March 19, 2020 • 45 mins
Following the Snipers' arrest, police interview Malvo and Muhammad separately. And investigators learn more about the pair's nationwide crime spree.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Monster d Z Sniper, a production of I
Heart Radio and Tenderfoot t V. The views and opinions
expressed in this podcast are solely those of the podcast
author or individuals participating in the podcast, and do not
represent those of iHeart Media, Tenderfoot TV, or their employees.
Listener discretion is advised. September five, two thousand two, Clinton, Maryland,
(00:24):
about a month before the DC sniper attacks began, and
two months before investigators found Paul the Rufa's laptop in
the sniper's car, Larufa was ambushed. It's pretty amazing that
you go from just an ordinary routine to all of
a sudden, you're part of this crazy thing that happened.
That's one of the largest man hunts in history. At
(00:47):
the end of a long, busy day, he closed down
his family restaurant with a couple of friends. He put
the day's earnings in a bank bag and wished his
friends good night. I locked up the restaurants at the alarm,
We all to our cars. I got in the driver's side,
shut the door, and before I could do anything, the
(01:10):
window to my left exploded. SID Emergency nine one one
center shooting. Now it doesn't know a lot. You're the
one at that time, No, man, it was the owner.
I think you guys shot robbed. I heard the guests.
I thought, who was the robbery? And a shooting? Okay,
(01:38):
that the dulance from the police officer on the way.
Who did them? I have no idea. I couldn't tell
it from the back the black jacket, black backpack, and
the black pap What type of weapon would is? However?
Was gun shot? I don't know if you've heard of football.
Five shots came in the window. They all hit me.
(01:59):
It went from a tremendous sound that deafened my left ear,
then within seconds it became incredibly quiet. I didn't have
time to blink, let alone see anything. All I saw
was a flash of light and that was it. I
was bleeding out of my chest and my upper back,
(02:23):
lower neck because one of the shots hit me from
that angle. So I leaned on the horn to just
attract anybody who would be around, and leaned on it,
leaned on it, and then I opened the door. I
was able to get out of the car and stand up,
and one of the guys that I left with was
(02:46):
walking towards me. He was dialing his cell phone moment.
I'm at Mark Delanez on Stewart Lane in curt Maryland.
I need an ambulance right here. Uh. Guy came out
for behind the store and uh and shop Paul Arupa
and us leading. Uh. The person that you're talking to
(03:08):
or they in a car. I know he was in
the car and he's standing, but he's outside the car. Job.
I don't haven't stand. Try to get him to sit
down and not move around. Can you sit in the
car to sit down and not move around? All right?
But I don't want to sign here. The pressure of
the blood inside me was collapsing my lungs. I didn't
(03:30):
know that's what was happening. All I know is that
I was suffocating. They said they were going to get
a helicopter, but then the helicopter was too far away,
so they were just sending regular E M t s.
And they did. They got there, got me into the ambulance.
I was really having trouble breathing, and I just had
(03:50):
the feeling we weren't going that quickly. So I would
say how much longer? How much longer? And they said,
not not that much longer. If I lead, we got
to the hospital and there was a team. They're ready,
and they rolled me into the emergency room and just
basically did exactly how you see it on TV. There
(04:12):
were four or five six people around me just doing
what they had to do to save my life. They
got me into surgery and for six or seven hours
picked out as many as the bullet fragments as they
could and and sewed me up and and saved my life.
(04:34):
So that's what happened the first night. And then I
spent just about another week in the hospital. I was
three days on a breathing machine in intensive care, uh,
because I couldn't breathe. So after that they tested and
took me off and it was still tough, but I could.
(04:56):
I could breathe on my own. After about a week,
I said I really wanted to go home, and they
said okay, So I I left the hospital with a
contraption from my left arm. The most lasting physical effect
of one of the bullets was that it severed a
nerve in my arm. I could close my hand, but
(05:18):
I wasn't able to open it again. So they had
therapists that designed and made a brace type thing from
my hand. It had rubber bands on it and it
would spring back and pull my fingers apart and open
my hand. I actually had that on about a year
before the nerve drew back and gave me function in
(05:39):
my left hand, and to this day it's not but anyway,
that was the lasting physical effect. Of course, I went
through tremendous mental effect of it, starting with the first
night I was in the hospital. I had flashbacks that
were incredible. You literally relive it. If you've ever had
(06:05):
a nightmare where you're scared or somebody's chasing you, it's
that times ten, because you really relive it. You hear it,
your ears, hear that sound, and you feel it, and
it's just terrible. It's it's horrible. You can't turn it off,
you can't make it stop. It just happens. Happen every night.
(06:28):
I was shot September five. They didn't catch them till October,
So for at least that time and probably a little more,
I had that flashback all the time. So that was hard,
and then it began to wane and lessen, mostly I
(06:50):
think because they were caught. After they were caught, they
found my computer and they put the whole thing together more. Mom,
it's ex wife lived right down the road from the restaurant.
There is a ruthless person on the loose. What unnerves
this community the most is the randomness of the murders,
(07:13):
ordinary people doing ordinary things. They killed the five people
in one day and then went on the rampage for
the next month. It is quite a mystery. The police
say they have never had a crime quite like this.
Be careful, these guys are using weapons that are going
to go right straight through our bulletproof vest. From my
(07:34):
Heart Radio and Tenderfoot TV, this is Monster d C Sniper.
Following Mohammed and Melvo's arrest on October, investigators wondered whether
others were involved in planning the attacks, and they were
also trying to solve one of the biggest mysteries in
the case, what was the motivation? That question would become
(07:58):
increasingly important as they prepare for the upcoming trials. Mohammed
and Malvo had been brought to Montgomery County and interviewed.
Mohammed initially talked, saying he was innocent, but then quickly
asked for his lawyer. Malvo refused to speak at all,
so investigators turned to evidence from the Blue Caprice forensics
(08:18):
from the Bushmaster they found in the car matched bullets
from the shootings. They found Larufa's laptop which led them
to his shooting, and they began retracing Mohammed and Malvo's
steps using other evidence they found in the car, like
receipts and phone cards, and investigators unraveled a whole new
string of crimes. They didn't have a car. They had
(08:40):
come across country by buses and hitchhiking. What they did
was they took the money that was in my bank bag.
They got about thirty six hundred dollars in cash, which
financed their whole operation. They went to Jersey and bought
the car from Clinton, Maryland. Mohammed and Malvo traveled up
to Trent and Jersey. D m V records showed that
(09:02):
on September two thousand two, John Mohammed paid two hundred
fifty dollars to purchase the blue Caprice from a dealership
called shore Shot Auto Sales. Reportedly, when Mohammed looked at
it in the lot, he asked the dealer to open
the trunk and then climbed inside and there was a
strange incident the next day, on September eleven, two thou two,
(09:26):
the first anniversary of the terror attacks. While Mohammed registered
the car in Camden, the DMV building received a bomb threat.
Mohammed finished the registration just a few minutes before the
building was evacuated. It's still unclear if Mohammed or Malvo
were involved with the bomb thread or if it was
just a strange coincidence. After buying and registering the car
(09:48):
in New Jersey, Mohammed and Malvo head itself. Prepaid phone
cards found in the caprice showed that by the next night,
September twelve, they were in the DC area outside a
Shopper's food warehouse in Alexandria, Virginia. They used one of
these phone cards to place a call to Antigua. Then,
(10:10):
two nights later, on September in Montgomery County, Maryland, a
liquor store employee, Repender Oberoi, was locking up the store
when he heard a loud crack. Oberoy was shot. I'm
calling again to report that someone that apparently has gotten
(10:30):
shot in the Hill and Dale shopping Center. By safe way.
Three ambulances had passed right by. One is across the street.
I've said it each time, and other people are calling
to they're driving right by and this man has been
laid on the sidewalk. Ultimately, ober Roy survived the attack.
A witness nearby reported seeing an old car pull out
(10:52):
of a parking space and drive away. The witness told
police about it, but the officers were perplexed ober It
hadn't been robbed and didn't seem to have any enemies.
After arresting the snipers and retracing their movements, police now
suspect that the snipers had shot Oberoi. Investigators tried to
analyze bullet fragments from the crime, but the pieces weren't
(11:15):
large enough to make any comparisons, and without firearm forensics,
it was hard to prove. The very next night, on
September fift another attack took place at a liquor store,
this one in Prince George's County, just miles from Paul
Larufa's restaurant and Mildred Mohammed's home. It was raining as
(11:36):
Mohammed Rashied locked up the store, he heard a loud
sound and saw two bullet holes appear in the glass
store in front of him. He turned and saw a
young man holding a pistol. The man fired a third shot,
and he felt a bullet enter his abdomen. Rashid realized
he was being robbed, so he made a split second
decision to drop down and play dead. Sheet says the
(12:00):
attacker rolled him over and rifled through his pockets. The
attacker grabbed his wallet and then walked away. Rashid waited
anxiously until he thought the man was gone. Then he
called nine one from his cell phone. Oh ma'am, I'm
buying for one piece that was there for somebody, so
fine to me. Have you been shut Yeah? Yeah, yeah,
(12:22):
my bunny stoma. One piece that was one body. Oh,
I'm gonna help you. Okay, you do shut you? No?
No liab okay, somebody there with you? Nobody okay, Okay,
Now I want to just sit down. I want to
take your shirt on and put it tightly into the
stomach where you were shot. Okay, I want the morning
(12:43):
with you. What's today day? I'm gonna stay in a line.
We got somebody going to you right now. Did somebody
rob you? Why are you? Who are you outside? Okay,
we're gonna help you with your cell phone. Never hommed,
I'm not the one going out. We've already got an
ambulance going to you. I'm here with you. Okay, Oh
(13:06):
letten me take deep breath and try to say as
quiet as you can't. Okay, I'm right here with you.
I'm not going to go anywhere. Oh my Gogmed Mohammed
the person to shot you, white or black? I'm glad
that how old then something? And I need to put
the look at We're already coming to you. How old
(13:29):
is he? By? You're doing great? And what was he wearing? Mohammed? Like,
you can do it, We'll come assurance. I'm kind of
Buston's movie. Okay, great shirt and he had a gun?
Why you haven't which way did he run? You were
behind the door. Okay? If I know they're coming to
you now, but it's staying. Did they get to Mohammed?
(13:50):
Rashid was treated and survived. Surgeons recovered the bullet from
his abdomen and gave it to police. Investigators tested the round.
It came back as being from the same pistol used
in the larofa shooting, the silver revolver that investigators would
later find in Alabama following the liquor store shooting there
(14:12):
on September eighth, three days after shooting Rashid. The snipers
used a phone card to make a call from outside
the Ponderosa Steakhouse in Ashland, Virginia, the very same restaurant
where they would later shoot Jeffrey Hopper as he walked
through the parking lot with his wife. Then another three
days later, just after midnight on September twenty one, Malvo
(14:35):
and Mohammed were likely five hundred miles southwest and the
parking lot of a liquor store in Atlanta, Georgia. It
was twelve sixteen a m an. Inside were two employees,
Mimi Tadisi, a million walled Amerium, both Ethiopian immigrants. The
store was closed, so they wondered why a car was
idling in the parking lot. Reportedly, Wallda Mariam wanted to
(14:58):
investigate to d C was worried and told him not
to go outside, but he did anyway. Seconds after wald
Merriam walked outside, to d C heard three gun shots.
Wald de Merriam had been shot twice in the upper
back and once in the back of the head. He
(15:19):
died in the hospital. It's unclear if the bullets from
this shooting were ever analyzed forensically, not even Twenty four
hours later, Mohammed and Malvo were one hundred fifty miles
southwest in Montgomery, Alabama, robbing the ABC Liquor store, where
they shot and killed Claudine Parker and wounded Kelly Adams.
(15:44):
Two days after the Alabama shootings, phone card records and
receipts put the snipers in Mohammed's hometown, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. There,
at six forty pm, Hong M. Ballinger had just finished
closing up the beauty shop where she worked. Ballinger had
just reached her car when she was shot in the head.
(16:05):
She died almost instantly. Another employee who was also leaving,
saw a large, dark car pull out of a vacant
lot and pick up a black man who had grabbed
Ballinger's purse. Police found a bullet fragment embedded and Ballinger's
side view mirror. It appeared to have come from a
two to three rifle, but the case went cold after
(16:27):
the sniper's arrest. Investigators reanalyze the bullet fragment from the
shooting and they matched it to the snipers Bushmaster rifle.
Ballinger was a victim of the snipers, likely the last
one before the snipers returned to Maryland and began their
DC attacks. They'd likely killed three and injured four more
(16:48):
in a span of eighteen days, all before the spree
in d C even started. But why did the snipers
then switch from this pattern of parking lot robberies to
see me only random killings in d C. Although investigators
were learning more about the scope of the snipers attacks,
their motive still remained a mystery. The only people who
(17:12):
could really answer the question of why we're Lee Boyd
Malvo and John Mohammed investigators needed one of them to
crack under questioning. Immediately after the sniper's arrest, a battle
(17:41):
began brewing in the DC area, with attorneys fighting over
where the snipers should be tried. On October two, just
the day after the snipers were arrested, Montgomery County Prosecutor
Doug Gansler held the news conference before he even learned
Malbo's age or last name. The Montgomery County Police Department
will attain an arrest warrant for the arrest of John Muhammad,
(18:04):
aged forty one, and Lee Salvo, aged nineteen, for six
counts a first degree murder. The decision to charge these
cases in Montgomery County, Maryland, was reached after in depth
consultation with local, state, and federal law enforcement officials. Montgomery
County was the community most affected and most impacted by
(18:25):
the sniper shootings. The investigation began, ended, and was centered
here in Montgomery County. The Feds were furious, sources say,
as local prosecutor Doug Ganceler walked to the microphones late
today to announce that Montgomery County is fighting the first
charges in the sniper case. Federal prosecutors privately accused Canceler
(18:46):
of breaking in agreements not to file charges until the
Feds decide if they want to take over the case.
In unusually harsh language. One federal official accused Canceler of
quotes exploiting this tragedy for political purposes. So how did
the sniper case cracked only yesterday up to now a
model of cooperation between Chief Moose, the FBI, and a
(19:08):
t F How did it unravel so fast with prosecutors
engaged in and unseemly fights over who gets the first
crack at convicting them. Two weeks later, on November seven, U. S.
Attorney General John Ashcroft announced where Malbo and Mohammed would
first be tried for twenty three days in October. Our
(19:29):
communities lived in fear. Innocent victims from Maryland, Virginia, the
District of Columbia, Alabama, and Louisiana have paid the ultimate price.
It is appropriate, it is imperative that the ultimate sanction
be available. I have instructed the U. S. Marshals Service
to transfer custody of John Alan Mohammed to Prince William County, Virginia.
(19:52):
I have also instructed the marshals to transfer custody of
a juvenile to Fairfax County, Virginia. Right after his arrest,
Mohammed had talked briefly with detectives, then clammed up and
asked for his lawyer. Now, with federal charges dropped and
stay charges pending, two new investigators took their turn at
trying to get Mohammed to talk. I want to take
(20:16):
the handcuff, so to me. Okay, salad with tomatoes and
what else, Sir John Loup. We're not here to jam
you up anything like that, but certainly you know we
want to talk to him too. Beans or potatoes, beans
(20:36):
and russ and the partiular kind of potatoes. How you
want to picture or anything like I was telling you much, Mohammed.
I understand that you've talked to attorneys and that they've
told you not to say anything. There's been a lot
of people who said that this was meaningless and since us,
but it had me. I believe it had meaning to you,
(20:58):
and this may be your only tunity to tell your story.
Your lawyers are not going to put you on the stand,
because when your lawyer gets done asking any questions, they're
going to be subject across examination. They're not going to
put you on the stand. You need to say what
you can say, and ladies behalf now, John, aside from
(21:22):
his requests for food, John Mohammed just sat stone faced
in the interrogation room. Detectives knew that Mohammed and Lee
boyd novel weren't biologically related, but that he had often
introduced the lead to friends as his son, so the
detectives tried to use John's relationship with Lee to get
him to talk. I would assume that since y'all were
(21:43):
taken into customy did you not talk to him? And
I would imagine that's very difficult for you. He's a
long he's afraid, but as a father myself. I know
fame that must cause you also not being able to
reach him in his time and trouble when he needs
your love more than he needs anything else. So if
(22:03):
you don't do anything else here for yourself, do this
for your son. Tell us the truth, tell us what
the meaning is behind this. Let's do some damage control
here and in some way try and spare his life.
Did Lee pull the trigger? Did le do any of
(22:25):
the shootings? Now? I can tell you what Leaves gonna do,
just based on what I know about kids and what
I know about their love to their parents. To save
his own life, that boy's not gonna say it was
all my daddy, It wasn't me. You know that in
your heart there's only one person that has any hope
(22:48):
of saving his life, and that's going to be you,
because if you don't say anything, he's not going to
say anything at least and lose his life over this John.
They're going to make an assumption that made pull of
the trader. They'renvasing on the fact that that was a
(23:10):
small area back there, and that in all likelihood you
were driving. Being more mature, you would be able to
drive with more calm than Kimp All we want to
know is the truth. And I don't want to see
a seventeen year old kid put it down namelessly. At seventeen,
he is not a man. He's a kid, and he's
(23:31):
afraid and he has alone, But the court's going to
treat him like a man. There was one person, seemingly,
and you know better than I do, because you know
he intimate details. There was one person who really seemed
to care about him. And here you are, and he's
not strong without you, and you know what he might do.
(23:56):
He might say I shot him out. He might say
by daddy drove, and I shot because I was the
smallest and I could sit back there. And what would
happen if he says that is he most assuredly will
be sentenced to death. But I can tell you something.
(24:21):
You can take the kid who's shot people and the
head or maybe he has watched people get shot for
no reason. You can take the kid and teach you
all of those tough, hard things, and he can do
it just like you wore. He can kill men, he
(24:42):
can cut the throats and not lose a wink of
sleep about it. But when it comes time to die,
when he's wounded on the battlefield. When the game is
over and he's facing death, he demonstrates loud and clear
that he's a boy play in a man's game. You
(25:05):
know why, John, because that's when they cry, and that's
when they call for the mamas for their daddy. When
he's in a man's prison, it's you he's gonna want.
When he lies on that wreck at night crying, it's
you he's going to think about. He played a man's game,
(25:26):
but he's a boy, and he's your boy that's gotten
to touch you in your heart. He wouldn't win his
mom or whoever his biological father was. He was with you.
And you know something, John, This is harsh, but this
is important. If you two are sentenced to death, I
(25:47):
pray to God that they execute you before they execute him,
because I'm gonna take something, John, And they could be executed,
and you could receive a stake for whatever reason, and
then you would sit and pray and for the rest
of your life with him going on ahead of you.
And you know what, that might not be his man.
(26:08):
He's seventeen years old, him spending the rest of his
natural life in prison. After you've made your peace with God,
that could be the real hell for him. If you
love him the way I think you love him, if
you love him the way I love my children, it
will tear your soul away from you. You will live
(26:31):
hell on Earth. Save his life if you don't do
anything else, do the right thing, fix this thing. If
you were on a sinken ship and there was one
life jacket, I have no doubt in my mind that
you would give it to late. You're on a sinking ship.
Now give that kid a life jacket. Give him an
(26:52):
opportunity to save himself, because he's not going to do
it unless you give him permission to do it. Because
if it were me and now, I wouldn't do it
unless he gave me permission and forced me to take
that my jacket. You can force him to save hisself
and then saving him save herself from the potential of
(27:14):
hell on earth. Let's just John Mohammed refused to talk,
but one county to the north, in Fairfax, investigators were
having better luck with Malva. Malvo was brought to Fairfax
County Homicide at that point, which I was working with
(27:37):
on the Lenda Franklin case. My name is Brad Garrett
i'mber retired FBI agent currently a crime and terrorism analyst.
It certainly didn't have the flavor to me or many
others that this was some terrorist of it. Nobody was
taking credit. There didn't seem to be any significance to
the people that got shot. It seemed like they were
(27:59):
just in the raw place at the wrong time, mowing
their yard, pumping gas. So it was hard to sort
of imagine what the real motivation might be. You know,
many shootings can be attributed to revenge, which may not
actually be towards the people they are shooting. Some people
(28:21):
call it displaced violence. So is that going on here?
When Malvo was brought to Fairfax County Homicide, myself and
a homicide detective by the name of June Boyle interviewed
him roughly starting at four o'clock in the afternoon until
about midnight. Courts are closing at four. It really set
(28:44):
up nicely for them. My name is Tom Walsh, partner
Petrovitch and Walsh. My name is Mark Petrovich, also a
partner at Petrovitch and Walsh. Tom and I were two
of the members of the team that represented Lee Malvo
in the DC sniper case. At the time in Maryland,
you wouldn't execute juveniles for the crimes they committed, but
you could in Virginia. So they took him out of
(29:05):
federal custody up in Maryland and transferred him over to
Fairfax County. In the course of transferring him over, he
did get an attorney appointed to him because he was
a juvenile. Was actually outside the building banging on the
doors trying to get in to meet with Lee before
the police interrogated him, but he wasn't allowed in and
(29:26):
the interrogation took place. They knew they were dealing with
a young kid that was indoctrinated. They were going to
be able to get him the spill of beans, and
they were going to take advantage of it. This is
FBI agent Brad Garrett again. June and I walk into
basically an office, but everything has been removed except a
desk and a couple of chairs. Malbo's smiling and it's
(29:46):
almost like he doesn't have a care in the world,
you know, which told me that he felt like he's
in control, that he has all of the information and
he has the power to share it with us or not.
June said to his right, and I sat in front
of him. I don't like talking to people from an
angle because one of the keys and getting people to
(30:08):
talk is being able to get them to look at
you and communicate with you. Because despite the artificiality of
interviewing somebody that's potentially committed multiple murders, you still have
to develop a relationship with them. And so the first
thing you typically always ask people is how do they feel?
(30:28):
How much has they slept? Do they need anything, food, water,
something to drink, et cetera. So we started talking a
little bit about where he was raised and you know,
how did he end up in Antigua? And he gradually
gave us pieces of information, but not a lot. And
so I'm sort of racking my brain is too, how
(30:49):
can I really get him to talk about something that
he may care about or have an interest in. I'm
not sure what got me to this point, but I
started talking about movies. Two thousand two, there was a
movie that have been out for a while called The Matrix,
and I knew a lot of kids his age like
that movie. So I said, have you watched the movie
(31:09):
The Matrix? And up to this point he has not
made eye contact. He sort of looked over me or
around me, even though I was in front of him,
and it was the first time he looked me in
the eyes, and I thought to myself, well, at least
I can maybe get him to connect with me at
this point. We'll see how far this goes. So we
started talking about the matrix and what the matrix meant.
(31:31):
Do you want to know what it is? The matrix
is everywhere, It is all around us. It is the
world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind
you from the truth. After that discussion, June and I
decided that we would sort of go, do you know
why you're here? We really like to talk to you
(31:51):
about these shootings. And so what he basically did was
he sort of just talked about pieces of information that
occurred at these Saints. Here are Melbo's lawyers, Mark Petrovitch
and Tom Walsh. They got him talking, he admitted to
some things, and then they read him as Miranda rights
(32:12):
with everything right. The Reggi rights, You're fine to talk
to us without an you still want to talk to us,
You don't mind talking to us. They can no longer
do that. It's now unconstitutional to conduct an interrogation that way.
But at the time, it wasn't. It's what they called
it legally, the cat out of the bag. And that
was kind of a point. What to do is to
get you talking and then after you say statements, they
(32:33):
read your rights and then they go back and confirm
what you said before. To now say oh, well you've
had your rights, and that he confirmed these things. You
would get you earlier that the gentleman that the nassas,
I'm spright and used it. It wasn't illegal, and if
you could see me, I guess I would air quote
that the way it was conducted wasn't illegal. But had
(32:57):
Todd Pett had been able to get in, he would
of advised Lee not to speak and they would not
have gotten the interrogation. But there was none of that,
and the statement came out it was It was damning.
The audio from the interview can be difficult to understand,
and throughout it Malbo laughed, made sound effects and responded
(33:18):
to questions with short, abrupt answers. You were all playing
a lot of year time, so you knew each start
you were going to hit in the gund of gun
that first day, slight in the morning, that was longbore
Son down. You say people will value you go up
(33:40):
in the bushes. He become a part of the bushes.
He caught in grass and then become a part of grass.
Fifty yard fense. Uh, I'm over in two seconds after
you shoot, you run the cargover fence. How can you
run with the gunman? Now? So easy to break down
because you have shot and broke it down right after shooting,
(34:02):
and you know we sees you and then we put
it in the bag or pull in the bag. All right,
can welcome you out of my hand? It's this deception. Yeah,
snipers a doin their weapons. This is what keeps me alive.
It's one man going out in facing army. Did you
see the trooper? I told you I'm goin a shot
(34:24):
the trooper. Why wouldn't because it wasn't a kisy And
you're going to keep carrying until you got the money,
until you listen to but at some point you know
that we have to give you the ten million O. Yes,
you could try to catch me until you mean that
shooting all these people was gonna affect the calling me
(34:45):
and let move at the same Chamelion. It's all planet.
You have to fit something, You have to fit the environment,
and you have to fictality live which is money and
you flick that this is all he's asking for and
get it, give it talk. But did you tie it's
manner whether it was male, female or you know nature,
(35:08):
nobody just to look get into that sidekick who was
just going out there shooting deep. I can't feel bad
about any certain one. You don't know if you have
to do when you do the same thing. Huh yeah.
If we didn't, they have caught you get still redoing it.
(35:30):
We had your resources to keep going. You did when
we need in cash money you plan for war before war?
Was it your money or John Burney was all the
money and working be seated? This unity does not hate.
That's dancing is a failure. Everyone has to be online
(35:55):
pop and there's something that you well that's something like business.
I think do you think them nothing? It doesn't him Okay, shocking,
(36:21):
it's just the last two minutes five two minutes he did.
So we went through that. It got some pretty incriminating information.
He did not give us all of the crimes that
they committed, which you know clearly involved crimes and Louisiana
and some other jurisdictions that we ultimately put together. But
(36:44):
you know, we felt like that we at least had
success because he got him to talk. Malvo didn't tell
investigators about all of the shootings leading up to this
bri in DC, but of the shootings they discussed, he
said that he had been the gunmen for all of
them and that Mohammed hadn't shot anyone. Here's Malvo's lawyer,
Tom Walsh. Again. He still brainwash at that time, so
(37:05):
he was taking blame for all the shootings. He was
basically trying to take everything on as a juvenile and
save his leader, Mohammed. He was clearly protective of Mohammed,
was trying to implicate Mohammed in a very minimal fashion,
so you could tell that there was some sort of
close bond between the two of them. At the end
(37:27):
of this interview, I said, what was the motivation? Why
did you guys do this? And he looked at me
and he says, well, it's all about the matrix. Two
understand mother Max, And I said, well, what does that mean? Answering,
(37:57):
I mean, that doesn't mean anything unless I know, what
do you think the matrix the movie means that he
just smiled part of Mohammed's indoctrination was to decessitize lee
to violence two shootings, to the consequences of what happened
The Matrix and things of that nature were part of
(38:18):
the indoctrination and as a factors that needed to be explored.
What did Malvo mean when he said that the explanation
for the shootings could be found in the movie The Matrix?
Investigators wondered if Mohammed had been radicalized and was committing
an act of terror out of hatred for America. And
then there was the demand for ten million dollars to
(38:39):
be deposited on a bankard. Could it really all be
about money? A day after Malvo's interview with police, the
(39:00):
Washington Post published an interview with John Mohammed's ex wife, Mildred.
She had her own theory about John's motivation for the crimes.
Do you know why he came to the area. He
went to a father's rights group, told them I kidnapped
the children. They did a skip trace on me, found
(39:22):
me in the DC area and told him. He went
to his best friend Robert. He said, I found Mildred.
She's in d C. I'm gonna go get her. His
best friend asked them, are you going to hurt her?
He didn't say anything. The theory was he was killing
(39:43):
innocent people to cover up my murder so he could
come in as the grieving father, get custody of the children,
and drive away. They probably would have named him Father
of the Year for coming to get the children and
raising them himself. That best friend called the FBI and said,
(40:04):
I don't know anything about your case, but you may
want to look at John Ali Mohammed. His ex wife
is in the area and he may be there to
hurt her. And I talked to Robert. I said, I
am calling you to thank you for saving my life.
(40:24):
Say Mildred, let me tell you something, girl, John came
there to kill you. I had to make a decision
to call and report him or watch your name scroll
under the TV that you've been killed. Say Mildred. I
would pay anything to have a beer with John right now.
That's my boy. But I had to call him. He said, So,
(40:48):
don't get this twisted. Don't believe that ten million dollar madness.
He came there to kill you. Don't ever get it twisted.
Mildred Mohammed thinks the random string of shootings was designed
to disguise her murder. If John had just killed her,
(41:09):
he would be the primary suspect, But if it looked
like she was just another random sniper victim, maybe he
would have gotten away with it. Mildred says that even
though that plan sounds crazy, it's the sort of crazy
plan that John would have come up with. After all,
this was the same John who was ready to run
away with Lindberg, his son from his earlier marriage, the
(41:31):
same John who kidnapped his kids from Mildred and took
them all the way to antique it. Washington Post reporter
Josh White says, while it's hard to ever definitively know
the motivation for a crime, Mildred's theory makes sense. Mildred
has talked about how she believed she was the target,
and I think that's plausible. All of those shootings create
(41:53):
panic and get police occupied, and that it would have
been very hard to connect her shooting to anything else,
just like it was very hard to connect any of
these other people together. It would have gotten him custody
of the children, It would have gotten the problem he
saw out of the way, but that didn't happen. Malvo
has said that they parked outside where she was living.
(42:16):
October eleven, my coworker picked me up for work. She said,
you know, there's a dark colored Caprisa and Pala outside
your door, and I just get a bad feeling from
that car. So girl, don't worry about let's just go
to work. So we passed by the car. The driver
(42:36):
looks at us, but the passenger has a newspaper and
he puts it up to cover his face. And I said,
did you see that? She said, yeah, I did. I said,
give me your phone, let me call the police. So
I called the police. They said, okay, we'll send someone
out there. Later they told me John sent Lee to
(42:57):
your door pretending to be a salesperson, and his instructions
were when you opened the door to shoot you in
the face, ms Mohammed. You opened the door, and for
whatever reason, he walked away. We don't know the repercussions
(43:18):
he suffered because he didn't kill you that day. Next
time on Monster DC Sniper, you know, it's hard enough
work in one murder to have these thirteen shootings just
(43:41):
in our area, let alone what else went around the country.
We knew it was going to be a monumental task.
Part of Mohammed's indoctrination was to decessitize lee to violence
to shootings. There's no amount of psychological coercion that would
force somebody to, let's say, kill, if they didn't already
(44:01):
had some kind of predisposition. I remember feeling just basically
shock and disbelief that he could have done this. He
just looks so innocent, how shocking. One of the most
alarming moments was when Mohammed stood to represent himself. We
had never heard from Mohammed at that point talk about
(44:22):
weird events in your life. I was being questioned by
the guy who tried to kill me. Monster DC Sniper
is a fifteen episode podcast hosted by Tony Harris and
produced by iHeart Radio and Tenderfoot TV. Matt Frederick and
(44:42):
Alex Williams are executive producers on behalf of I Heart Radio,
alongside producers Trevor Young, Ben Kiebrick, and Josh Thain. Payne
Lindsay and Donald Albright are executive producers on behalf of
Tenderfoot TV alongside producers Meredith Steadman and Christina Dana. Original
music is by Makeup and Vanity Set. If you haven't
(45:04):
already be sure to check out the first two seasons
at Lanta Monster and Monster the Zodiac Killer. If you
have questions or comments, email us at monster at iHeartMedia
dot com, or you can call us at one eight
three three two eight five six six six seven. Thanks
for listening.
Welcome to Monster d Z Sniper, a production of I
Heart Radio and Tenderfoot t V. The views and opinions
expressed in this podcast are solely those of the podcast
author or individuals participating in the podcast, and do not
represent those of iHeart Media, Tenderfoot TV, or their employees.
Listener discretion is advised. September five, two thousand two, Clinton, Maryland,
(00:24):
about a month before the DC sniper attacks began, and
two months before investigators found Paul the Rufa's laptop in
the sniper's car, Larufa was ambushed. It's pretty amazing that
you go from just an ordinary routine to all of
a sudden, you're part of this crazy thing that happened.
That's one of the largest man hunts in history. At
(00:47):
the end of a long, busy day, he closed down
his family restaurant with a couple of friends. He put
the day's earnings in a bank bag and wished his
friends good night. I locked up the restaurants at the alarm,
We all to our cars. I got in the driver's side,
shut the door, and before I could do anything, the
(01:10):
window to my left exploded. SID Emergency nine one one
center shooting. Now it doesn't know a lot. You're the
one at that time, No, man, it was the owner.
I think you guys shot robbed. I heard the guests.
I thought, who was the robbery? And a shooting? Okay,
(01:38):
that the dulance from the police officer on the way.
Who did them? I have no idea. I couldn't tell
it from the back the black jacket, black backpack, and
the black pap What type of weapon would is? However?
Was gun shot? I don't know if you've heard of football.
Five shots came in the window. They all hit me.
(01:59):
It went from a tremendous sound that deafened my left ear,
then within seconds it became incredibly quiet. I didn't have
time to blink, let alone see anything. All I saw
was a flash of light and that was it. I
was bleeding out of my chest and my upper back,
(02:23):
lower neck because one of the shots hit me from
that angle. So I leaned on the horn to just
attract anybody who would be around, and leaned on it,
leaned on it, and then I opened the door. I
was able to get out of the car and stand up,
and one of the guys that I left with was
(02:46):
walking towards me. He was dialing his cell phone moment.
I'm at Mark Delanez on Stewart Lane in curt Maryland.
I need an ambulance right here. Uh. Guy came out
for behind the store and uh and shop Paul Arupa
and us leading. Uh. The person that you're talking to
(03:08):
or they in a car. I know he was in
the car and he's standing, but he's outside the car. Job.
I don't haven't stand. Try to get him to sit
down and not move around. Can you sit in the
car to sit down and not move around? All right?
But I don't want to sign here. The pressure of
the blood inside me was collapsing my lungs. I didn't
(03:30):
know that's what was happening. All I know is that
I was suffocating. They said they were going to get
a helicopter, but then the helicopter was too far away,
so they were just sending regular E M t s.
And they did. They got there, got me into the ambulance.
I was really having trouble breathing, and I just had
(03:50):
the feeling we weren't going that quickly. So I would
say how much longer? How much longer? And they said,
not not that much longer. If I lead, we got
to the hospital and there was a team. They're ready,
and they rolled me into the emergency room and just
basically did exactly how you see it on TV. There
(04:12):
were four or five six people around me just doing
what they had to do to save my life. They
got me into surgery and for six or seven hours
picked out as many as the bullet fragments as they
could and and sewed me up and and saved my life.
(04:34):
So that's what happened the first night. And then I
spent just about another week in the hospital. I was
three days on a breathing machine in intensive care, uh,
because I couldn't breathe. So after that they tested and
took me off and it was still tough, but I could.
(04:56):
I could breathe on my own. After about a week,
I said I really wanted to go home, and they
said okay, So I I left the hospital with a
contraption from my left arm. The most lasting physical effect
of one of the bullets was that it severed a
nerve in my arm. I could close my hand, but
(05:18):
I wasn't able to open it again. So they had
therapists that designed and made a brace type thing from
my hand. It had rubber bands on it and it
would spring back and pull my fingers apart and open
my hand. I actually had that on about a year
before the nerve drew back and gave me function in
(05:39):
my left hand, and to this day it's not but anyway,
that was the lasting physical effect. Of course, I went
through tremendous mental effect of it, starting with the first
night I was in the hospital. I had flashbacks that
were incredible. You literally relive it. If you've ever had
(06:05):
a nightmare where you're scared or somebody's chasing you, it's
that times ten, because you really relive it. You hear it,
your ears, hear that sound, and you feel it, and
it's just terrible. It's it's horrible. You can't turn it off,
you can't make it stop. It just happens. Happen every night.
(06:28):
I was shot September five. They didn't catch them till October,
So for at least that time and probably a little more,
I had that flashback all the time. So that was hard,
and then it began to wane and lessen, mostly I
(06:50):
think because they were caught. After they were caught, they
found my computer and they put the whole thing together more. Mom,
it's ex wife lived right down the road from the restaurant.
There is a ruthless person on the loose. What unnerves
this community the most is the randomness of the murders,
(07:13):
ordinary people doing ordinary things. They killed the five people
in one day and then went on the rampage for
the next month. It is quite a mystery. The police
say they have never had a crime quite like this.
Be careful, these guys are using weapons that are going
to go right straight through our bulletproof vest. From my
(07:34):
Heart Radio and Tenderfoot TV, this is Monster d C Sniper.
Following Mohammed and Melvo's arrest on October, investigators wondered whether
others were involved in planning the attacks, and they were
also trying to solve one of the biggest mysteries in
the case, what was the motivation? That question would become
(07:58):
increasingly important as they prepare for the upcoming trials. Mohammed
and Malvo had been brought to Montgomery County and interviewed.
Mohammed initially talked, saying he was innocent, but then quickly
asked for his lawyer. Malvo refused to speak at all,
so investigators turned to evidence from the Blue Caprice forensics
(08:18):
from the Bushmaster they found in the car matched bullets
from the shootings. They found Larufa's laptop which led them
to his shooting, and they began retracing Mohammed and Malvo's
steps using other evidence they found in the car, like
receipts and phone cards, and investigators unraveled a whole new
string of crimes. They didn't have a car. They had
(08:40):
come across country by buses and hitchhiking. What they did
was they took the money that was in my bank bag.
They got about thirty six hundred dollars in cash, which
financed their whole operation. They went to Jersey and bought
the car from Clinton, Maryland. Mohammed and Malvo traveled up
to Trent and Jersey. D m V records showed that
(09:02):
on September two thousand two, John Mohammed paid two hundred
fifty dollars to purchase the blue Caprice from a dealership
called shore Shot Auto Sales. Reportedly, when Mohammed looked at
it in the lot, he asked the dealer to open
the trunk and then climbed inside and there was a
strange incident the next day, on September eleven, two thou two,
(09:26):
the first anniversary of the terror attacks. While Mohammed registered
the car in Camden, the DMV building received a bomb threat.
Mohammed finished the registration just a few minutes before the
building was evacuated. It's still unclear if Mohammed or Malvo
were involved with the bomb thread or if it was
just a strange coincidence. After buying and registering the car
(09:48):
in New Jersey, Mohammed and Malvo head itself. Prepaid phone
cards found in the caprice showed that by the next night,
September twelve, they were in the DC area outside a
Shopper's food warehouse in Alexandria, Virginia. They used one of
these phone cards to place a call to Antigua. Then,
(10:10):
two nights later, on September in Montgomery County, Maryland, a
liquor store employee, Repender Oberoi, was locking up the store
when he heard a loud crack. Oberoy was shot. I'm
calling again to report that someone that apparently has gotten
(10:30):
shot in the Hill and Dale shopping Center. By safe way.
Three ambulances had passed right by. One is across the street.
I've said it each time, and other people are calling
to they're driving right by and this man has been
laid on the sidewalk. Ultimately, ober Roy survived the attack.
A witness nearby reported seeing an old car pull out
(10:52):
of a parking space and drive away. The witness told
police about it, but the officers were perplexed ober It
hadn't been robbed and didn't seem to have any enemies.
After arresting the snipers and retracing their movements, police now
suspect that the snipers had shot Oberoi. Investigators tried to
analyze bullet fragments from the crime, but the pieces weren't
(11:15):
large enough to make any comparisons, and without firearm forensics,
it was hard to prove. The very next night, on
September fift another attack took place at a liquor store,
this one in Prince George's County, just miles from Paul
Larufa's restaurant and Mildred Mohammed's home. It was raining as
(11:36):
Mohammed Rashied locked up the store, he heard a loud
sound and saw two bullet holes appear in the glass
store in front of him. He turned and saw a
young man holding a pistol. The man fired a third shot,
and he felt a bullet enter his abdomen. Rashid realized
he was being robbed, so he made a split second
decision to drop down and play dead. Sheet says the
(12:00):
attacker rolled him over and rifled through his pockets. The
attacker grabbed his wallet and then walked away. Rashid waited
anxiously until he thought the man was gone. Then he
called nine one from his cell phone. Oh ma'am, I'm
buying for one piece that was there for somebody, so
fine to me. Have you been shut Yeah? Yeah, yeah,
(12:22):
my bunny stoma. One piece that was one body. Oh,
I'm gonna help you. Okay, you do shut you? No?
No liab okay, somebody there with you? Nobody okay, Okay,
Now I want to just sit down. I want to
take your shirt on and put it tightly into the
stomach where you were shot. Okay, I want the morning
(12:43):
with you. What's today day? I'm gonna stay in a line.
We got somebody going to you right now. Did somebody
rob you? Why are you? Who are you outside? Okay,
we're gonna help you with your cell phone. Never hommed,
I'm not the one going out. We've already got an
ambulance going to you. I'm here with you. Okay, Oh
(13:06):
letten me take deep breath and try to say as
quiet as you can't. Okay, I'm right here with you.
I'm not going to go anywhere. Oh my Gogmed Mohammed
the person to shot you, white or black? I'm glad
that how old then something? And I need to put
the look at We're already coming to you. How old
(13:29):
is he? By? You're doing great? And what was he wearing? Mohammed? Like,
you can do it, We'll come assurance. I'm kind of
Buston's movie. Okay, great shirt and he had a gun?
Why you haven't which way did he run? You were
behind the door. Okay? If I know they're coming to
you now, but it's staying. Did they get to Mohammed?
(13:50):
Rashid was treated and survived. Surgeons recovered the bullet from
his abdomen and gave it to police. Investigators tested the round.
It came back as being from the same pistol used
in the larofa shooting, the silver revolver that investigators would
later find in Alabama following the liquor store shooting there
(14:12):
on September eighth, three days after shooting Rashid. The snipers
used a phone card to make a call from outside
the Ponderosa Steakhouse in Ashland, Virginia, the very same restaurant
where they would later shoot Jeffrey Hopper as he walked
through the parking lot with his wife. Then another three
days later, just after midnight on September twenty one, Malvo
(14:35):
and Mohammed were likely five hundred miles southwest and the
parking lot of a liquor store in Atlanta, Georgia. It
was twelve sixteen a m an. Inside were two employees,
Mimi Tadisi, a million walled Amerium, both Ethiopian immigrants. The
store was closed, so they wondered why a car was
idling in the parking lot. Reportedly, Wallda Mariam wanted to
(14:58):
investigate to d C was worried and told him not
to go outside, but he did anyway. Seconds after wald
Merriam walked outside, to d C heard three gun shots.
Wald de Merriam had been shot twice in the upper
back and once in the back of the head. He
(15:19):
died in the hospital. It's unclear if the bullets from
this shooting were ever analyzed forensically, not even Twenty four
hours later, Mohammed and Malvo were one hundred fifty miles
southwest in Montgomery, Alabama, robbing the ABC Liquor store, where
they shot and killed Claudine Parker and wounded Kelly Adams.
(15:44):
Two days after the Alabama shootings, phone card records and
receipts put the snipers in Mohammed's hometown, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. There,
at six forty pm, Hong M. Ballinger had just finished
closing up the beauty shop where she worked. Ballinger had
just reached her car when she was shot in the head.
(16:05):
She died almost instantly. Another employee who was also leaving,
saw a large, dark car pull out of a vacant
lot and pick up a black man who had grabbed
Ballinger's purse. Police found a bullet fragment embedded and Ballinger's
side view mirror. It appeared to have come from a
two to three rifle, but the case went cold after
(16:27):
the sniper's arrest. Investigators reanalyze the bullet fragment from the
shooting and they matched it to the snipers Bushmaster rifle.
Ballinger was a victim of the snipers, likely the last
one before the snipers returned to Maryland and began their
DC attacks. They'd likely killed three and injured four more
(16:48):
in a span of eighteen days, all before the spree
in d C even started. But why did the snipers
then switch from this pattern of parking lot robberies to
see me only random killings in d C. Although investigators
were learning more about the scope of the snipers attacks,
their motive still remained a mystery. The only people who
(17:12):
could really answer the question of why we're Lee Boyd
Malvo and John Mohammed investigators needed one of them to
crack under questioning. Immediately after the sniper's arrest, a battle
(17:41):
began brewing in the DC area, with attorneys fighting over
where the snipers should be tried. On October two, just
the day after the snipers were arrested, Montgomery County Prosecutor
Doug Gansler held the news conference before he even learned
Malbo's age or last name. The Montgomery County Police Department
will attain an arrest warrant for the arrest of John Muhammad,
(18:04):
aged forty one, and Lee Salvo, aged nineteen, for six
counts a first degree murder. The decision to charge these
cases in Montgomery County, Maryland, was reached after in depth
consultation with local, state, and federal law enforcement officials. Montgomery
County was the community most affected and most impacted by
(18:25):
the sniper shootings. The investigation began, ended, and was centered
here in Montgomery County. The Feds were furious, sources say,
as local prosecutor Doug Ganceler walked to the microphones late
today to announce that Montgomery County is fighting the first
charges in the sniper case. Federal prosecutors privately accused Canceler
(18:46):
of breaking in agreements not to file charges until the
Feds decide if they want to take over the case.
In unusually harsh language. One federal official accused Canceler of
quotes exploiting this tragedy for political purposes. So how did
the sniper case cracked only yesterday up to now a
model of cooperation between Chief Moose, the FBI, and a
(19:08):
t F How did it unravel so fast with prosecutors
engaged in and unseemly fights over who gets the first
crack at convicting them. Two weeks later, on November seven, U. S.
Attorney General John Ashcroft announced where Malbo and Mohammed would
first be tried for twenty three days in October. Our
(19:29):
communities lived in fear. Innocent victims from Maryland, Virginia, the
District of Columbia, Alabama, and Louisiana have paid the ultimate price.
It is appropriate, it is imperative that the ultimate sanction
be available. I have instructed the U. S. Marshals Service
to transfer custody of John Alan Mohammed to Prince William County, Virginia.
(19:52):
I have also instructed the marshals to transfer custody of
a juvenile to Fairfax County, Virginia. Right after his arrest,
Mohammed had talked briefly with detectives, then clammed up and
asked for his lawyer. Now, with federal charges dropped and
stay charges pending, two new investigators took their turn at
trying to get Mohammed to talk. I want to take
(20:16):
the handcuff, so to me. Okay, salad with tomatoes and
what else, Sir John Loup. We're not here to jam
you up anything like that, but certainly you know we
want to talk to him too. Beans or potatoes, beans
(20:36):
and russ and the partiular kind of potatoes. How you
want to picture or anything like I was telling you much, Mohammed.
I understand that you've talked to attorneys and that they've
told you not to say anything. There's been a lot
of people who said that this was meaningless and since us,
but it had me. I believe it had meaning to you,
(20:58):
and this may be your only tunity to tell your story.
Your lawyers are not going to put you on the stand,
because when your lawyer gets done asking any questions, they're
going to be subject across examination. They're not going to
put you on the stand. You need to say what
you can say, and ladies behalf now, John, aside from
(21:22):
his requests for food, John Mohammed just sat stone faced
in the interrogation room. Detectives knew that Mohammed and Lee
boyd novel weren't biologically related, but that he had often
introduced the lead to friends as his son, so the
detectives tried to use John's relationship with Lee to get
him to talk. I would assume that since y'all were
(21:43):
taken into customy did you not talk to him? And
I would imagine that's very difficult for you. He's a
long he's afraid, but as a father myself. I know
fame that must cause you also not being able to
reach him in his time and trouble when he needs
your love more than he needs anything else. So if
(22:03):
you don't do anything else here for yourself, do this
for your son. Tell us the truth, tell us what
the meaning is behind this. Let's do some damage control
here and in some way try and spare his life.
Did Lee pull the trigger? Did le do any of
(22:25):
the shootings? Now? I can tell you what Leaves gonna do,
just based on what I know about kids and what
I know about their love to their parents. To save
his own life, that boy's not gonna say it was
all my daddy, It wasn't me. You know that in
your heart there's only one person that has any hope
(22:48):
of saving his life, and that's going to be you,
because if you don't say anything, he's not going to
say anything at least and lose his life over this John.
They're going to make an assumption that made pull of
the trader. They'renvasing on the fact that that was a
(23:10):
small area back there, and that in all likelihood you
were driving. Being more mature, you would be able to
drive with more calm than Kimp All we want to
know is the truth. And I don't want to see
a seventeen year old kid put it down namelessly. At seventeen,
he is not a man. He's a kid, and he's
(23:31):
afraid and he has alone, But the court's going to
treat him like a man. There was one person, seemingly,
and you know better than I do, because you know
he intimate details. There was one person who really seemed
to care about him. And here you are, and he's
not strong without you, and you know what he might do.
(23:56):
He might say I shot him out. He might say
by daddy drove, and I shot because I was the
smallest and I could sit back there. And what would
happen if he says that is he most assuredly will
be sentenced to death. But I can tell you something.
(24:21):
You can take the kid who's shot people and the
head or maybe he has watched people get shot for
no reason. You can take the kid and teach you
all of those tough, hard things, and he can do
it just like you wore. He can kill men, he
(24:42):
can cut the throats and not lose a wink of
sleep about it. But when it comes time to die,
when he's wounded on the battlefield. When the game is
over and he's facing death, he demonstrates loud and clear
that he's a boy play in a man's game. You
(25:05):
know why, John, because that's when they cry, and that's
when they call for the mamas for their daddy. When
he's in a man's prison, it's you he's gonna want.
When he lies on that wreck at night crying, it's
you he's going to think about. He played a man's game,
(25:26):
but he's a boy, and he's your boy that's gotten
to touch you in your heart. He wouldn't win his
mom or whoever his biological father was. He was with you.
And you know something, John, This is harsh, but this
is important. If you two are sentenced to death, I
(25:47):
pray to God that they execute you before they execute him,
because I'm gonna take something, John, And they could be executed,
and you could receive a stake for whatever reason, and
then you would sit and pray and for the rest
of your life with him going on ahead of you.
And you know what, that might not be his man.
(26:08):
He's seventeen years old, him spending the rest of his
natural life in prison. After you've made your peace with God,
that could be the real hell for him. If you
love him the way I think you love him, if
you love him the way I love my children, it
will tear your soul away from you. You will live
(26:31):
hell on Earth. Save his life if you don't do
anything else, do the right thing, fix this thing. If
you were on a sinken ship and there was one
life jacket, I have no doubt in my mind that
you would give it to late. You're on a sinking ship.
Now give that kid a life jacket. Give him an
(26:52):
opportunity to save himself, because he's not going to do
it unless you give him permission to do it. Because
if it were me and now, I wouldn't do it
unless he gave me permission and forced me to take
that my jacket. You can force him to save hisself
and then saving him save herself from the potential of
(27:14):
hell on earth. Let's just John Mohammed refused to talk,
but one county to the north, in Fairfax, investigators were
having better luck with Malva. Malvo was brought to Fairfax
County Homicide at that point, which I was working with
(27:37):
on the Lenda Franklin case. My name is Brad Garrett
i'mber retired FBI agent currently a crime and terrorism analyst.
It certainly didn't have the flavor to me or many
others that this was some terrorist of it. Nobody was
taking credit. There didn't seem to be any significance to
the people that got shot. It seemed like they were
(27:59):
just in the raw place at the wrong time, mowing
their yard, pumping gas. So it was hard to sort
of imagine what the real motivation might be. You know,
many shootings can be attributed to revenge, which may not
actually be towards the people they are shooting. Some people
(28:21):
call it displaced violence. So is that going on here?
When Malvo was brought to Fairfax County Homicide, myself and
a homicide detective by the name of June Boyle interviewed
him roughly starting at four o'clock in the afternoon until
about midnight. Courts are closing at four. It really set
(28:44):
up nicely for them. My name is Tom Walsh, partner
Petrovitch and Walsh. My name is Mark Petrovich, also a
partner at Petrovitch and Walsh. Tom and I were two
of the members of the team that represented Lee Malvo
in the DC sniper case. At the time in Maryland,
you wouldn't execute juveniles for the crimes they committed, but
you could in Virginia. So they took him out of
(29:05):
federal custody up in Maryland and transferred him over to
Fairfax County. In the course of transferring him over, he
did get an attorney appointed to him because he was
a juvenile. Was actually outside the building banging on the
doors trying to get in to meet with Lee before
the police interrogated him, but he wasn't allowed in and
(29:26):
the interrogation took place. They knew they were dealing with
a young kid that was indoctrinated. They were going to
be able to get him the spill of beans, and
they were going to take advantage of it. This is
FBI agent Brad Garrett again. June and I walk into
basically an office, but everything has been removed except a
desk and a couple of chairs. Malbo's smiling and it's
(29:46):
almost like he doesn't have a care in the world,
you know, which told me that he felt like he's
in control, that he has all of the information and
he has the power to share it with us or not.
June said to his right, and I sat in front
of him. I don't like talking to people from an
angle because one of the keys and getting people to
(30:08):
talk is being able to get them to look at
you and communicate with you. Because despite the artificiality of
interviewing somebody that's potentially committed multiple murders, you still have
to develop a relationship with them. And so the first
thing you typically always ask people is how do they feel?
(30:28):
How much has they slept? Do they need anything, food, water,
something to drink, et cetera. So we started talking a
little bit about where he was raised and you know,
how did he end up in Antigua? And he gradually
gave us pieces of information, but not a lot. And
so I'm sort of racking my brain is too, how
(30:49):
can I really get him to talk about something that
he may care about or have an interest in. I'm
not sure what got me to this point, but I
started talking about movies. Two thousand two, there was a
movie that have been out for a while called The Matrix,
and I knew a lot of kids his age like
that movie. So I said, have you watched the movie
(31:09):
The Matrix? And up to this point he has not
made eye contact. He sort of looked over me or
around me, even though I was in front of him,
and it was the first time he looked me in
the eyes, and I thought to myself, well, at least
I can maybe get him to connect with me at
this point. We'll see how far this goes. So we
started talking about the matrix and what the matrix meant.
(31:31):
Do you want to know what it is? The matrix
is everywhere, It is all around us. It is the
world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind
you from the truth. After that discussion, June and I
decided that we would sort of go, do you know
why you're here? We really like to talk to you
(31:51):
about these shootings. And so what he basically did was
he sort of just talked about pieces of information that
occurred at these Saints. Here are Melbo's lawyers, Mark Petrovitch
and Tom Walsh. They got him talking, he admitted to
some things, and then they read him as Miranda rights
(32:12):
with everything right. The Reggi rights, You're fine to talk
to us without an you still want to talk to us,
You don't mind talking to us. They can no longer
do that. It's now unconstitutional to conduct an interrogation that way.
But at the time, it wasn't. It's what they called
it legally, the cat out of the bag. And that
was kind of a point. What to do is to
get you talking and then after you say statements, they
(32:33):
read your rights and then they go back and confirm
what you said before. To now say oh, well you've
had your rights, and that he confirmed these things. You
would get you earlier that the gentleman that the nassas,
I'm spright and used it. It wasn't illegal, and if
you could see me, I guess I would air quote
that the way it was conducted wasn't illegal. But had
(32:57):
Todd Pett had been able to get in, he would
of advised Lee not to speak and they would not
have gotten the interrogation. But there was none of that,
and the statement came out it was It was damning.
The audio from the interview can be difficult to understand,
and throughout it Malbo laughed, made sound effects and responded
(33:18):
to questions with short, abrupt answers. You were all playing
a lot of year time, so you knew each start
you were going to hit in the gund of gun
that first day, slight in the morning, that was longbore
Son down. You say people will value you go up
(33:40):
in the bushes. He become a part of the bushes.
He caught in grass and then become a part of grass.
Fifty yard fense. Uh, I'm over in two seconds after
you shoot, you run the cargover fence. How can you
run with the gunman? Now? So easy to break down
because you have shot and broke it down right after shooting,
(34:02):
and you know we sees you and then we put
it in the bag or pull in the bag. All right,
can welcome you out of my hand? It's this deception. Yeah,
snipers a doin their weapons. This is what keeps me alive.
It's one man going out in facing army. Did you
see the trooper? I told you I'm goin a shot
(34:24):
the trooper. Why wouldn't because it wasn't a kisy And
you're going to keep carrying until you got the money,
until you listen to but at some point you know
that we have to give you the ten million O. Yes,
you could try to catch me until you mean that
shooting all these people was gonna affect the calling me
(34:45):
and let move at the same Chamelion. It's all planet.
You have to fit something, You have to fit the environment,
and you have to fictality live which is money and
you flick that this is all he's asking for and
get it, give it talk. But did you tie it's
manner whether it was male, female or you know nature,
(35:08):
nobody just to look get into that sidekick who was
just going out there shooting deep. I can't feel bad
about any certain one. You don't know if you have
to do when you do the same thing. Huh yeah.
If we didn't, they have caught you get still redoing it.
(35:30):
We had your resources to keep going. You did when
we need in cash money you plan for war before war?
Was it your money or John Burney was all the
money and working be seated? This unity does not hate.
That's dancing is a failure. Everyone has to be online
(35:55):
pop and there's something that you well that's something like business.
I think do you think them nothing? It doesn't him Okay, shocking,
(36:21):
it's just the last two minutes five two minutes he did.
So we went through that. It got some pretty incriminating information.
He did not give us all of the crimes that
they committed, which you know clearly involved crimes and Louisiana
and some other jurisdictions that we ultimately put together. But
(36:44):
you know, we felt like that we at least had
success because he got him to talk. Malvo didn't tell
investigators about all of the shootings leading up to this
bri in DC, but of the shootings they discussed, he
said that he had been the gunmen for all of
them and that Mohammed hadn't shot anyone. Here's Malvo's lawyer,
Tom Walsh. Again. He still brainwash at that time, so
(37:05):
he was taking blame for all the shootings. He was
basically trying to take everything on as a juvenile and
save his leader, Mohammed. He was clearly protective of Mohammed,
was trying to implicate Mohammed in a very minimal fashion,
so you could tell that there was some sort of
close bond between the two of them. At the end
(37:27):
of this interview, I said, what was the motivation? Why
did you guys do this? And he looked at me
and he says, well, it's all about the matrix. Two
understand mother Max, And I said, well, what does that mean? Answering,
(37:57):
I mean, that doesn't mean anything unless I know, what
do you think the matrix the movie means that he
just smiled part of Mohammed's indoctrination was to decessitize lee
to violence two shootings, to the consequences of what happened
The Matrix and things of that nature were part of
(38:18):
the indoctrination and as a factors that needed to be explored.
What did Malvo mean when he said that the explanation
for the shootings could be found in the movie The Matrix?
Investigators wondered if Mohammed had been radicalized and was committing
an act of terror out of hatred for America. And
then there was the demand for ten million dollars to
(38:39):
be deposited on a bankard. Could it really all be
about money? A day after Malvo's interview with police, the
(39:00):
Washington Post published an interview with John Mohammed's ex wife, Mildred.
She had her own theory about John's motivation for the crimes.
Do you know why he came to the area. He
went to a father's rights group, told them I kidnapped
the children. They did a skip trace on me, found
(39:22):
me in the DC area and told him. He went
to his best friend Robert. He said, I found Mildred.
She's in d C. I'm gonna go get her. His
best friend asked them, are you going to hurt her?
He didn't say anything. The theory was he was killing
(39:43):
innocent people to cover up my murder so he could
come in as the grieving father, get custody of the children,
and drive away. They probably would have named him Father
of the Year for coming to get the children and
raising them himself. That best friend called the FBI and said,
(40:04):
I don't know anything about your case, but you may
want to look at John Ali Mohammed. His ex wife
is in the area and he may be there to
hurt her. And I talked to Robert. I said, I
am calling you to thank you for saving my life.
(40:24):
Say Mildred, let me tell you something, girl, John came
there to kill you. I had to make a decision
to call and report him or watch your name scroll
under the TV that you've been killed. Say Mildred. I
would pay anything to have a beer with John right now.
That's my boy. But I had to call him. He said, So,
(40:48):
don't get this twisted. Don't believe that ten million dollar madness.
He came there to kill you. Don't ever get it twisted.
Mildred Mohammed thinks the random string of shootings was designed
to disguise her murder. If John had just killed her,
(41:09):
he would be the primary suspect, But if it looked
like she was just another random sniper victim, maybe he
would have gotten away with it. Mildred says that even
though that plan sounds crazy, it's the sort of crazy
plan that John would have come up with. After all,
this was the same John who was ready to run
away with Lindberg, his son from his earlier marriage, the
(41:31):
same John who kidnapped his kids from Mildred and took
them all the way to antique it. Washington Post reporter
Josh White says, while it's hard to ever definitively know
the motivation for a crime, Mildred's theory makes sense. Mildred
has talked about how she believed she was the target,
and I think that's plausible. All of those shootings create
(41:53):
panic and get police occupied, and that it would have
been very hard to connect her shooting to anything else,
just like it was very hard to connect any of
these other people together. It would have gotten him custody
of the children, It would have gotten the problem he
saw out of the way, but that didn't happen. Malvo
has said that they parked outside where she was living.
(42:16):
October eleven, my coworker picked me up for work. She said,
you know, there's a dark colored Caprisa and Pala outside
your door, and I just get a bad feeling from
that car. So girl, don't worry about let's just go
to work. So we passed by the car. The driver
(42:36):
looks at us, but the passenger has a newspaper and
he puts it up to cover his face. And I said,
did you see that? She said, yeah, I did. I said,
give me your phone, let me call the police. So
I called the police. They said, okay, we'll send someone
out there. Later they told me John sent Lee to
(42:57):
your door pretending to be a salesperson, and his instructions
were when you opened the door to shoot you in
the face, ms Mohammed. You opened the door, and for
whatever reason, he walked away. We don't know the repercussions
(43:18):
he suffered because he didn't kill you that day. Next
time on Monster DC Sniper, you know, it's hard enough
work in one murder to have these thirteen shootings just
(43:41):
in our area, let alone what else went around the country.
We knew it was going to be a monumental task.
Part of Mohammed's indoctrination was to decessitize lee to violence
to shootings. There's no amount of psychological coercion that would
force somebody to, let's say, kill, if they didn't already
(44:01):
had some kind of predisposition. I remember feeling just basically
shock and disbelief that he could have done this. He
just looks so innocent, how shocking. One of the most
alarming moments was when Mohammed stood to represent himself. We
had never heard from Mohammed at that point talk about
(44:22):
weird events in your life. I was being questioned by
the guy who tried to kill me. Monster DC Sniper
is a fifteen episode podcast hosted by Tony Harris and
produced by iHeart Radio and Tenderfoot TV. Matt Frederick and
(44:42):
Alex Williams are executive producers on behalf of I Heart Radio,
alongside producers Trevor Young, Ben Kiebrick, and Josh Thain. Payne
Lindsay and Donald Albright are executive producers on behalf of
Tenderfoot TV alongside producers Meredith Steadman and Christina Dana. Original
music is by Makeup and Vanity Set. If you haven't
(45:04):
already be sure to check out the first two seasons
at Lanta Monster and Monster the Zodiac Killer. If you
have questions or comments, email us at monster at iHeartMedia
dot com, or you can call us at one eight
three three two eight five six six six seven. Thanks
for listening.
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