state that was two days later he beat
Speaker 4: me too, He would piece ama, He pointed to the truth,
Speaker 4: until he's going to.
Speaker 5: Your fuck himself.
Speaker 3: But he said, for whatever reason, he had even lost
Speaker 3: the courage to attempt suicide again. He just couldn't do
Speaker 3: it anymore.
Speaker 2: Lee had no one, He had lost on Simon, and
Speaker 2: both of his parents had given up on him. But
Speaker 2: he was about to meet the man who would take
Speaker 2: on the role of his new father. When Lee was fifteen,
Speaker 2: he and Una moved to the island of Antigua. Lee
Speaker 2: says that Antigua brought more of the same verbal and
Speaker 2: physical abuse. Meanwhile, his mother had started a new business there,
Speaker 2: but not long after moving to Antigua, Una took another
Speaker 2: job on a different island. She left Lee alone there
Speaker 2: for almost a year. He had to steal and sell
Speaker 2: bootleg CDs to get by.
Speaker 4: My mother actually prepared me for this by leaving me
Speaker 4: alone for many times.
Speaker 3: I had time to practice.
Speaker 5: I mean, I learned how to help. I take an
Speaker 5: empty famous.
Speaker 4: The throne, go out to the beach and make some
Speaker 4: jerk chicken fill it. I'd pull it, cans and bottle.
Speaker 4: I pretty much bee whatever I had to.
Speaker 2: In Antigua, Lee had to walk several miles to school
Speaker 2: each day. He passed by the Zaza Electronics store. On
Speaker 2: one occasion he stopped in inside. A tall man was
Speaker 2: watching his young son play a flight simulator video game
Speaker 2: on one of the store's computers. They both had America
Speaker 2: in accents and were joking around and laughing. Lee was
Speaker 2: not used to seeing this kind of affection between a
Speaker 2: father and son.
Speaker 5: I wanted that relationship I wanted to be a father
Speaker 5: like him. He was confident.
Speaker 4: I mean, there were not a lot of fathers there
Speaker 4: with yourself. A score of things about him that were
Speaker 4: different than I admired.
Speaker 5: And I just founded what from a difference. I actually
Speaker 5: never spoke to him.
Speaker 2: That man was John Muhammad. It was here in Antigua
Speaker 2: that John had run away from Tacoma, Washington, with his
Speaker 2: three children in tow. John had originally heard of the
Speaker 2: island from an acquaintance in Tacoma. That man had a
Speaker 2: cousin who worked in Antiqua as a travel agent. John
Speaker 2: thought he could start a new life there with his kids,
Speaker 2: and so they moved there in March of two thousand.
Speaker 3: John was sort of the pied piper of many children
Speaker 3: on the island. He was known for doing good things
Speaker 3: for kids. He had money that others did not on
Speaker 3: the island was something that Lee sort of looked up to.
Speaker 3: But what we learned is that John's money was not
Speaker 3: necessarily legal. What he was doing was illegally importing goods, services,
Speaker 3: and even people into the United States.
Speaker 2: John had created a business of smuggling Caribbean islanders into America.
Speaker 2: He would help them forge passports and ensure travel to
Speaker 2: the Florida coast, and in the year two thousand, one
Speaker 2: of John's new clients was Una, Lee's mother.
Speaker 3: A lot of people don't understand that John actually got
Speaker 3: Una into the United States. There was a presumed relationship
Speaker 3: as far as whether or not it was a sexual
Speaker 3: one that I'm not quite sure.
Speaker 4: He made it for like three He made it in
Speaker 4: September and the three weeks later in October she was
Speaker 4: in the US.
Speaker 2: Una left Lee behind and got a job at a
Speaker 2: restaurant in Fort Myers, Florida. She promised to bring him
Speaker 2: to America when she had more money, but eventually Una
Speaker 2: stopped sending rent for Lee to live on, so he
Speaker 2: was forced to move into a run down shack behind
Speaker 2: the house where they'd been staying. Things only got worse
Speaker 2: for Lee. In November of two thousand, he fell ill
Speaker 2: with rheumatic fever. Lying alone, sick in the dark, Lee
Speaker 2: felt abused, abandoned, and completely resigned. And then, in the hot,
Speaker 2: unforgiving darkness, a light burst through the door of the
Speaker 2: shack opened, A tall man stepped inside. Then the man
Speaker 2: came closer. He leaned down and grabbed Lee's hand. It
Speaker 2: was the American man who smuggled his mother into the
Speaker 2: United States, the same man he'd seen that day the
Speaker 2: electronics shop playing with the son John Mohammed had come
Speaker 2: for him next time on Monster DC Sniper, this.
Speaker 6: Mohammed, if he gets across the border with your children,
Speaker 6: there will be nothing we can do.
Speaker 5: So are you telling me the reason why I don't
Speaker 5: have my children and won't way to keep my children
Speaker 5: because I don't have the proper paperwork.
Speaker 7: Again, if we do not address the systemic failures that
Speaker 7: occurred in this case, it's entirely likely that there are
Speaker 7: all kinds of John Mohammad's out there wandering the streets.
Speaker 4: See that needs killed myself over and over.
Speaker 5: He told me, the old person has to die.
Speaker 7: Lee Marville has to die because Lee Marvell.
Speaker 4: Cannot do this.
Speaker 1: Monster DC 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 iHeartRadio,
Speaker 1: alongside producers Trevor Young, ben Keebrick, and Josh Thain. Payne
Speaker 1: Lindsay and Donald Albright are executive producers on behalf of
Speaker 1: Tenderfoot TV, alongside producers Meredith Stedman and Christina Dana. Original
Speaker 1: music is by Makeup and Vanity Set. The audio of
Speaker 1: Lee Boyd Malvo you heard in the Next Time segment
Speaker 1: comes from a twenty twelve interview by journalist Josh White
Speaker 1: and was provided courtesy of The Washington Post. If you
Speaker 1: haven't already, be sure to check out the first two
Speaker 1: seasons at Lanta Monster and Monster the Zodiac Killer. If
Speaker 1: you have questions or comments, email us at Monster at
Speaker 1: iHeartMedia dot com, or you can call us at one
Speaker 1: eight three, three two eight five six six sixty seven.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.