Speaker 1: Welcome to Monster d C Sniper, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio and Tenderfoot TV. The views and opinions expressed
Speaker 1: in this podcast are solely those of the podcast author
Speaker 1: or individuals participating in the podcast, and do not represent
Speaker 1: those of I Heart Media, Tenderfoot TV, or their employees.
Speaker 1: This episode includes testimony and argument from court trial transcripts
Speaker 1: read by voice actors. Portions of these transcripts are excerpted
Speaker 1: for the purposes of this podcast. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 1: Good evening. One of the most terrifying crimes in recent
Speaker 1: years left ten people dead the nation's capital and two
Speaker 1: neighboring states, and a frenzy of fear for three weeks.
Speaker 1: The Sniper case a year ago today, the first of
Speaker 1: two suspects in the case went on trial, and the
Speaker 1: opening day was surreal. I remember feeling very nervous prior
Speaker 1: to both trials. Prior to the trial, we're told we
Speaker 1: weren't allowed to speak to other witnesses. But then afterwards,
Speaker 1: I remember being in the room with family members who
Speaker 1: had lost people. That was so sad, so horrific. I
Speaker 1: remember speaking to I believe Laurie, with us husband. I
Speaker 1: was just still angry, you know, I just you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I just want to do something, you know,
Speaker 1: and and be over with and make them pay for
Speaker 1: what they did, to go and testify it was not
Speaker 1: the problem. The real problem was just to go and
Speaker 1: see them right in front of you. That was the
Speaker 1: hard part. It was hard to be there in the
Speaker 1: same room with them. It's was hard to see them
Speaker 1: over there. It was hard to see their faces. They
Speaker 1: don't have no remorse at all, both of them, not
Speaker 1: at all, like it was normal for them. And that's
Speaker 1: where you know, get me, you know, for people like that.
Speaker 1: You know, I always say, these those those kind of people,
Speaker 1: they don't deserve to be here. This is so horrific
Speaker 1: to realize that these people is so impacted by the
Speaker 1: actions of these two cruel people, and their lives will
Speaker 1: never ever be the same. You know, I'm lucky merely
Speaker 1: go along. You know, in my life, I do thank
Speaker 1: God that it wasn't me. But you know, it's difficult
Speaker 1: to remember that on an everyday basis because humans are
Speaker 1: not like that. We just get on with our lives.
Speaker 1: But these people, they think about it every day that
Speaker 1: they lost a family member because of this totally senseless,
Speaker 1: horrific act. There is a ruthless person on the loose.
Speaker 1: What I nerves this community the most is the randomness
Speaker 1: of the murders. Ordinary people doing ordinary things. All that
Speaker 1: the victims appear to have had in common. Each was
Speaker 1: shot to death by a single bullet. Be careful, these
Speaker 1: guys are using weapons that are going to go right
Speaker 1: straight through our bullet proof ess. The massive man odd continues,
Speaker 1: but police admit they don't know who are, what they're
Speaker 1: dealing with, or what their motive might be. From my
Speaker 1: Heart Radio and tender Foot TIV, this is monster d
Speaker 1: C sniper. The trials of John Mohammed and Lee Boyd
Speaker 1: Malvo were scheduled to begin in October of two thousand three.
Speaker 1: After they were caught, it was decided that the two
Speaker 1: would be tried in Virginia. At the time, Virginia permitted
Speaker 1: the death penalty for sixteen and seventeen year olds. Prosecutors
Speaker 1: were hoping to convict both Malbo and Mohammed and sentenced
Speaker 1: them to the ultimate punishment. Prince William County would prosecute
Speaker 1: Mohammed for the murder of Dean Harold Myers, led by
Speaker 1: Attorney Paul Ebert and Fairfax County would prosecute Malvo for
Speaker 1: the murder of Linda Franklin, led by attorney Robert Horran,
Speaker 1: but attorneys from Malvo and Mohammed made an early trial
Speaker 1: motion to move the cases from those counties. Everybody who
Speaker 1: lived in this area, in the Washington, d C. Area,
Speaker 1: was essentially a victim. This is Mark Petrovitch, one of
Speaker 1: the lawyers from Malvo's defense team. We all were afraid
Speaker 1: to be shot at any given time. We all pumped
Speaker 1: our gas and moved around as we pumped our gas.
Speaker 1: We all dealt with the fear, the anger, the frustration,
Speaker 1: just the outrage of the situation. And so anyone who
Speaker 1: dealt with that would hold a grudge against anyone who's
Speaker 1: accused of being involved in it. So we wanted jurors
Speaker 1: who hadn't been in the middle and essentially this big
Speaker 1: ground zero. We wanted jurors from outside that area to objectively,
Speaker 1: in an unbiased way, determine what should happened with the case.
Speaker 1: Petrovitch says. Transferring jurisdiction in capital cases is very uncommon,
Speaker 1: but in this case, it was clear that Mohammed and
Speaker 1: Malvo would not get an impartial jury anywhere near the
Speaker 1: d C area. And so the motion was approved and
Speaker 1: the trials were moved to Virginia b in Chesapeake Bay
Speaker 1: in southeast Virginia. But Prince William County and Fairfax County
Speaker 1: we're still in charge of putting together the prosecution and
Speaker 1: Fairfax Police Lieutenant Bruce Gooth was in charge of assembling
Speaker 1: the prosecution task force. We now have Malvo and Prince
Speaker 1: William has Mohammed. Our jurisdictions are right next to each other.
Speaker 1: I called a meeting with the A T F D
Speaker 1: FBI Secret Service to discuss prosecution task force. We would
Speaker 1: put all the evidence together in one packet, if you will,
Speaker 1: for both trials. So if Mr Eber needed for Mohammed,
Speaker 1: he could grab it. If Mr Harran needed it for Malvo,
Speaker 1: he could grab it. You know, it's hard enough work
Speaker 1: in one murder, and to have these thirteen shootings just
Speaker 1: in our area, let alone what else went around the country.
Speaker 1: You know, we knew it was going to be a
Speaker 1: monumental task. Gooth says. They found an empty office building.
Speaker 1: Within a week, they had filled the entire space with
Speaker 1: dozens of desks, interview rooms, and computers. For over fifty
Speaker 1: Task Force members. They quickly pulled a massive team together
Speaker 1: and started preparations in Fairfax. Anything in a blue binder
Speaker 1: is a murder file. So the blue file thing popped
Speaker 1: up in my head that for each major thing we need,
Speaker 1: we're going to make a blue file. For instance, the
Speaker 1: Bushmaster to two three rifle, we had a book that
Speaker 1: had everything you could want about the rifle. There was
Speaker 1: a blue book made on the Caprice, where they got
Speaker 1: the caprice, the history of the caprice, the interview of
Speaker 1: the guy who sold them the caprice up in New Jersey.
Speaker 1: And that guy was a great witness because Mohammed climbed
Speaker 1: into the trunk of the car and he thought that
Speaker 1: was weird. So I really liked this car. You mind
Speaker 1: if I climb in the trunk and it goes yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, you can climb in wherever you want the
Speaker 1: car six bucks, I don't care. So we ended up
Speaker 1: in this fire room with about eighty blue books. We
Speaker 1: had a file cabinet probably on thirty yards long. Over
Speaker 1: the course of a year, prosecutors collected information and prepared
Speaker 1: their case. Then, come the fall of two thousand three,
Speaker 1: the task Force moved to southeast Virginia, where the trials
Speaker 1: were about to begin. We basically rented out a whole
Speaker 1: half side of this hotel had a big task force room.
Speaker 1: They wired for computers and phone lines and now we
Speaker 1: have to fly everybody in from all over the country
Speaker 1: into Virginia Beach instead of the dollies. It was a
Speaker 1: monumental task. We had two trials with hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: witnesses in each trial. After m court, we'd meet in
Speaker 1: Mr Harand's suite or Mr. Ebert Suite and we talked
Speaker 1: about who they want the next two or three days.
Speaker 1: And then we'd call these witnesses and get them lined
Speaker 1: up with airplane reservations and tell them where to come,
Speaker 1: and then we have rooms at Stout for them, and
Speaker 1: then we had to get back to the airport to
Speaker 1: send them back home. And I was just it worked
Speaker 1: out really well, amazingly. We didn't lose anybody, and everybody
Speaker 1: showed up. John Mohammed's trial was scheduled to begin first.
Speaker 1: He was being tried on four counts, two of which
Speaker 1: were for capital murder. Prosecutors were hoping Virginia Long would
Speaker 1: provide a path to the death sentence for John Mohammed.
Speaker 1: Here's Virginia. Prosecutor Paul Ebert in Virginia, is our call,
Speaker 1: like sixteen different categories that they can mount to capital punishment,
Speaker 1: killing them, a minor robbery, rape, a number of thing
Speaker 1: which it has to be an underlying predicate before you
Speaker 1: can get to death penalty or even charged the death
Speaker 1: penalty with any success. Strangely enough, Virginia, for kilmore than
Speaker 1: one person in three years, that's a capital case. We
Speaker 1: had the opportunity to bring in every one of those
Speaker 1: murders to prove that. Aspect of the trial. Mohammed was
Speaker 1: being tried for one count of capital murder in the
Speaker 1: shooting of Dean Harold Myers on October nine, two two.
Speaker 1: The second capital murder charge came from a new anti
Speaker 1: terrorism law implemented in Virginia after the events of nine eleven.
Speaker 1: Under that statute, a jury would not have to conclude
Speaker 1: that Mohammed had actually pulled the trigger to be found guilty,
Speaker 1: only that he had intentionally terrorized a large population of
Speaker 1: American people. This case would be the first use of
Speaker 1: the law in a criminal trial. Because it was so new,
Speaker 1: it was possible for the statute to be challenged and
Speaker 1: potentially overturned. But it found guilty on either count of
Speaker 1: capital murder, Mohammed would be eligible for the death penalty.
Speaker 1: The third and fourth counts were for conspiracy to commit
Speaker 1: murder and illegal use of a firearm, respectively. On October
Speaker 1: two thousand three, Mohammed's trial began in Virginia Beach. So
Speaker 1: the Mohammed trial starts, and they pick a jury and
Speaker 1: it turns into a zoo. The first trial for the
Speaker 1: sniper attacks that left the Washington d C. Area traumatized
Speaker 1: a year ago began with a stunning development. Sniper defendant
Speaker 1: John Mohammed suddenly asked to represent himself, but judge said
Speaker 1: he thought Mohammed was making a mistake, but granted the
Speaker 1: request anyway, ordering the defense lawyers to stay on as advisors.
Speaker 1: One of the really most alarming moments was when Mohammed
Speaker 1: stood to represent himself. This is Washington Post journalist Josh White.
Speaker 1: He had two of the best lawyers possible. Johnathan Shapiro
Speaker 1: and Peter Greenspun are two of the most experienced trial
Speaker 1: attorneys in Virginia. They're the people you want representing you
Speaker 1: in a capital case. They have an immense amount of
Speaker 1: experience and had been making the right constitutional arguments and
Speaker 1: had been preparing for it for a very long time,
Speaker 1: and he rested the case away from them. We had
Speaker 1: never heard from Mohammed at that point, and he stood
Speaker 1: up in court and presenting a case. Here's an excerpt
Speaker 1: from John Mohammed's opening statement, read by a voice actor.
Speaker 1: Good evening. I would like to thank the judge for
Speaker 1: giving me the opportunity to speak. I like reading and
Speaker 1: learning about words. One of the things I was fascinated
Speaker 1: by coming into this strange world. It's three truths, the truth,
Speaker 1: the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I always
Speaker 1: thought it was just the truth. Apparently I was wrong.
Speaker 1: So I did some checking to find out what is
Speaker 1: it about these three truths? Same thing, but yet they
Speaker 1: are different in an interesting way. It gave you a
Speaker 1: little bit of insight into how he was thinking. What
Speaker 1: he essentially presented was logical. He made the argument that
Speaker 1: no one had seen him do anything, which was true.
Speaker 1: No one had seen him do anything. No one saw
Speaker 1: him with the gun except when he was arrested with
Speaker 1: it in his car. His argument was he told him
Speaker 1: an allegory about how his daughter had reached into a
Speaker 1: cookie jar, or so he thought. I remember an incident
Speaker 1: when I was in the Caribbean. My favorite daughter, believe,
Speaker 1: but she loves chocolate cookies. As I was leaving one day,
Speaker 1: she said, Daddy, can I have some chocolate cookies? And
Speaker 1: I said, sure, I'll come back. We'll go to the
Speaker 1: store and we'll get some chocolate cookies, but don't go
Speaker 1: in the cookie jar and get no chocolate cookies until
Speaker 1: I come back. She said, I won't, Daddy, I won't.
Speaker 1: So I leave. I come back an hour later. I
Speaker 1: see my baby daughter out in the yard like the
Speaker 1: cookies in her head. I am upset now because from
Speaker 1: what I seen, she disobeyed. I got the evidence in
Speaker 1: her hands. I got her eating cookies. I even got
Speaker 1: her sister saying she saw her going in the cookie job.
Speaker 1: So I'm very upset now because my baby daughter lied
Speaker 1: to and he blamed her for taking the cookies. But
Speaker 1: he had not seen it, and it turned out that
Speaker 1: he was wrong to have blamed her, that she didn't
Speaker 1: take the cookies. She was actually putting cookies in the
Speaker 1: job and I didn't know. I thought to leave, but
Speaker 1: had disobeyed me. But she really, she really hadn't disobeyed me.
Speaker 1: She actually got cookies from the store and not out
Speaker 1: of the cookie job. I asked her not to take
Speaker 1: cookies out of the cookie job, and she didn't. But
Speaker 1: I was basing that on what I saw. I was
Speaker 1: basing that or what I guessed at what happened. But
Speaker 1: I didn't know that what happened. And his explanation to
Speaker 1: the jury was, how can you hold me responsible for
Speaker 1: something that no one saw me? Do you know? I think,
Speaker 1: like in any criminal case, when a defendant starts representing themselves,
Speaker 1: it's something that their lawyers really don't want to see.
Speaker 1: And he stepped into a number of problems for himself.
Speaker 1: Bruce Scooth says Mohammed's decision to represent himself was more
Speaker 1: of a stunt than anything, and that stunt cost him
Speaker 1: any amount of pity he might have gotten from the jury.
Speaker 1: This is him. He's cocky, and he's making a complete
Speaker 1: joke out of the judicial system. The court room has
Speaker 1: family members in her of these victims, and he's basically
Speaker 1: making fun of them. It is how cold this guy was.
Speaker 1: He's trying to cross examine people. Oh, it was just
Speaker 1: a complete zoo and a judge kept saying, you know,
Speaker 1: use your lawyers, and the lawyers are mad and they
Speaker 1: wanted a mistrial. After making his opening statement, Mohammed began
Speaker 1: to question witnesses. So talk about crazy circumstances and weird
Speaker 1: events in your life. I was being questioned by the
Speaker 1: guy who tried to kill me. He wasn't the guy
Speaker 1: that pulled the trigger, but he was the brains behind it.
Speaker 1: This is Paul Larufa, the victims shot on September five,
Speaker 1: two thousand two, in Clinton, Maryland. Larufa was sitting in
Speaker 1: his car that night, about to leave his restaurant when
Speaker 1: five shots rang out from the driver's side, shattering the
Speaker 1: window and badly injuring his left arm and torso. It
Speaker 1: had been just over a year since that traumatic event.
Speaker 1: Larufa was dealing with PTSD and was still wearing a
Speaker 1: brace on his arm. Since he was one of the
Speaker 1: initial victims in the d C sniper case, he was
Speaker 1: one of the first witnesses to testify. My fear was
Speaker 1: is that, like you see on TV, the lawyer comes
Speaker 1: right up to the witness box and gets pretty close
Speaker 1: to you. And I said, that's gonna make me feel
Speaker 1: really weird. And they said, now you'll be okay because
Speaker 1: the judge made a ruling that he can't do that.
Speaker 1: He can't get close to you. He was fifteen feet away,
Speaker 1: and that made me feel better. It was still hard testifying.
Speaker 1: I had told the story many many times, and it
Speaker 1: was different telling it in the courtroom. When they called me,
Speaker 1: I was waiting outside and they call you in and
Speaker 1: you walk in. Talk about all eyes being on you.
Speaker 1: A couple of hundred people are there, and it is
Speaker 1: quieter than a church. You could hear a pin drop,
Speaker 1: and you make the walk from the back door to
Speaker 1: the front of the courtroom and they swear you in
Speaker 1: and they asked me questions. You know, I broke down
Speaker 1: a little bit when they asked me about being shot.
Speaker 1: It was a lot more emotional for me than I thought.
Speaker 1: And that was from the prosecution side asking me all
Speaker 1: those questions. They're on my side now. Mohammed, acting in
Speaker 1: his own defense, he said something initially that was crazy,
Speaker 1: and the judge told him he couldn't say stuff like that.
Speaker 1: He said, I know what it's like to have my
Speaker 1: life on the line, or something like that, and what
Speaker 1: he was implying was that me being shot and him
Speaker 1: facing the death penalty was somehow the same. We were
Speaker 1: both facing death. I didn't say anything. I probably could
Speaker 1: have said, what are you talking about? You're crazy? And
Speaker 1: then he asked me something simple. He asked me if
Speaker 1: I saw the person's face who shot me. I said no,
Speaker 1: I didn't. I didn't see his face. And that was it.
Speaker 1: To this day, it's just crazily ironic that. I don't
Speaker 1: know how many people have that experience of being questioned
Speaker 1: in court by the person who tried to kill you.
Speaker 1: The same day that Larufa testified, prosecutors also called forensic
Speaker 1: experts to the stand. The firearms examiner named Walter Dandridge.
Speaker 1: He was the one guy that examined all the bullet
Speaker 1: fragments and the gun. He's the one that made all
Speaker 1: the matches taller cases. He was so good. The whole
Speaker 1: world was watching, and so there was a lot of pressure.
Speaker 1: Dandridge presented his findings from the investigation. Forensics had linked
Speaker 1: all of the bullets from the DC shootings to the
Speaker 1: same gun. Those bullets also matched the ammunition used by
Speaker 1: the Bushmaster found in the Blue Caprice. Work in the
Speaker 1: evidence and then testifying it was much more stressful because
Speaker 1: of the visibility. I was cross examined by Mohammad when
Speaker 1: he was acting as his own defense attorney, and he
Speaker 1: didn't think I knew what I was talking about as
Speaker 1: far as the handling of the fire arm, and he
Speaker 1: was kind of lecturing me on how this firearm work.
Speaker 1: Mohammed only represented himself for one full day. Eventually Mohammed
Speaker 1: relented and gave the case back to his attorneys. He
Speaker 1: claimed he had a toothache and could no longer represent himself.
Speaker 1: But we did get some really amazing moments of hearing
Speaker 1: him speak and question witnesses. And you know, one of
Speaker 1: his most effective questions was did you see me do anything?
Speaker 1: And the answer was no. The basis of his argument
Speaker 1: would ultimately be his official legal defense that there was
Speaker 1: no direct evidence linking Mohammed to the crimes without a
Speaker 1: confession or witness who saw him at a crime scene.
Speaker 1: All the prosecution had was circumstantial evidence. The problem, I
Speaker 1: think ultimately was it was a very strong circumstantial case
Speaker 1: against him. All of the evidence was in his car,
Speaker 1: was on the gun, but still no one has ever
Speaker 1: proven who he killed or didn't kill. The argument prosecutors
Speaker 1: made was it didn't matter who fired the gun. It
Speaker 1: didn't matter whose finger was on that trigger. They used
Speaker 1: some novel legal arguments to show that it was essentially
Speaker 1: one system that killed the vehicle, was the weapon just
Speaker 1: as much as the gun was, and that it was
Speaker 1: a team that carried out these crimes. Records show that
Speaker 1: the blue Caprice had been seen or identified at a
Speaker 1: number of the crime scenes. Although neither Malvo nor Mohammad
Speaker 1: were spotted at those scenes, both of them were found
Speaker 1: in the car and that implicated them in the murders.
Speaker 1: Here's Virginia Prosecutor Paul Ebert. Again, snipers are not solitary.
Speaker 1: They have two or three mallion teams typically, and I
Speaker 1: wanted you to know that right off the bat. The
Speaker 1: most important part the sniper team is a spotter. They
Speaker 1: look to make sure no cars were coming. A lot
Speaker 1: of things into spotder, to do aid and a bed.
Speaker 1: The actual shooter, an actual shooter, really had an as
Speaker 1: your job allow export shot. Question is when do you
Speaker 1: do it and how do you do it? To demonstrate
Speaker 1: how the pair operated, prosecutors made a full size model
Speaker 1: of the back half of the Caprice. They showed how
Speaker 1: the car had been altered and likely utilized to make
Speaker 1: shooting easier. Here's Bruce Gooth. We reenacted getting in the
Speaker 1: back of that caprice with the back seat in it.
Speaker 1: We used swat guys the same size, and we had
Speaker 1: them crawl into the back trunk and how would you
Speaker 1: position yourself and you know, pop the trunk open and
Speaker 1: put the barrel out through the hole they cut in
Speaker 1: the car and blah blah blah. Mohammed's trial in Virginia
Speaker 1: lasted just over a month. On November two, three closing
Speaker 1: arguments were made by both sides. Attorney Peter Greenspun gave
Speaker 1: the defenses closing argument. Here's an excerpt read by a
Speaker 1: voice actor. You may convict John Alan Mohammed uncircumstantial evidence alone,
Speaker 1: which is what prosecutors have sought to do here effectively.
Speaker 1: When the Commonwealth relies upon circumstantial evidence, the circumstances must
Speaker 1: be consistent with guilt and inconsistent with innocence. It is
Speaker 1: not sufficient that the circumstances proved create a suspicion of guilt,
Speaker 1: however strong, or even a probability of guilt. The evidence
Speaker 1: as a whole must exclude every reasonable theory of innocence.
Speaker 1: So that's where you get into what I call the
Speaker 1: gut feelings. I know it, but can't explain it. This
Speaker 1: instruction tells you that that is not sufficient to find
Speaker 1: anyone guilty in a trespass case, but most importantly in
Speaker 1: a capital murder prosecution, you're going to have to find
Speaker 1: your own sense of comfort as far as what that is.
Speaker 1: Then Attorney Richard Conway gave the prosecutions closing argument. Here's
Speaker 1: an excerpt of that, read by a voice actor. He's
Speaker 1: charged with the two offenses of capital murder. He's charged
Speaker 1: with conspiracy to commit murder, and he's charged with using
Speaker 1: a firearm during the commission of a murder. Yes, in
Speaker 1: order to convict Mr Mohammed of capital murder of killing
Speaker 1: more than one person in three years, you have to
Speaker 1: find he was a principal in the first degree. But
Speaker 1: for the capital murder during an act of terrorism, you
Speaker 1: don't have to find that. We have the same first
Speaker 1: two elements. That Mr Dean Myers was killed, no question
Speaker 1: that the killing was willful, deliberate, and premeditated. No question
Speaker 1: that the killing occurred during the commission of or attempted
Speaker 1: commission of an act of terrorism, and that either he
Speaker 1: was the principle in the first degree or someone else
Speaker 1: was a principle in the first degree acting at his
Speaker 1: direction or order. So either way, and I suggest to
Speaker 1: you that these two, him and Malvo are both principle
Speaker 1: in the first degree. Over the course of two days,
Speaker 1: the jury deliberated for six and a half hours. Judge
Speaker 1: LeRoi Mollett Jr. Told jurors that they did not have
Speaker 1: to find that Mohammed actually fired the gun in any
Speaker 1: of the killings. He instructed them that Mohammed merely had
Speaker 1: to be a joint participant to be found guilty. On
Speaker 1: novem the verdict came back. John Mohammed was found guilty
Speaker 1: on all counts in the DC sniper shootings. He was
Speaker 1: also found guilty of carrying out the attacks to terrorize
Speaker 1: the population. Here's Virginia Police Lieutenant Bruce Gooth. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was pretty clear that there's no way that jury
Speaker 1: was not going to convict him. The evidence was so
Speaker 1: overwhelming and it was pretty clear that you know, he
Speaker 1: was directing the orchestra with him in Malbow. Prosecutors were
Speaker 1: confident that John Mohammed would be found guilty, but their
Speaker 1: primary goal was to get the death penalty. His actual
Speaker 1: sentencing would be decided in the next phase of the trial.
Speaker 1: For this phase, prosecutors had to call new witnesses who
Speaker 1: demonstrated that Mohammed was in fact deserving of a death sentence.
Speaker 1: One of the people to testify was Isa Nichols, John
Speaker 1: and Mildred Mohammed's former accountant. I entered the courtroom. I
Speaker 1: hadn't seen John since the day of his custody case
Speaker 1: in Tacoma. So I entered the courtroom and he's there
Speaker 1: to orange jumped suit. I was asked to identify him
Speaker 1: in the courtroom, and I pointed to him, and I
Speaker 1: wanted him to look at me, but he wouldn't look
Speaker 1: at me. He just sat there in the stair. I'm
Speaker 1: answering the prosecutors questions about who he was. He wasn't
Speaker 1: the same man that I knew at all. He was disassociated.
Speaker 1: He was still maintaining his innocence in this whole entire case. Finally,
Speaker 1: on November three, after another five hours of the liberation,
Speaker 1: the jury reached a verdict. As he has throughout the trial,
Speaker 1: John Mohammed displayed no emotion when the verdict was read.
Speaker 1: Death on two counts. Death penalty reserved for the worst
Speaker 1: of the worst, and we thanking Mr Mohammed fell in
Speaker 1: that category, and the jury agreed. Some jurors said today
Speaker 1: they were moved by home video that showed a loving
Speaker 1: Mohammed with his children. One juror said he originally voted
Speaker 1: for life, but decided just last night that Mohammed was
Speaker 1: too dangerous. The lack of remorse, the possibility, no probability
Speaker 1: that down the road there will be more casualties from
Speaker 1: this span. The big moment for me was when they
Speaker 1: actually sentenced Mohammed. This is Bruce Guth again. I became
Speaker 1: very close with Linda Franklin's daughter and her family. She
Speaker 1: lived in Virginia Beach ironically, and we'd pick her up
Speaker 1: every day and take her to court. One of the
Speaker 1: detectives and myself or somebody would pick her up and
Speaker 1: her husband at the time, and she had a young baby.
Speaker 1: She came to court every single day for both trials.
Speaker 1: We were all sitting in court the day when the
Speaker 1: jury came back with what the penalty was. The jury
Speaker 1: comes back and they give the sentence of death from
Speaker 1: Mohammed multiple times, and there was somewhat of an outbreak
Speaker 1: in the courtroom. You know, the families were not excited
Speaker 1: because some of them didn't even believe in the death penalty,
Speaker 1: but they understood the law. There was like an initial
Speaker 1: out person. It got definitely quiet. The hair in the
Speaker 1: back of my head stood up. The court only allowed
Speaker 1: a still photographer in the courtroom. They didn't allow TV
Speaker 1: cameras or any other photography. So there was one photographer
Speaker 1: way back in the corner the whole time of the trial.
Speaker 1: And you hear click click click click click all throughout
Speaker 1: the trial. So everybody gets up to leave, and Linda
Speaker 1: Franklin's daughter comes over to me. The courtrooms pretty much
Speaker 1: three quarters four fifts cleared out, and she puts her
Speaker 1: arms around me, and she's weeping, and she just goes
Speaker 1: on about her mother and what we did for her
Speaker 1: and the Task Force and keeping her in touch and
Speaker 1: you know, getting justice for her mother, and she couldn't
Speaker 1: thank us enough. And I lost it. I break out crying,
Speaker 1: you know, I buried my head in my hands, and
Speaker 1: I hear the photographer click click click click click click click. Well,
Speaker 1: the next morning, wake up. My picture is on the
Speaker 1: front page of every newspaper in the country, crying like
Speaker 1: a baby in the middle of this courthouse. I took
Speaker 1: a lot of ribbing for that. You know, it's just
Speaker 1: that whole moment with her and how it affected her,
Speaker 1: and you know, being exhausted, and it just finally hit me.
Speaker 1: The judge would later accept the jury's recommendation and officially
Speaker 1: condemned John Mohammed to death. He would go to Sussex
Speaker 1: one State prison while he awaited a date for his execution.
Speaker 1: My only concern was for my children. This is Mildry Mohammed,
Speaker 1: ex wife of John Mohammed. When he went to trial,
Speaker 1: my son said, well, Mom, I don't want him to
Speaker 1: go to the court. I told them that whatever the
Speaker 1: jury comes back with, that's what we're going to accept.
Speaker 1: So when they decided that it would be the death penalty,
Speaker 1: I asked to be released from work so I could
Speaker 1: tell them. And so as they came in the door,
Speaker 1: I told my daughters and they say, well, are they
Speaker 1: going to do it tomorrow? I said, no, They're not
Speaker 1: doing it tomorrow. There's a process. I'm pretty sure he
Speaker 1: has some appeals and then after he has exhausted all
Speaker 1: of his appeals, then they will determine a date and
Speaker 1: at that time he will be executed. As before, Mohammed
Speaker 1: refused to talk to anyone about what happened those many
Speaker 1: weeks during the sniper spree. Meanwhile, prosecutors had to shift
Speaker 1: gears to focus on Lee Boyd Malvo's trial. Malvo was
Speaker 1: facing two counts of capital murder, one for the killing
Speaker 1: of Linda Franklin on October four, two thousand two, another
Speaker 1: under the same terrorism statute used to charge John Mohammed.
Speaker 1: Malvo pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. His trial
Speaker 1: began on November tenth, two thousand three, in Chesapeake, Virginia.
Speaker 1: The defenses opening statement was made by Attorney Craig Cooley.
Speaker 1: Here's an excerpt read by a voice actor. May it
Speaker 1: please the court, gentleman and commonwealth, good morning to you.
Speaker 1: They have a saying in Jamaica that describes the form
Speaker 1: of child rearing that was used by Lee's mother and
Speaker 1: many of his caretakers. It's called save the Eye. Save
Speaker 1: the eye means you, as a parent, take your child
Speaker 1: to a teacher, to a caretaker, anyone who keeps them,
Speaker 1: and you say to them, use whatever is necessary to
Speaker 1: make my child obey you. You can beat him. You
Speaker 1: can beat him with whatever you want to, but do
Speaker 1: two things. Don't kill him and don't put out his eye.
Speaker 1: Save the eye. That's what that phrase means. Save the
Speaker 1: eye is a concept that breeds, in fact, it mandates obedient.
Speaker 1: And every adult that you will hear from that newly
Speaker 1: malvo from a young child to his young adolescence is
Speaker 1: going to boil down to if you ask them, tell
Speaker 1: me one word, in one word, tell me about that child,
Speaker 1: they're going to say obedient. And if you say, okay,
Speaker 1: you can use two words, they're going to say very obedient.
Speaker 1: And you are going to see from the evidence in
Speaker 1: this case how that seemingly favorable quality in a child
Speaker 1: made him incredibly vulnerable and susceptible to a man who
Speaker 1: was prepared to manipulate him and took him in and
Speaker 1: used him and trained him and indoctrinated him for his
Speaker 1: own deluded purposes. The defense attorney's dressed him like a schoolboy,
Speaker 1: for lack of a better description, when we go to
Speaker 1: Catholic school, you had to wear, you know, little Khaki's
Speaker 1: long sleeve white shirt with a little vest on. So
Speaker 1: he'd come in dressed up like a young boy. We're
Speaker 1: not going to address him with a big old rifle
Speaker 1: across his chest, and we're not going to address him with,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe a pot leaf on the back of
Speaker 1: his shirt. You say, you dress them appropriately, and obviously
Speaker 1: you're gonna dress him look at their age. This is
Speaker 1: attorney Tom Walsh. He worked alongside attorney Mark Petrovitch on
Speaker 1: Malbo's defense team. Here's Petrovitch again. To put him in
Speaker 1: a suit I think would be artificial, that wasn't a
Speaker 1: part of his background. That's not where it came from. Sure,
Speaker 1: we certainly didn't want to air on the side of
Speaker 1: making him look more mature. Of course, that would be
Speaker 1: foolish on our part, so we made sure that the
Speaker 1: clothes were more age appropriate for his age group, in
Speaker 1: his age range. I think that's that's a fair way
Speaker 1: to put it. But Bruce Scooth says that during the
Speaker 1: trial Malvo didn't act at all like a polite young man.
Speaker 1: That little piece of ship started getting on everybody's nerve.
Speaker 1: The thing that really put me over the top how
Speaker 1: he acted in court when the jury would come in.
Speaker 1: He'd sit straight up like he was, you know, very polite,
Speaker 1: and he'd write notes, and he, you know, wouldn't make
Speaker 1: any faces. The minute to jury would walk out, he
Speaker 1: would turn around and look at the families and smile
Speaker 1: at the families, you know, just rubbing it in their face,
Speaker 1: and you just wanted to go up and just grab
Speaker 1: them by the collar. He was just beyond mean and cruel.
Speaker 1: And then the jury walked back and he'd sit there
Speaker 1: like a young school child. Again, that did not happen.
Speaker 1: Those deputies wouldn't let him turn around. He sat beside
Speaker 1: us all day during court and then he was out.
Speaker 1: He was not disrespectful. I don't ever remember seeing him
Speaker 1: laugh at a victim. A matter of fact, there's a
Speaker 1: rule on witnesses, and the victims would come in and
Speaker 1: testify and generally leave. They didn't want to stay in
Speaker 1: the courtroom, so they would have to leave the courtroom,
Speaker 1: so they wouldn't have a chance that breaks to turn
Speaker 1: around and laugh at anybody. The deputes wouldn't let that happen.
Speaker 1: Guth also says that Malvo would sit there and draw
Speaker 1: for most of the hearings. Usually he drew the people
Speaker 1: who went up on the witness stand. We'd come into
Speaker 1: court for some motion, the judge would come out and
Speaker 1: sit down, a deputy or two deputies would be in
Speaker 1: between her and him. He would be able to draw
Speaker 1: exactly what he saw. You know, the judge even looked
Speaker 1: like the judge. The deputies was far down detail of
Speaker 1: their shaff patches, and he put like crosshairs on the
Speaker 1: judge's forehead or on the deputy's forehead. And he was
Speaker 1: so good. I mean, the guy could have gone professionally
Speaker 1: and been an artist. He was unbelievable. We encouraged him
Speaker 1: to draw, and the drawings that he drew in court
Speaker 1: were amazing. He's very talented and I still have some
Speaker 1: of those drawings. There were some drawings that were out
Speaker 1: during the beginning of the course where he's drawing cross
Speaker 1: hairs of a scope on a sniper rifle, things of
Speaker 1: that nature. We found out about the drawings and did
Speaker 1: a search. Warran got all his drawings and we had
Speaker 1: a whole book, one of the Blue Book of pictures
Speaker 1: he drew. Used him against him, not that the prosecution
Speaker 1: needed the drawings to prove his guilt. After Malvo admitted
Speaker 1: on tape during an early interrogation to most of the shootings,
Speaker 1: his guilty sentencing was all but guaranteed. When we go
Speaker 1: back and look at it, the whole goal really was
Speaker 1: just to avoid a death sentence. We knew there would
Speaker 1: be a tremendous amount of information against Lee. They had
Speaker 1: solidified a case that he at the very least participated
Speaker 1: in all the shootings. His involvement may have been debated somewhat,
Speaker 1: but there was a mountain of evidence against him. So
Speaker 1: we knew we were going to be facing the death penalty,
Speaker 1: and given that there were so many victims in such
Speaker 1: a horrific path that they had gone through, we knew
Speaker 1: it was gonna be a huge, uphill battle. So from
Speaker 1: day one it was our goal just to avoid a
Speaker 1: death penalty. Walsh and Petrovitch knew that prosecutors had the
Speaker 1: tape of Malvo admitting to the murders and that they
Speaker 1: would use it as direct evidence to convict Malvo, So
Speaker 1: to avoid the worst possible sentence, they decided to make
Speaker 1: the case that Malvo was under Mohammed's control the entire time,
Speaker 1: and that when he admitted to the murders on tape,
Speaker 1: it was because he had been brainwashed by Mohammed to
Speaker 1: take the fall. This is why Malvo pleaded not guilty
Speaker 1: by reason of insanity. Part of Mohammed's indoctrination was to
Speaker 1: desensitize Lee to the violence, to shootings, to the consequences
Speaker 1: of what happened. Mohammed was having him with earphones in
Speaker 1: in Bellingham, Washington, watching video games, in violent video games,
Speaker 1: so that was part of it. That was part of
Speaker 1: the indoctrination on shooting things without any feelings. That was
Speaker 1: during the time when he started to shoot guns and stuff.
Speaker 1: Petrovitch says that in court, the defense played a video
Speaker 1: tape that Mohammed often made Malvo watch. It was an
Speaker 1: instructional video with advice for snipers, Carlos Hathcock Marine sniper.
Speaker 1: It was an interview of him, and he would talk
Speaker 1: about how he would line his kills up and how
Speaker 1: he would shoot somebody from long distances yet could see
Speaker 1: that the he got the bullet right through the eye,
Speaker 1: and after each kind of anecdotal segment of his interview,
Speaker 1: he would kind of chuckle and say and it was
Speaker 1: kind of a cadence throughout the interview. Just so it
Speaker 1: happened right way Zero comes home with a hamburger, and
Speaker 1: he stepped right across the spot where was he going
Speaker 1: and he been old, brush his teeth, get a drink,
Speaker 1: whatever you're doing. And if he handerstood up, I went
Speaker 1: over the head. But as luck would happen, East did up.
Speaker 1: He caught that chuck lad. And then we drew the
Speaker 1: parallel between that interview and Lee's interview when they first
Speaker 1: brought him into the Massy building, when they first brought
Speaker 1: him into Virginia, and when you listen to the interrogation,
Speaker 1: that's how Lee answered the questions. He would say something
Speaker 1: and he would give it that chuckle, the exact same
Speaker 1: cadence and the exact same chuckle. And that illustrated the
Speaker 1: point that this is how Mohammed controlled him and indoctrinated
Speaker 1: him and essentially programmed him what to do and how
Speaker 1: to do it. So their whole defense was a Malo
Speaker 1: was a kid. He didn't know what he was doing.
Speaker 1: He grew up in Jamaica, he didn't have a father,
Speaker 1: His father did nothing with them, spent little time, and
Speaker 1: they just paraded witness after witness after witness. The defence
Speaker 1: team also wanted to prove that before John Mohammed came
Speaker 1: into Malboe's life, he was an intelligent, well mannered child.
Speaker 1: When you want to tell a story in court, it's
Speaker 1: best to tell that story through anecdotal witnesses that can
Speaker 1: provide details of what they actually observed and what the
Speaker 1: people were actually doing at certain times. Why was it
Speaker 1: important to get the witnesses from the Caribbean, from Washington State,
Speaker 1: from Louis at it because they showed to the court
Speaker 1: directly to the jury directly what they observed with League
Speaker 1: growing up in the Caribbean, and then the interactions between
Speaker 1: Mohammed and Lee after Lee met him, and what was
Speaker 1: going on with regard to the indoctrination. And they also
Speaker 1: really highlighted how he was a good student and was
Speaker 1: just really eager to learn. He wanted to pursue education,
Speaker 1: and he never got the chance to settle down in
Speaker 1: any one place. This was a good narrative that we
Speaker 1: wanted to present to the journey to show why he
Speaker 1: got into the predicament he got into. This wasn't Lee,
Speaker 1: this was John Mohammed. But the prosecution also had witness
Speaker 1: testimony that they could use to their advantage. Like Mohammed,
Speaker 1: Malvo had to face witnesses, family members, and the victims themselves.
Speaker 1: Here's Bruce Gooth, the witnesses were even better than I anticipated.
Speaker 1: There was a doctor who was at the Exxon where
Speaker 1: a taxi driver was filling up gas and he gets
Speaker 1: shot while he's umping gas, and this pediatrician is in
Speaker 1: the car next to him, and she sees this blood
Speaker 1: spatter and him slide down and she runs over and
Speaker 1: helps him. That pediatrician was Dr Caroline Namro. She says
Speaker 1: it was jarring to come face to face with Malville
Speaker 1: for the first time. I remember feeling just basically shock
Speaker 1: and disbelief that he could have done this. Where the
Speaker 1: witness stand was placed was very close, maybe a few
Speaker 1: feet away from the defense table. And I remember he
Speaker 1: was wearing a cream sweater, like almost like an Irish
Speaker 1: nit and you know, he was a good looking boy,
Speaker 1: and he was drawing on a pad the whole time
Speaker 1: that the prosecutor was asking me questions. I remember looking
Speaker 1: over and he was just drawing, and I remember the
Speaker 1: he just looks so innocent. How shocking, how shocking that
Speaker 1: a person who could commit such evil acts could look
Speaker 1: like that, like this innocent young teenager. I've never been
Speaker 1: face to face with the murderer before. You sort of
Speaker 1: expect in your mind somebody's gonna look evil. But then
Speaker 1: when you actually faced with this young, innocent, good looking
Speaker 1: guy like he did this, he could do this, This
Speaker 1: was inside him to commit such horrific acts of violence.
Speaker 1: It totally blows your mind. I was totally shocked. Namro
Speaker 1: recount at the morning of October three in grave detail
Speaker 1: for the jury. She told them how she was pumping
Speaker 1: gas when she heard a loud bang and prim Kumara
Speaker 1: Wallacker collapsed on the side of her car, his blood everywhere.
Speaker 1: She runs over and helps him, you know, does doctor
Speaker 1: stuff to try to save him. And he keeps saying
Speaker 1: to her, I'm gonna die or I'm going to die,
Speaker 1: And she said, I had to lie to him. She goes,
Speaker 1: I told him he was going to live, but I
Speaker 1: knew he was going to die. She had the whole
Speaker 1: courtroom crying. You know, that was one of those moments,
Speaker 1: you know, it put the whole thing in Respective how
Speaker 1: they ruined families, the jury had to determine whether Malvo
Speaker 1: truly had been under the control of John Mohammed when
Speaker 1: he committed his crimes, but the question of whether Malvo
Speaker 1: was quote brainwashed is to this day a point of contention.
Speaker 1: I believe that Lee Malvo. When I looked at him,
Speaker 1: I knew he was a victim. He was a child
Speaker 1: who had been brainwashed because I knew John and what
Speaker 1: he was capable of. This is Isa Nichols, again, the
Speaker 1: former accountant for John and Meldry Mohammed. She attended Malvo's
Speaker 1: trial as an audience member, and I think back as
Speaker 1: I stared at him, he had to be fifteen when
Speaker 1: he met John in Antigua. He was very young and
Speaker 1: considered John his father because he was calling him dad.
Speaker 1: He didn't have his father in his life. So whatever
Speaker 1: they did in Antigua, John became that role. John had
Speaker 1: trained him and turned him into a killer. Isa believes
Speaker 1: the defense's argument that Malvo was brainwashed by John Mohammed,
Speaker 1: but Virginia Police Lieutenant Bruce Gooth is not so convinced.
Speaker 1: I don't think he was brainwashed. You know, I'm not
Speaker 1: a doctor, but you know been doing this a long time.
Speaker 1: Clearly Mohammed was influencing him, and Mohammed got him into this.
Speaker 1: It became almost a video game to Malvo, and he
Speaker 1: liked it. He liked killing. You know, I'm convinced if
Speaker 1: he got out tomorrow he would do it again. His
Speaker 1: i Q was out of this world. So you know
Speaker 1: this notion that he didn't know what he was doing
Speaker 1: when he ceased. Linda Franklin's head getting blown off, or
Speaker 1: lady sitting on the bus stop read a book and
Speaker 1: the bullet goes through the book into her head. But
Speaker 1: many experts believed that Malvo was not in control of
Speaker 1: his actions, including psychologist Jonathan Mack, who co wrote a
Speaker 1: book about Malvo. He was a juvenile at the time
Speaker 1: that this occurred. He was completely innocent at the time
Speaker 1: when Mohammed found him, and over the course of a
Speaker 1: year and a half two years, because Malvo was so
Speaker 1: susceptible to brainwashing, yes, he became essentially the puppet of
Speaker 1: this fortysomething year old bad actor, Mohammed. Max says that
Speaker 1: Malvo was especially vulnerable because he had experienced a lot
Speaker 1: of violence growing up in Jamaica, and because he had
Speaker 1: little to no parental guidance or home stability. As a result,
Speaker 1: Malvo developed with mac colls reactive attachment disorder, where he
Speaker 1: coped by blindly attaching himself to whoever will care for him.
Speaker 1: I don't think it can be stated strongly enough that
Speaker 1: you take an individual with reactive attachment disorder chronic depression,
Speaker 1: with one broken attachment after another, who is trying to
Speaker 1: do well, who is a model student new school for
Speaker 1: the most part, and abandon him in a shock and
Speaker 1: expect that he's not going to be vulnerable to a
Speaker 1: bad actor if the bad actor happens to be smart
Speaker 1: enough to show the kid what the kid needs and
Speaker 1: it's desperately looking for you. Combine that with the fact
Speaker 1: that the adult brain is not fully mature, as we
Speaker 1: have learned in the past twenty years, until the age
Speaker 1: of five, and that in particular executive frontal function, which
Speaker 1: involves reflection on our behavior and making choices that disinhibit
Speaker 1: impulse or impulsive decisions in favor of doing the right thing,
Speaker 1: that part of the brain is not fully pruned and
Speaker 1: developed until mid twenties. Mohammed got started when Malvo was
Speaker 1: ten years junior to that, at the age of fifteen.
Speaker 1: Max says that Mohammed used movies and video games as
Speaker 1: part of his indoctrination of Malvo. One of those movies
Speaker 1: was The Matrix, The Reality and the Matrix. There was
Speaker 1: no absolute right and wrong, right and wrong became relative
Speaker 1: to the Master's view. During one scene, the master in
Speaker 1: this case Morpheus, instructs the student Neo about the parameters
Speaker 1: of reality within the matrix. Morpheus says, quote, the matrix
Speaker 1: is a system, Neo, that system is our enemy. But
Speaker 1: when you're inside, you look around. What do you see? Businessman, teachers, lawyers, carpenters,
Speaker 1: the very minds of the people we are trying to save.
Speaker 1: But until we do, these people are still a part
Speaker 1: of that system, and that makes them our enemy. He
Speaker 1: had to rewrite Malvo's conscience and begin to inculcate a
Speaker 1: structure in Malbo's mind where right and wrong were never absolute,
Speaker 1: but according to what the Master said, it was, And
Speaker 1: Mohammed put himself in the place of the Master, which
Speaker 1: was fairly easy to do with Malvo because he was
Speaker 1: so desperate to have a father figure. Mac is of
Speaker 1: the opinion that Mohammed was enough of an influence on
Speaker 1: Malvo that he did, in fact brainwash him into doing
Speaker 1: his bidding, But not everyone is convinced that brainwashing, as
Speaker 1: we think of it, is even a real thing. I
Speaker 1: think the word is just so loaded. The word is
Speaker 1: just so electric and so powerful that to say brainwashing
Speaker 1: basically dismisses everything. My name is Jenny Riker. I teach
Speaker 1: in the psychology apartment at Rocky Mountain College in Billings, Montana.
Speaker 1: I've published on brainwashing and Satanism, specifically how they relate
Speaker 1: to the legal system. Psychological techniques, no matter how well
Speaker 1: they're applied, cannot overcome free will. There's no amount of
Speaker 1: psychological coercion that would force somebody to, let's say, kill,
Speaker 1: if they didn't already have some kind of predisposition. According
Speaker 1: to Record, it's highly unlikely that Mohammed's influence alone would
Speaker 1: completely change Mohammed's decision making ability. Somewhere, Malvo's own willpower
Speaker 1: had to come into play when he made certain choices.
Speaker 1: It's a combination of both, basically, as a combination of
Speaker 1: a person's predisposition and exposure to these techniques and circumstance
Speaker 1: that leads to this outcome. But brainwashing basically dismisses everything. Okay,
Speaker 1: they were brainwashed, that's fine. No, it's just not that simple.
Speaker 1: Human beings are in incredibly complex. Still, Records suggests that
Speaker 1: Malvo's defense is a logical one, backed up by some science.
Speaker 1: In the academic study of quote unquote brainwashing. Many of
Speaker 1: the targets of brainwashing were typically American use. They were
Speaker 1: typically pretty isolated from family and friends. You take somebody
Speaker 1: who doesn't have very strong social ties, who don't have
Speaker 1: clear paths ahead of them, You monopolize their time, you
Speaker 1: reward desired behaviors, then you can get some compliance. Much
Speaker 1: of Malvo's story backed up his susceptibility to something like brainwashing.
Speaker 1: That makes the question of whether Malbo had sufficient agency
Speaker 1: even muddier. But all that really mattered was whether the
Speaker 1: court believed he was in control of his actions and
Speaker 1: if he could be rehabilitated. We asked record how the
Speaker 1: brainwashing defense might hold up for Malbo's insanity plea. Many
Speaker 1: times sentences are just ide it based on whether or
Speaker 1: not that person is considered kind of a danger to
Speaker 1: the community in the future, Like what's the likelihood that
Speaker 1: they'll commit this heinous crime again, And brainwashing is a
Speaker 1: pretty easy scapegoat. Well, if we deprogrammed them or we
Speaker 1: reverse this socialization, then there's no chance they'll ever commit
Speaker 1: that kind of crime again. I think somebody might try
Speaker 1: to use something like brainwashed behavior to support something like
Speaker 1: an insanity please, but insanity please are so incredibly rare.
Speaker 1: Courts very rarely accept them even when defendants try to
Speaker 1: use them, And when they are accepted, they're very, very
Speaker 1: rarely successful. Most standards for admissibility of scientific evidence really
Speaker 1: don't allow for brainwashing to be entered as scientific evidence.
Speaker 1: It really just it doesn't meet the hurdles. Essentially. Malvo's
Speaker 1: trial lasted roughly five weeks. On December three, both sides
Speaker 1: made their closing arguments. Attorney Michael arav gave the defenses statement.
Speaker 1: Here's an excerpt writ by a voice actor. Was Lee captive?
Speaker 1: What else can you call it? He could not escape
Speaker 1: from John Mohammed. The day he met John Mohammed, he
Speaker 1: lost Lee Malvo Without sounding overly melodramatic, the last victim
Speaker 1: of John Mohammed sits at the defense table today. That
Speaker 1: is the last victim. Malvo is the last victim of
Speaker 1: John Mohammed. All we ask is that you do one
Speaker 1: of two things today. You can either find Lee not
Speaker 1: guilty by reason of insanity, and you have to reach
Speaker 1: down to your conscience to do that. It is a
Speaker 1: very difficult decision. I believe we've proved our case to you.
Speaker 1: If you cannot reach that conclusion. I ask you to
Speaker 1: find him guilty of murder in the first degree. Lee
Speaker 1: was not the shooter. He was not the operative behind
Speaker 1: the letters, not the idea man. He was a follower.
Speaker 1: He was a pawn molded like a piece of clay
Speaker 1: to John Mohammed. Attorney Robert Horan gave the prosecution's closing argument.
Speaker 1: Here's an excerpt read by a voice actor members of
Speaker 1: the jury. There's no such thing as a good murder.
Speaker 1: They don't make them. They're all bad. And we submit
Speaker 1: to you that this one is as bad as any.
Speaker 1: The notion of killing innocent people, working people, ordinary citizens,
Speaker 1: killing them at random on the public streets. It's about
Speaker 1: as reprehensible as you can get it. And we make
Speaker 1: no excuses for John Mohammed. He's as bad as he is.
Speaker 1: But for all intents and purposes, their peas in a pod.
Speaker 1: The only difference is Malvo's younger. But their willingness to kill,
Speaker 1: and their willingness to do it for money, that's common
Speaker 1: to both of them. The most reprehensible of killing should
Speaker 1: be called what it is. It is a capital killing
Speaker 1: under the terrorism statue. It is a capital killing under
Speaker 1: the statute for killing two people within three years. We
Speaker 1: ask you, members of the jury, in all earnestness, to
Speaker 1: give him justice, give him a conviction for the two
Speaker 1: capital murders that he committed. Thank you. After closing arguments,
Speaker 1: the jury deliberated for two days. Then on December thousand three,
Speaker 1: the verdict came back. Lee Boyd Malvo was found guilty
Speaker 1: on both counts of capital murder. Based on Virginia law
Speaker 1: at the time, he was eligible for the death penalty.
Speaker 1: Now his trial would move into the sentencing phase, where
Speaker 1: his fate would be decided. Each side had to present
Speaker 1: an argument for why Malvo should or should not be
Speaker 1: sentenced to death. Attorney Robert Iran again gave the prosecution's argument.
Speaker 1: Here's an excerpt read by a voice actor. What was
Speaker 1: particularly sinister about this defendant is there is not an
Speaker 1: ounce of remorse. You have heard him sobbing and crying
Speaker 1: on different occasions. He is crying for himself. Is not
Speaker 1: prying for all those people he killed. He did not
Speaker 1: cry for Kenya Cook, He did not cry for Linda Franklin,
Speaker 1: He did not cry for Conrad Johnson. He sobs for himself.
Speaker 1: Remorse they have to invent it in order for you
Speaker 1: to find it. We submit to you it is not
Speaker 1: in this record. No remorse, Members of the jury, we
Speaker 1: submit to you. He is a major player. Is not
Speaker 1: only a major player, he is the sniper. Remember he
Speaker 1: says on that tape talking about Mohammed, we are a team, team, team,
Speaker 1: that is what he said. And they were an unholy team,
Speaker 1: a team that was as vicious, as brutal, as uncaring
Speaker 1: as you could find. Talk about John Mohammed all you want.
Speaker 1: Maybe it was his plan, maybe it was his idea.
Speaker 1: But the evidence stamps this defendant as the shooting. The
Speaker 1: evidence stamps this defendant as the killer. Members of the jury,
Speaker 1: we ask you for the penalty of death because the
Speaker 1: evidence calls for it. The evidence tells you you are
Speaker 1: dealing with the defendant who has proven by his actions
Speaker 1: that he has a depraved mind, and so we ask
Speaker 1: you for the ultimate punishment. Attorney Craig Cooley gave the
Speaker 1: defense his argument. Here's an excerpt read by a voice actor.
Speaker 1: Every life is precious, certainly the lives of innocent people
Speaker 1: who are lost by the delusions of John Mohammed. And
Speaker 1: also so precious is the life of Lee Malvo. But
Speaker 1: what lesson does the Commonwealth seek for us to send
Speaker 1: to our children when it urges us to kill this child,
Speaker 1: to teach them that killing is wrong. Our children should know,
Speaker 1: and Lee should know, that when you commit terrible acts,
Speaker 1: there is terrible punishment to follow. There are consequences. But
Speaker 1: you and I need to remember that the two greatest
Speaker 1: qualities we as human beings possess our compassion and love,
Speaker 1: and it's by our exercise of those that we all
Speaker 1: ultimately will be judged. Lee's life is about to be
Speaker 1: put in the hands of others. We're about to entrust
Speaker 1: the life of this child to you, and in a
Speaker 1: very real sense, you are the last of the very
Speaker 1: long line of caretakers to exercise your compassion. I leave
Speaker 1: you with a phrase. It's a phrase that both invites
Speaker 1: you to meet punishment, but also to temper it, to
Speaker 1: draw the line short of the ultimate punish the child,
Speaker 1: save the eye. The Virginia jury was faced with one
Speaker 1: of the most difficult decisions imaginable. Should they sentence Malva,
Speaker 1: who was a minor during the time of his crimes,
Speaker 1: to death. There were so many questions to consider. Was
Speaker 1: Malvo so influenced by Mohammed that he lacked free will
Speaker 1: when he committed murder. Was his confessional authentic or did
Speaker 1: he confess under the direction of Mohammed? And if he
Speaker 1: was supposedly brainwashed, did that mean he could be rehabilitated
Speaker 1: and thus safe to walk the streets again. And regardless
Speaker 1: of Malva, should anyone who commits a i'm as a
Speaker 1: teenager be sentenced to death, however heinous the crime? And
Speaker 1: what about the victims and their families? What was the
Speaker 1: right sentence to see that justice was served for them?
Speaker 1: Where these moral and ethical boundaries are drawn is completely
Speaker 1: in the eye of the beholder. But nonetheless, on December three,
Speaker 1: just two days before Christmas, the jury reached its decision.
Speaker 1: Next time on Monster d C Sniper. I remember standing
Speaker 1: in court when that verdict came in, stand right beside him,
Speaker 1: and that was it. There was just a surge of emotion.
Speaker 1: People screamed out, Mom, you know, we really want to
Speaker 1: talk today. So I called the warden. The warden said,
Speaker 1: your children are under eighteen. He said, so that means, see,
Speaker 1: you have to come with him. I went to the execution,
Speaker 1: you know, with the pain and all the angler there.
Speaker 1: Huh that was going to release me, all right, just
Speaker 1: a rifle of the scope, so you had him in
Speaker 1: your size. He didn't die immediately, and I had to go.
Speaker 1: I didn't get it. They shot people from Washington to
Speaker 1: Arizona to allegedly Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina. What we
Speaker 1: know is the d C Snipers is really the United
Speaker 1: States Snipers. Monster DC Sniper is a fifteen episode podcast
Speaker 1: hosted by Tony Harris and produced by iHeart Radio and
Speaker 1: Tenderfoot TV. Matt Frederick and Alex Williams are executive producers
Speaker 1: on behalf of I Heeart Radio, alongside producers Trevor Young,
Speaker 1: Ben Kiebrick, and Josh Thayne. Paine Lindsay and Donald Albright
Speaker 1: are executive producers on behalf of Tenderfoot TV alongside producers
Speaker 1: Meredith Steadman and Christina Dana. Original music is by Makeup
Speaker 1: and Vanity Set. In this episode, John Allen Mohammed was
Speaker 1: portrayed by actor Jason Williams. Additional voice acting was provided
Speaker 1: by Alex Williams, Noel Brown, Jonathan Strickland, Josh Clark, and
Speaker 1: Ben Boland. If you haven't already, be sure to check
Speaker 1: out the first two seasons at Lanta Monster and Monster
Speaker 1: the Zodiac Killer. If you have questions or comments, email
Speaker 1: us at monster at ihart media dot com, or you
Speaker 1: can call us at one eight three three to eight
Speaker 1: five six six six seven. Thanks for listening.