February 20, 2020 • 46 mins
The fates of John Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo are now intertwined. We trace the dark path they took that lead to the first murder.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Monster d C Sniper, a production of iHeartRadio
and Tenderfoot TV. 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 iHeartMedia,
Tenderfoot TV, or their employees. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
December two thousand, the island of Antigua, fifteen year old
Lee boy Malvo lay alone in bed in a dark shack.
He shivered, sick with rheumatic fever. He needed medicine but
didn't know how to get it. He was all alone
in a foreign country, with no family and few friends.
(00:42):
There was a knock at the door. A man came in.
It was John Mohammed, the American, the man who had
smuggled Lee's mother into the United States. John had just
come by to check on the boy, who he knew
was living alone, but when he saw Lee's dire state,
brought him to the doctor. Lee got an antibiotic shot
(01:04):
and John stayed with him while he recovered.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Mohammed he stated me the entire time of nurse and
back to health, and I told him my entire life story,
my parents, my situations when I bounced around what I felt.
I told him everything. I left nothing out Because I
trusted this guy. He gave me his time. It's that simple.
(01:28):
He was one of the only people who listened I
lead on him. I trusted him. I did not trust
my mom. I didn't trust anyone else, but I trusted him.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Before long, Lee asked John if he could live with him.
John agreed, and Lee moved in with him and his children.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
He was so desperate to have a father figure. My
name is doctor Chonathan Harold Meck. I am a clinical
nurse psychologist. Very quickly, Malvo starts calling Muhammed dad.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
He said, everything that you've been taught from your religion,
your morals, your education, you've basically been brainwashed. And he
would explained to me a mixture of his worldview and
the nation of Islam. He twisted a lot of things.
Speaker 4 (02:15):
It certainly wasn't you know, standard religion. He would have
him listen to tapes even when he was falling asleep.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Speaches and all sorts of stuff, thousands of hours, over
and over.
Speaker 4 (02:27):
Again, giving him subliminal suggestions that there is essentially a
war going on between blacks and whites.
Speaker 5 (02:35):
There is a ruthless person on the loose.
Speaker 6 (02:38):
What I nerves this community the most is the randomness
of the murders, ordinary people doing ordinary things.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
They killed the five people in one day and then
went on the rampage for the next month.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
It is quite a mystery.
Speaker 7 (02:52):
The police say they have never had a crime quite
like this.
Speaker 8 (02:55):
Be careful, these guys are using weapons that are going
to go right straight through our full of proof best.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
From My Heart Radio and Tenderfoot Teva.
Speaker 5 (03:07):
This is Monster DC sniper.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
Very quickly when I met Mom and I assimilated everything
about him.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
At the beginning of two thousand and one, after Lee
had moved in with John in Antigua, friends and teachers
remember seeing Lee change. His good grades began to slip.
He started bringing a Koran to his Christian high school
and arguing with other students about religion, and Lee also
started talking a lot about guns.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
I just became someone. It was something I'm used to doing.
I can bouncing around from home to home, place to place,
and I became what I call a change in him.
Whoever I'm around, whoever the authority is, I changed the
suit that person.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
The attachment to a mother or a father is really
core to developing a stable mentally health the adult.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Doctor Jonathan Mack is a neural psychologist and co author
of the book The Making of Lee Boyd.
Speaker 5 (04:07):
Malvo.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Max studied Lee's life extensively. He thinks Lee's readiness to
trust John was due to an attachment disorder, a disorder
in how kids connect with adults.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
I felt that Malvo met the criteria for disinhibited social
engagement disorder.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
With disinhibited social engagement disorder, kids are so desperate for
a caregiver that they are overly trusting of strangers. They
will latch onto any authority figure they can, ignoring signs
that the adult might not have their best interest at heart.
Speaker 4 (04:41):
If you look at Malvo's history, his father in the
first years of his life was in his life, out
of his life. His mother was also in and out
and had a habit of shipping him off, and just
as soon as he was developing an attachment to the
new people, he was moved somewhere else. So the fact
that that Malvo had so many broken attachments from so
(05:03):
many of the people that he lived with, he had
this social disengagement disorder and was basically ready to attach
on to anyone.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
I went to him because I felt alone in this world.
I assimilated everything about him, from his mannerisms, is religion.
I lost my accent. I just became someone different once
he gained my trust. That was the lost copse.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Throughout early two thousand and one, John continued to forge
documents and helped smuggle people into the United States. On
April fourteenth, John was detained at Miami International Airport. He'd
flown there from Antigua alongside to Jamaican women. The women
were caught presenting forged documents to customs agents, and the
(06:03):
agents suspected John was helping the two women enter the
United States illegally. They couldn't prove it, so they had
to release John, but they contacted Antiguan authorities and relayed
their suspicions. Lee says that John called him in a panic.
John told Lee to hide the kids and the cash
(06:23):
that he kept in the house. Lee took the children
to John's girlfriend's place, but when he went back to
get the money, it had already been seized by Antiguan authorities.
Lee says John lost at least one hundred sixty thousand
dollars because of the raid. John feared he would be
arrested if he returned to Antigua, so he decided to
(06:44):
lay low in the US. John instructed Lee, who was
just sixteen years old himself, to watch over his kids.
John also asked Bale to help out with the business
by delivering fake birth certificates to clients. Lee dropped out
out of school to help. John then traveled back to
Washington State, and on April twenty third, he legally changed
(07:07):
his name from John Williams to John Muhammad, perhaps to
try to avoid raising any red flags when he returned
to Antigua.
Speaker 9 (07:17):
Okay, mister Williams taching to have your name change.
Speaker 10 (07:21):
Just what is your current legal name?
Speaker 9 (07:24):
My current legal name is Allen, Okay, and what is
the new name by which you wish to be known?
Speaker 11 (07:31):
Allen Muhammad?
Speaker 9 (07:33):
And why do you desire to be known.
Speaker 11 (07:34):
By this new name?
Speaker 10 (07:35):
For our religion partner?
Speaker 9 (07:37):
Are you changing your name for any other reason? Are
you changing your name to defraud or mislead any person
or creditor? Are you involved in any legal proceeding other
than this name change? And have you ever been convicted
of a felony? Are you under supervision of any probation
department that requires you to report a change of address
MILCA ahead you grant.
Speaker 11 (07:58):
Your name change there.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
While in Washington State, John also visited Earl Donze.
Speaker 12 (08:04):
I met John when I used to work for Horizon Airlines.
I was actually interested in a printer that I saw
at a store. This printer was an ALPS MD five
thousand CERI. Printer had a big.
Speaker 10 (08:18):
Reputation during the early nineties of making counterfeit money.
Speaker 12 (08:22):
It views film as inking, so it was really expensive
printers I wouldn't afford at the time. And this cowork
of mine knew a friend as did it.
Speaker 10 (08:31):
So I met John that way. John was really flashy.
He had nice suits. He become different cars all the time,
Jaguar Diamante.
Speaker 12 (08:40):
He said, I can get the printer for you if
you can help me out. He want to know if
I can alter some documents because for a hobby I
do graphics designs. Okay, so a fairy deal. So John
got it for me.
Speaker 10 (08:54):
I don't know how he got it. He asked me
to stand a birth certificate with.
Speaker 12 (08:57):
His name on it and asked me if I can
raise the name that was on the birthday. So I
used a simple program on computer to erased a name,
and he asked me to type another name.
Speaker 13 (09:09):
Man.
Speaker 12 (09:10):
Okay, sure, so he wanted me to type I'm guessing
could have been Lee.
Speaker 5 (09:16):
You know.
Speaker 12 (09:16):
This is where I realized that he was actually involved
with smuggling people across the border.
Speaker 10 (09:21):
He was charging thousand bucks ahead I think maybe more.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
On May twentieth, two thousand and one, John traveled back
to Antigua with his new name and altered documents in hand.
Speaker 14 (09:34):
When John returned to the island, the government had already
seized over one hundred and sixty thousand dollars, but John
did not scold Lee.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
This is criminologist and co author of Lee Boyd Malbo's
autobiography Anthony Meoi.
Speaker 14 (09:50):
When he got back, John pulled him tight, hugged him
and said, great job, son. And it was that very
moment that really select that defies their relationship. Lee said,
from that moment on, I was willing to do anything
for that man.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
A week and a half later, on May thirty first,
John returned to the United States with his three children
and Lee Boyd Malville. They traveled through Puerto Rico to
Fort Myers, Florida, where Lee's mother was living and working
at a red lobster restaurant. Lee says that John was
planning on setting up a counterfeiting operation with friends from
(10:33):
the Caribbean. John wanted Lee to watch over the kids
while he traveled to get the equipment they needed to
print fake currency. According to Lee's diary, John asked Lee's
mother if the boy could continue staying with him, but
she was having none of it. Una thought John was
a bad influence on her son. Lee remembers his mother saying,
(10:54):
he is my child. What I eat, he eats. If
he cannot be satisfied with that, that greed will kill him.
She then looked at Lee and said, you met this
man no more than six months ago, and you've completely
forgotten where you come from. Reluctantly, John left Lee with
Una and disappeared again with his kids. Back in Washington State,
(11:34):
Mildred Muhammad was still searching for her children. It had
been fifteen months since she had seen or spoken to them.
Following her hospitalization, Mildred had moved into a women's shelter
where her friend and former accountant, Eisen Nichols volunteered. Mildred
took a pair ofegal course to learn about what legal
options she had to get her children back. She divorced
(11:56):
John in his absence and legally gained full custody of
the children. The problem was no one knew where they were,
so she also filed a red of habas corpus, which.
Speaker 15 (12:08):
Meant that anywhere they found my children, they needed to
pick them up and bring them back to me. So
I had all of my paperwork notarized. And my sister
calls and says, Mama sick, can you come to Maryland.
I have not found my children, but I can wait
(12:28):
over there.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Mildred moved to the town of Clinton in Prince George's County, Maryland.
Three more months passed without any sign of the children.
It was now August two thousand and one, and the
shelter where Mildred had been staying got a call. Her
friend Issa Nichols was volunteering there when it happened.
Speaker 16 (12:49):
We get a call and it is the Department of
Social Health Services in Bellingham, Washington. They're calling following up
an application for support, but John had completed with his
three kids. Well, what John didn't know the three kids
were already in the system.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
John Muhammad had returned to Washington State with his children
and tried to register them for welfare, but Ath already
suspected him of committing welfare fraud, so they looked up
the children's previously listed contact information and tried calling Mildred
at the shelter.
Speaker 15 (13:26):
I get a call from the executive director of the
shelters in and she said, Millie, I think we found
your children. You need to fax all of your paperwork
to Detective McCarthy. So I did that, followed up with
a phone call. I said, did you get my paperwork?
He said yes, Smam, I did. But Ms Muhammed, do
(13:50):
you know where we are? I say, you're in Bellingham, Washington.
He said correct, but we're on the border of Canada.
If he gets across the border with your children, there
will be nothing we can do. I said, I appreciate
(14:11):
that information, but if you could just go get my children,
I would appreciate that too. August thirty first, four thirty
five pm. He called and he said, Miss Mohammed, we
(14:32):
got your children. I screamed, and my brother in law
came downstairs.
Speaker 8 (14:37):
What's going on?
Speaker 2 (14:38):
I said, hey found my children.
Speaker 5 (14:39):
Can you please talk to him.
Speaker 15 (14:40):
I'm running up and down the stairs, running outside and
in and he said, nol, do you want to talk
to him?
Speaker 16 (14:46):
I stopped.
Speaker 15 (14:48):
I hadn't heard their voices in eighteen wards. So the
first person I talked to is Taliba and she says, hi, mommy.
I said, hey, honey, how you doing? She said, I'm good.
Speaker 16 (15:01):
You want to talk to my sister. Let's said, yes,
say me talked to your sister.
Speaker 15 (15:08):
She said, hi, mommy. I say, hey, honey.
Speaker 16 (15:10):
She said guess what.
Speaker 15 (15:12):
I said, what honey, I'm nine years old and you
missed two birthdays. I said, oh, I'm sorry. I'll make
it up to you.
Speaker 17 (15:22):
I promise.
Speaker 15 (15:23):
She said, okay, mommy, but John doesn't want to talk
to you because he's angry. I said, okay, that's fine.
So Detective McCarthy gets back on the phone and he said,
it's Mohammad. We need for you to come back to
Tacoma for any emergency custody hearing.
Speaker 16 (15:41):
Mildred flies out the next day and she calls me
up that next morning and she says, will you go
with me to the courthouse? And I said sure. I
didn't think anything about it. You know, eighteen months have
gone by. I want to see the kids.
Speaker 15 (15:56):
I so went with me to court and We're standing
in the hallway and I said, oh, my god, there's John.
Speaker 16 (16:06):
Mildred looks at John. John stares at Mildred. Mildred starts
running and screaming. She's just scared. She hasn't seen John
in eighteen months. The sheriff's apartment is in the courthouse,
and they come out and they get her and they
put us in a room somewhere until the court case.
Speaker 15 (16:26):
So we walk in the courtroom and as soon as
I get in the door, I see John on the
back road to the right side, and I froze and
I just remember feeling that I was so scared. But
he was just sitting there, just oh, nonchalant. And I
(16:46):
used to say, Mildred, just.
Speaker 16 (16:47):
Breathe, breathe. What do you mean, just breathe.
Speaker 15 (16:49):
Do you know how fast this man can move?
Speaker 17 (16:52):
She said, Mildred, we just have to breathe.
Speaker 16 (16:55):
So we're calming her down. She's holding my hand. Were
sitting by her attorney. They're going over the paperwork, and
the judge hiss the.
Speaker 7 (17:02):
Gavel morning, please be seated.
Speaker 11 (17:07):
This is enery the marriage of Mildred Denise Williams, John
Allen Williams Council, Your honor, Heather Smith on behalf of
the petitioner. This is Mildred Williams. She is present in
the court. Let me swear both parties in before it begins. Sir,
if you raise your right hand, ma'am you both saw
me swear from the name testimony. You're about to provide
the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Yes, yes, sir, sir,
(17:29):
what is your name? Legal name is John Allen Muhammad
and ma'am what is your name mild Muhammas. But they
said that we needed to use the ninth that we
were married on their death wives under William Council. You
have if I believe a return on a rid of
habeas corpus. I do have at Commissioner Dickie issued it
back in June of two thousand and this is the
(17:49):
first contact with these children since that time. Yes, it
is your honor. The divorce decree and apparenting plans were
entered in October of two thousand, after the writ that
the final parenting plan gives who custody the children?
Speaker 3 (18:05):
All three children? Yes, I can I say something just
a moment, okay.
Speaker 11 (18:09):
The concern I have right now is I don't know
who's got these children where they're at and speaking with
a deputy right this morning. All they would need was
an order releasing the children from protective custody to the
mother's custody. Cyah, would you like to say, Yohna, can
you please tell me what's going on? There is a
parenting plan was entered by the court on October six,
(18:30):
two thousand. Awarepons, there was an order of default taken
against you because you did not respond to divorced summons.
It was published against you. As part of that Mother
obtained on her own without the help of an attorney,
for ritt of habeas corpus, which allows her to have
the physical possession of the children, so the children to
have a mission the waradots whenever known by mother. That's
(18:53):
why the court apparently issued the writ you never responded
to the published summons for divorce. Are you telling me
the reason why I don't have my children won't be
to keep my children because I don't have the proper
paperwork ynt No, I'm saying that you've been divorced. The
court has entered orders that mother had sole residential placement,
care and custody of the children, and then you've got
(19:14):
no visitation at present without for the court order. So
I'm not able to see my children by virtue of
the private court order, not today's court order. So if
you believe that the allegations are not valid, you should
bring that to the court's attention, all right. If you
do not have copies of the court orders, I suggest
that sir, you ask for copies of those documents so
(19:36):
you can look at them and reflect on what you'd
like to do next.
Speaker 13 (19:41):
Thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 16 (19:44):
John finds all of that information out in the courtroom
that day that he is divorced for Mildrid and she
has sole custody of the children. He was so angry
he flipped. It was that look that I will never forget.
(20:06):
John leaves the courtroom. We come out and we're standing
against the wall.
Speaker 15 (20:12):
And all of a sudden, I fell a presence and
I turn and it's John. I take off down the hallway,
My shoes go everywhere.
Speaker 16 (20:24):
Mildred takes off sprinting down the corner. I look up
and John passes by me, heading towards Mildred. He was
just so focused, he just had this dead stare. He
was so angry, and I look back.
Speaker 15 (20:41):
John puts his hand on the courtroom door, looks at
me and says, gotcha.
Speaker 16 (20:50):
He turned around and he walked back the other direction,
and I was just up against the wall, hoping he
wouldn't see me.
Speaker 15 (20:57):
My attorney said, oh, hell no, we gotta get out
of here.
Speaker 16 (21:02):
I'm scared. I'm letting my daughter know. Lock the doors,
don't answer if anybody comes to the door, because I
figured he would probably come there looking.
Speaker 15 (21:11):
So we take the stairs to go down to the
police station and we explained to them what happened, and
can we please go out of their back door. They
say no, we need to go out the front door.
Speaker 17 (21:24):
Just like everybody else, John was no joke.
Speaker 15 (21:42):
I believed everything he said to me. He was gonna
kill me. It was gonna be a headshot, and he
was gonna bury me when nobody would be able to
find me. I was terrified, and the terror came because
nobody believed me. They thought I was being dramatic. They
were actually gonna let me die. And then what were
(22:04):
they going to say? Oh, she was a good old girl,
you know, she loved the children. We did not see
that coming, Yes you did. When I hear people say that,
oh I didn't see that, Yes you did. Victims always
give signs, they always tell somebody. So we walk out
of the court like a triangle where everybody's watching each
(22:25):
other's back.
Speaker 16 (22:26):
Get to the car.
Speaker 15 (22:28):
I slouched down in the car so no one could
see that I was in the car. We go over
to the Department of Health and Human Resources because that's
where my children were, and the first person I see
is my son. He's tall, he's skinny, he's trying to
wear afro, but it's in a dome, you know. And
(22:54):
I walk up to him and he got his pants
on his butt sagging.
Speaker 16 (22:59):
Oh geez whiz.
Speaker 15 (23:01):
And I should have said, honey, I'm so glad to
see you, but I'm pulling up his pants, sayings, this's
gonna be an issue, and he starts laughing. And then
I hear my daughters, mommy, mommy, mommy, they're coming down,
and I'm just so overwhelmed.
Speaker 16 (23:18):
I'm crying might in my eyes.
Speaker 14 (23:19):
I can't see you.
Speaker 16 (23:20):
I can't see you.
Speaker 15 (23:23):
And Selena said, Mommy says, honey, Daddy said he was
looking for you, but he couldn't find you. I said, really,
I was trying to find you, but he changed your names.
So you were looking for us? Absolutely, Mommy. I just
(23:44):
want to let you know that God answered my prayer
because I was.
Speaker 16 (23:49):
Praying and praying and praying for him.
Speaker 15 (23:51):
To send you back to me, and you're finally here.
I say, honey, no one will have for take you
away from me again.
Speaker 16 (24:04):
Okay, okay.
Speaker 15 (24:07):
So we get in the car and we drive over
to the airport. Security picked us up from the car,
brought us to their security office. Once the pilot was
ready to go, security took us to the plane. We
landed BWI September fifth, two thousand and one.
Speaker 5 (24:28):
Did you speak to John again?
Speaker 3 (24:30):
Now?
Speaker 10 (24:31):
Why would I?
Speaker 16 (24:33):
No career?
Speaker 17 (24:34):
Why would I?
Speaker 5 (24:36):
Did he ever try to reach out to you.
Speaker 15 (24:39):
He didn't know where I was. I wasn't hiding.
Speaker 5 (24:44):
So the last thing you remember hearing from John was
got you.
Speaker 16 (24:48):
Yes.
Speaker 13 (24:58):
One story is the John is just a psychotic killer.
I guess that's plausible. But the other story is that
he melted down under the pressure of not being ever
able to either see his kids or even get into
court to talk about seeing his kids.
Speaker 5 (25:13):
This is J.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Mills, a divorce attorney who took on John's case at the.
Speaker 13 (25:18):
Court hearing the kids were turned over to Mildred. The
judge did that on a temporary basis, told John Muhammad
that he should come back and set up a hearing
to discuss the kids further. And so it was after
that hearing where he lost the kids that he came
to see me.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Mills didn't know much about John's background. He thought John
was just going through a rough divorce. Mills actually felt
sorry for John, so he took on the case pro bono.
Speaker 13 (25:45):
He was a pretty normal, routine sort of person, fairly focused.
He wasn't very happy about how things had turned out
in court, but he understood would had gone on. The
judge wasn't permanently depriving him of contact with the kids.
The judge wanted him to set up a hearing to
discuss what sort of a parenting plan would be appropriate,
(26:06):
and that's very routine. I did set up a hearing
which would require Mildred to show up in court and
then talk about the kids, but we never had a
court hearing because we can never find Mildred. Mildred vanished
with the kids. After I had set up a couple
of the hearings without being able to serve Mildred with papers,
(26:27):
I went to him and said, look, let's find Mildred.
Because I can set up hearings all day, but what
difference does it make if we can never locate Mildred?
And so he set off to do that. I've given
this story to other people, and sometimes the blowback is
that I am trying to justify what John did, or
(26:49):
that I don't think he's a bad guy. I mean, clearly,
the guy is a bad person with very, very severe problems,
and I wouldn't try to justify that. But there's more
to this story. These preliminary decisions get made, and people
freak out about him because they're dealing with people's real
personal lives and their intimate relationships with kids. People who
(27:10):
go through the process get really disturbed by that. And
I've been involved in a number of cases where the
end result is shootings. Tacoma was fairly famous for an
incident where the chief of police shot is soon to
be ex wife and killed her. That was the chief
of police, right, so that guy must have had some
(27:30):
degree of normal personality, but then he lost it and
he melted down. And it's not uncommon for these things
to result in a lot of violence. One way to
hopefully avoid that. If it's possible is to have people
air their grievances in court, win or lose, they've at
least been able to tell their story or Now. I'm
(27:53):
not saying that that should require Mildred to come stand
with John by her side, but John Muhammed's out there.
There was some process that could have played out where
everybody could have had their day in court, and he
never did so. I again, I try to make clear
that I think what he did was horrific, and.
Speaker 5 (28:11):
I think it's it's just evil stuff.
Speaker 13 (28:16):
But the kind of background story to it that should
be aired is that I think there were ways that
the system failed to diffuse that kind of problem, and
instead it just sort of threw gasoline on a fire.
If we do not address the systemic failures that occurred
in this case, I worry that there are other people
(28:38):
like that wandering the streets, and people are going to
die if this problem isn't addressed in a better way.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Just a week after John lost, the Kid's tragedy struck.
Speaker 11 (28:55):
Apparently a plane has just crashed into the World Trade
Center here and knew New York City had happened just
a few moments ago.
Speaker 13 (29:03):
I had been meeting with John in my office when
the World Trade Center was burning to the ground. He
had no interest in any of the politics. He wanted
to see his kids.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
John would later say that losing his kids was his
own personal nine to eleven. It was surely a low
point in his life. He'd lost his money in the
rate of Antigua, he was living in a homeless shelter,
and now he'd lost his children. John's friend Robert Holmes,
the same friend who reported John to the FBI, says
(29:36):
John was devastated. Holmes told Vanity Fair in two thousand
and four, quote, I think that after his kids got
taken away, John had a nervous breakdown. I'm not a
professor or a doctor, but John changed in a million
subtle ways. He'd spend all day some days just crying.
All he could think of was getting his kids back.
Speaker 5 (30:00):
Back.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
In Fort Myers, Florida, Lee Boyd Malva was also struggling.
He was trying to adjust to yet another new living situation.
Lee had enrolled as a junior at Cypress Lake High School.
He was getting good grades in his classes, but he
was struggling to navigate the American system. Lee wanted to
go to college and one day become an airline pilot,
(30:23):
but he didn't have the necessary documentation to sign up
for the SATs, so he turned to John for help.
Una thought that John had been a bad influence on
her son and had forbidden Lee from talking to him,
But on weeknights, while Una worked at Red Lobster, John
would secretly.
Speaker 3 (30:40):
Call I was unable to distinguish between Mohammad's father I
had wanted and Mohammad and nervous wrecks. That was his
falling to pieces.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
John told Lee he could get him into college, but
John wanted something in return, and he needed Lee to
join him in Washington. Fired leave money for a greyhound ticket.
Lee says that sometime late in two thousand and one,
after his mother fell asleep, he packed up his clothes,
a tennis racket, and a portable CD player. He snuck
(31:13):
out of the house at four thirty am and got
on a bus headed northwest. Lee arrived in Bellingham, Washington
a week later.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
When I first arrived in Bellingham, he told me that
he's searching for the children. He said, in order to
get the children, we're going to have to do whatever
it takes. I looked at him as my family, and
they had my siblings, so I'm like, okay, we're going
to do whatever it takes. I didn't understand, but that
man at the.
Speaker 10 (31:42):
Time I read.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
In Bellingham, John introduced Lee to everyone as his son.
Lee stayed with John at the homeless shelter and soon
enrolled at Bellingham High School, but one school was out
for the day. Lee says, John was of his education.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
Day in day out. He controlled what I read, what
I did, what I ad when I slept, in every
single aspect from diets, studies, my activities, every single aspect
and fastt of my life. And he didn't give me
a time to rest. He understood exactly how to motivate
me by giving approval or denying approval, and he verse
(32:26):
it wasn't violent at all. It was I mean, it's
like with a temp does to a woman. That's the
best description I can offer.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
Sometimes they'd leave the homeless shelter in Bellingham and stay
with John's friends in Tacoma. One friend they would often
visit was Earl Dante, the friend you heard from earlier
who photoshopped a birth certificate for John.
Speaker 12 (32:48):
John didn't dress up as much the more he wasn't
flashing more. He had come around her with a white truck.
One time he popped my door and had leave with him. Hey, Earl,
this is my son Lee. Oh, how you don't want
to call a processor? That'd be a nice to you.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
After a while at Dante's, Lee says they would play
video games and watch movies. They'd watch some movies over
and over. One favorite was The Matrix. Another was Carlos
Hathcock Marine Sniper. It was a sort of instructional video
with advice for snipers.
Speaker 5 (33:21):
Continue your training. You cannot do it too much. You
cannot do it too much, So do it as much
as you can. Put all your men and body into it.
Speaker 11 (33:30):
Train Train, Train.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
And John and Earl began giving Lee's shooting lessons as well.
Speaker 3 (33:37):
He had a friend Earl. He just said, look, I
need you to go to the range and just tell early.
Teach me how to shoot. It's amazing how quickly I
would pick on these things.
Speaker 10 (33:47):
Let go shooting.
Speaker 12 (33:48):
I couldn't go as often as he could because I
had to work. He is a I'm gonna take your
god to the range. So okay, I had a six
hour forty five. I had a smith and Wesson forty
four caliber. I had a AK forty seven, I had
a Winchester TO seventy, and I had a Remington seven
hundred Model three eight series and a Twin to calibist.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
Back in Florida, Lee's mom, Una James, had been searching
for Lee since he'd left. Una paged through her caller
ID and found a strange number. It was for a
homeless shelter in Washington State, and she had a feeling
that Lee might be staying there with John. So for
weeks she called the number but could never get through
(34:34):
to either of them. In an interview with Vanity Fair,
Una said that she kept calling and one day finally
she heard John's voice on the other end. She demanded
that John Sendley back to her in Florida. She remembers
John saying, I have a job to do and I
can't rely on some cookeead to do it. Terrified of
(34:55):
what that meant, Una got on a Greyhound bus and
headed for Washington State. When Una arrived, she confronted John
at the homeless shelter and some one called the cops.
When the cops arrived, they reunited Lee and Una, but
the cops suspected they were both undocumented immigrants, and reported
them to Border Patrol. They were arrested and finger printed.
(35:17):
These were the finger prints and the rest report that
would later supply authorities with the names Lee Boyd Malvow
and John Mohammad. Following their arrest, Una and Lee were
separated and detained. Then on January twenty third, both were
released into an I and S safe house to await
a deportation hearing. In an interview at Vanity Fair, Una
(35:38):
said that Lee told her mom, we are being followed
and if I don't go, they'll kill you. Two days later,
Lee climbed out of a bathroom window and ran off.
Lee ran back to John.
Speaker 5 (35:59):
Now.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
Lee's grooming began in earnest. Lee says he and John
would go shooting for hours a day.
Speaker 3 (36:07):
He'd stand behind me and he would taught me through
the process. He would explain to me all the things
that I hated about myself and why this has to die.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
Lee Boyd Malvoe says John told him to visualize his
own face onto the targets, to imagine that with each
shot he was destroying his own weakness.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
Heat needs killed myself over and over and over and over.
He told me, the old person has to die. Lee
Malville has to die it because Lee Malvau cannot do this.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
Lee says they would go to nearby woods and pretend
they were hunting each other with sniper rifles to practice
stealth and camouflage techniques. Lee says that on one of
those outings, when it was snowing, John stripped off Lee's
shirt and chained him to a tree. John left him
there for hours and told him it was an exercise
(37:02):
to mentally hardened him.
Speaker 3 (37:04):
It's like a woman messing in a music relationship. Someone
looking from the outside said, man, they're a multiple opportunities.
Why couldn't she leave? Why she stayed for twenty years?
It's not that simple. The body is just obsessed. Once
someone has me emotionally, they have your mind.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
Lee Boyd Malvo's training was almost over. Soon John would
give him his first real mission. Not too far away
in Tacoma, Ia, Nichols had been keeping in touch with
Mildred Muhammad.
Speaker 16 (37:38):
We were having different conversations, probably maybe once or twice
a month as she begins to re establish her life
after eighteen months without her children.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
Isa was glad all the drama with John seemed to
be over and that the kids were back with their mom.
Speaker 16 (37:54):
My life was so intertwined with hers in terms of
her children and keeping her alive and keeping her safe.
Now I'm faced with where I left off in my life.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
Asa had her own struggles at home. Her niece, Kenya Cook,
had just gotten out of an abusive relationship.
Speaker 16 (38:12):
Before they had fought, but they had a baby. Now
now she's scared for the baby, and she's decided to leave.
And I said, yes, I'll take her home. She can
come with me. So now I have her, her three
month old child, my teenage daughter who's now fourteen, and
my husband, and it's working. I'm very proud of her.
(38:37):
She's enrolling in school. She had gotten a job and
got up to a supervisory position, and the baby's thriving,
and Kenya saving money. She was helping me around the house,
and we would go shopping together and different things of
that nature. And one day, February sixteenth, two thousand and two,
(39:00):
we had went grocery shopping and I was gonna make
some chicken tacos that I do pretty good, and we
forgot the taco shells, and so I was going back
to the store I told Kenya to watch the food
in the pot because I was boiling the chicken, and
she said, okay, Auntie and I left, and then my
fourteen year old, who was at a sleepover, decided she
(39:22):
didn't want to stay, so she called me and asked
me to come pick her up, and I did, and
then we went to the store. We were gone about
an hour, maybe an hour and a half, and I
pull in and our driveway remote control wasn't working. So
I sent my daughter into the house to open the
garage door, and I'm waiting. Garage door doesn't open, and
(39:45):
my daughter finally comes back to the car and she's
standing there and it's starting to rain, and I said, hey,
what are you doing. My daughter has the look of
trauma on her face. I said, girl, what is it?
What's wrong? She sent Mommy, Kenya's lying on the floor
(40:06):
and the house is all smoky. So I go to
the house and just as she said, my niece was
lying on the floor in the doorway, and the house
was covered with smoke. The pot and its contents had
disintegrated and melted. And so somehow, by the grace of God,
I was able to get that stove turned off with
(40:28):
all of that heat, my daughter standing in the doorway,
just staring. I called nine one one. I ran upstairs
to check on the baby, because I'm thinking that they
had to succumb to smoke in elation. And so I
ran upstairs and the baby was on the edge of
the bed. All around her was the diaper, the nighty
wram bottle was still there, and I didn't know if
(40:50):
the baby was alive or not. I didn't know if
the baby was breathing, and so I touched the baby
gently and she jumps up and she's screaming from where
she left. So I grabbed the baby diaper and took
the baby downstairs, and handed the baby to my daughter
and told her to go to the neighbors and went
(41:12):
back to Kenya. And I got over Kenya's body and
I saw a little bullet casey and a little hole
in her face. I stayed there. I had already called
nine one one, and I can hear the ambulance in
the background. They're on their way, and I'm talking to
(41:32):
Kenya hanging there and I'm praying and I'm telling her
help is coming, and the ambulance get there, and I'm
sitting on the step and they come into the house
and they get her body and they pull her from
the fourier into the living room where they start working
on her, trying to revive her. And they finally say
(41:54):
she's gone. And I just stared and looked in just dismay.
I couldn't process what they meant by saying she's gone.
And I saw where Kenya's head had laid. The bullet
(42:15):
casing was still there, and I just saw blood. The
back of her head had just been blown out. I
just went into a cold state. I was just on
auto pilot. I was just following commands.
Speaker 2 (42:38):
According to Lee's autobiography, that very same night, John Muhammad
gave Lee his first test.
Speaker 3 (42:47):
One night, he says, Okay, this is what I need
for you to do. There was a house on the hill.
I want you to go there. I want you to go.
I want you to talk to this parson.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
Lee says, John drove him to a house, ranting about
politics and wars and necessary sacrifices. John dropped Lee off
and told him he'd be watching. Lee was wearing a
dark hoodie and he was holding a brown paper bag.
He tried to calm himself as he walked up to
the house. He knocked on the door, and after a
(43:20):
short delay, it opened. A young woman greeted him. He said,
good evening, is missus Nicholls in. He remembered that she
seemed lonely and eager to talk. She gave him a
long answer, explaining that Isa was at home. John had
prepared Lee for this possibility. I have a message for her,
(43:41):
Lee said. He reached into the brown paper bag and
pulled out a forty five caliber pistol, one they borrowed
from Earl Dance. John had told Lee to visualize his
own face on top of hers, just like in the training.
Here's what Lee wrote about that moment in his autobiography,
(44:02):
read by a voice actor.
Speaker 6 (44:04):
A voice deep inside me said, don't, don't, don't, I thought, Lee,
you cannot face John unless you do this. I pointed
the forty five caliber gun to her face, and in
an instant I saw not her but me, my old
self that I hated, that scared hurt self. That night,
(44:30):
Lee boy Malvo died. I pulled the trigger. In an instant,
she too was gone.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
Next time on Monster DC Sniper, I.
Speaker 16 (44:50):
Was sudden, there's these helicopters flying all over the Tacoma community.
They are actually saying the DC Sniper is linked to Tacoma.
Speaker 8 (45:01):
Again a note found, this time it's an angry note.
Speaker 1 (45:05):
You did not respond to the message.
Speaker 5 (45:07):
You departed from what we told you to say.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
Your incompetence has cost you another life.
Speaker 8 (45:12):
We need to find these guys, and we need to
do it now.
Speaker 7 (45:16):
She's got sources telling her that they're getting close, that
they have names, and that they have a vehicle that
they're looking for.
Speaker 8 (45:23):
By about nine thirty ten o'clock at night, we had it.
We knew who we were looking for, we knew what
they were in. We just didn't know where to find them.
When do we release the information about the Caprice to
the media.
Speaker 7 (45:37):
Police were there to see if John Muhamma showed up.
While we were down there, we got a call on
I seventy in northern Maryland. They believe that the snipers
are there and they're waiting.
Speaker 5 (45:47):
To move in.
Speaker 1 (45:49):
Monster DZ Sniper is a fifteen episode podcast hosted by
Tony Harris and produced by iHeartRadio and Tenderfoot TV. Matt
Frederick and Alex Williams are executive producers on behalf of
iHeartRadio alongside producers Trevor Young, Ben Keebrick, and Josh Thain.
Paint Lindsay and Donald Albright are executive producers on behalf
(46:10):
of Tenderfoot TV, alongside producers Meredith Stedman and Christina Dana.
Original music is by Makeup and Vanity Set. This episode
included segments of a phone interview with Lee Boyd Malvo
conducted by journalist Josh White. This interview was from The
Washington Post copyright twenty twelve The Washington Post, All rights reserved,
(46:31):
used under license. This episode also included a passage from
Lee Boyd Malvo's autobiography, The Diary of the d C Sniper,
re enacted by actor Alec Bay. This episode included a
recorded interview of Earl Donza provided by the Tucson Police Department.
Earl Donzi was contacted by our team for this podcast,
but he did not respond for comment.
Welcome to Monster d C Sniper, a production of iHeartRadio
and Tenderfoot TV. 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 iHeartMedia,
Tenderfoot TV, or their employees. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
December two thousand, the island of Antigua, fifteen year old
Lee boy Malvo lay alone in bed in a dark shack.
He shivered, sick with rheumatic fever. He needed medicine but
didn't know how to get it. He was all alone
in a foreign country, with no family and few friends.
(00:42):
There was a knock at the door. A man came in.
It was John Mohammed, the American, the man who had
smuggled Lee's mother into the United States. John had just
come by to check on the boy, who he knew
was living alone, but when he saw Lee's dire state,
brought him to the doctor. Lee got an antibiotic shot
(01:04):
and John stayed with him while he recovered.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Mohammed he stated me the entire time of nurse and
back to health, and I told him my entire life story,
my parents, my situations when I bounced around what I felt.
I told him everything. I left nothing out Because I
trusted this guy. He gave me his time. It's that simple.
(01:28):
He was one of the only people who listened I
lead on him. I trusted him. I did not trust
my mom. I didn't trust anyone else, but I trusted him.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Before long, Lee asked John if he could live with him.
John agreed, and Lee moved in with him and his children.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
He was so desperate to have a father figure. My
name is doctor Chonathan Harold Meck. I am a clinical
nurse psychologist. Very quickly, Malvo starts calling Muhammed dad.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
He said, everything that you've been taught from your religion,
your morals, your education, you've basically been brainwashed. And he
would explained to me a mixture of his worldview and
the nation of Islam. He twisted a lot of things.
Speaker 4 (02:15):
It certainly wasn't you know, standard religion. He would have
him listen to tapes even when he was falling asleep.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Speaches and all sorts of stuff, thousands of hours, over
and over.
Speaker 4 (02:27):
Again, giving him subliminal suggestions that there is essentially a
war going on between blacks and whites.
Speaker 5 (02:35):
There is a ruthless person on the loose.
Speaker 6 (02:38):
What I nerves this community the most is the randomness
of the murders, ordinary people doing ordinary things.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
They killed the five people in one day and then
went on the rampage for the next month.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
It is quite a mystery.
Speaker 7 (02:52):
The police say they have never had a crime quite
like this.
Speaker 8 (02:55):
Be careful, these guys are using weapons that are going
to go right straight through our full of proof best.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
From My Heart Radio and Tenderfoot Teva.
Speaker 5 (03:07):
This is Monster DC sniper.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
Very quickly when I met Mom and I assimilated everything
about him.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
At the beginning of two thousand and one, after Lee
had moved in with John in Antigua, friends and teachers
remember seeing Lee change. His good grades began to slip.
He started bringing a Koran to his Christian high school
and arguing with other students about religion, and Lee also
started talking a lot about guns.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
I just became someone. It was something I'm used to doing.
I can bouncing around from home to home, place to place,
and I became what I call a change in him.
Whoever I'm around, whoever the authority is, I changed the
suit that person.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
The attachment to a mother or a father is really
core to developing a stable mentally health the adult.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Doctor Jonathan Mack is a neural psychologist and co author
of the book The Making of Lee Boyd.
Speaker 5 (04:07):
Malvo.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Max studied Lee's life extensively. He thinks Lee's readiness to
trust John was due to an attachment disorder, a disorder
in how kids connect with adults.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
I felt that Malvo met the criteria for disinhibited social
engagement disorder.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
With disinhibited social engagement disorder, kids are so desperate for
a caregiver that they are overly trusting of strangers. They
will latch onto any authority figure they can, ignoring signs
that the adult might not have their best interest at heart.
Speaker 4 (04:41):
If you look at Malvo's history, his father in the
first years of his life was in his life, out
of his life. His mother was also in and out
and had a habit of shipping him off, and just
as soon as he was developing an attachment to the
new people, he was moved somewhere else. So the fact
that that Malvo had so many broken attachments from so
(05:03):
many of the people that he lived with, he had
this social disengagement disorder and was basically ready to attach
on to anyone.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
I went to him because I felt alone in this world.
I assimilated everything about him, from his mannerisms, is religion.
I lost my accent. I just became someone different once
he gained my trust. That was the lost copse.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Throughout early two thousand and one, John continued to forge
documents and helped smuggle people into the United States. On
April fourteenth, John was detained at Miami International Airport. He'd
flown there from Antigua alongside to Jamaican women. The women
were caught presenting forged documents to customs agents, and the
(06:03):
agents suspected John was helping the two women enter the
United States illegally. They couldn't prove it, so they had
to release John, but they contacted Antiguan authorities and relayed
their suspicions. Lee says that John called him in a panic.
John told Lee to hide the kids and the cash
(06:23):
that he kept in the house. Lee took the children
to John's girlfriend's place, but when he went back to
get the money, it had already been seized by Antiguan authorities.
Lee says John lost at least one hundred sixty thousand
dollars because of the raid. John feared he would be
arrested if he returned to Antigua, so he decided to
(06:44):
lay low in the US. John instructed Lee, who was
just sixteen years old himself, to watch over his kids.
John also asked Bale to help out with the business
by delivering fake birth certificates to clients. Lee dropped out
out of school to help. John then traveled back to
Washington State, and on April twenty third, he legally changed
(07:07):
his name from John Williams to John Muhammad, perhaps to
try to avoid raising any red flags when he returned
to Antigua.
Speaker 9 (07:17):
Okay, mister Williams taching to have your name change.
Speaker 10 (07:21):
Just what is your current legal name?
Speaker 9 (07:24):
My current legal name is Allen, Okay, and what is
the new name by which you wish to be known?
Speaker 11 (07:31):
Allen Muhammad?
Speaker 9 (07:33):
And why do you desire to be known.
Speaker 11 (07:34):
By this new name?
Speaker 10 (07:35):
For our religion partner?
Speaker 9 (07:37):
Are you changing your name for any other reason? Are
you changing your name to defraud or mislead any person
or creditor? Are you involved in any legal proceeding other
than this name change? And have you ever been convicted
of a felony? Are you under supervision of any probation
department that requires you to report a change of address
MILCA ahead you grant.
Speaker 11 (07:58):
Your name change there.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
While in Washington State, John also visited Earl Donze.
Speaker 12 (08:04):
I met John when I used to work for Horizon Airlines.
I was actually interested in a printer that I saw
at a store. This printer was an ALPS MD five
thousand CERI. Printer had a big.
Speaker 10 (08:18):
Reputation during the early nineties of making counterfeit money.
Speaker 12 (08:22):
It views film as inking, so it was really expensive
printers I wouldn't afford at the time. And this cowork
of mine knew a friend as did it.
Speaker 10 (08:31):
So I met John that way. John was really flashy.
He had nice suits. He become different cars all the time,
Jaguar Diamante.
Speaker 12 (08:40):
He said, I can get the printer for you if
you can help me out. He want to know if
I can alter some documents because for a hobby I
do graphics designs. Okay, so a fairy deal. So John
got it for me.
Speaker 10 (08:54):
I don't know how he got it. He asked me
to stand a birth certificate with.
Speaker 12 (08:57):
His name on it and asked me if I can
raise the name that was on the birthday. So I
used a simple program on computer to erased a name,
and he asked me to type another name.
Speaker 13 (09:09):
Man.
Speaker 12 (09:10):
Okay, sure, so he wanted me to type I'm guessing
could have been Lee.
Speaker 5 (09:16):
You know.
Speaker 12 (09:16):
This is where I realized that he was actually involved
with smuggling people across the border.
Speaker 10 (09:21):
He was charging thousand bucks ahead I think maybe more.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
On May twentieth, two thousand and one, John traveled back
to Antigua with his new name and altered documents in hand.
Speaker 14 (09:34):
When John returned to the island, the government had already
seized over one hundred and sixty thousand dollars, but John
did not scold Lee.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
This is criminologist and co author of Lee Boyd Malbo's
autobiography Anthony Meoi.
Speaker 14 (09:50):
When he got back, John pulled him tight, hugged him
and said, great job, son. And it was that very
moment that really select that defies their relationship. Lee said,
from that moment on, I was willing to do anything
for that man.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
A week and a half later, on May thirty first,
John returned to the United States with his three children
and Lee Boyd Malville. They traveled through Puerto Rico to
Fort Myers, Florida, where Lee's mother was living and working
at a red lobster restaurant. Lee says that John was
planning on setting up a counterfeiting operation with friends from
(10:33):
the Caribbean. John wanted Lee to watch over the kids
while he traveled to get the equipment they needed to
print fake currency. According to Lee's diary, John asked Lee's
mother if the boy could continue staying with him, but
she was having none of it. Una thought John was
a bad influence on her son. Lee remembers his mother saying,
(10:54):
he is my child. What I eat, he eats. If
he cannot be satisfied with that, that greed will kill him.
She then looked at Lee and said, you met this
man no more than six months ago, and you've completely
forgotten where you come from. Reluctantly, John left Lee with
Una and disappeared again with his kids. Back in Washington State,
(11:34):
Mildred Muhammad was still searching for her children. It had
been fifteen months since she had seen or spoken to them.
Following her hospitalization, Mildred had moved into a women's shelter
where her friend and former accountant, Eisen Nichols volunteered. Mildred
took a pair ofegal course to learn about what legal
options she had to get her children back. She divorced
(11:56):
John in his absence and legally gained full custody of
the children. The problem was no one knew where they were,
so she also filed a red of habas corpus, which.
Speaker 15 (12:08):
Meant that anywhere they found my children, they needed to
pick them up and bring them back to me. So
I had all of my paperwork notarized. And my sister
calls and says, Mama sick, can you come to Maryland.
I have not found my children, but I can wait
(12:28):
over there.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Mildred moved to the town of Clinton in Prince George's County, Maryland.
Three more months passed without any sign of the children.
It was now August two thousand and one, and the
shelter where Mildred had been staying got a call. Her
friend Issa Nichols was volunteering there when it happened.
Speaker 16 (12:49):
We get a call and it is the Department of
Social Health Services in Bellingham, Washington. They're calling following up
an application for support, but John had completed with his
three kids. Well, what John didn't know the three kids
were already in the system.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
John Muhammad had returned to Washington State with his children
and tried to register them for welfare, but Ath already
suspected him of committing welfare fraud, so they looked up
the children's previously listed contact information and tried calling Mildred
at the shelter.
Speaker 15 (13:26):
I get a call from the executive director of the
shelters in and she said, Millie, I think we found
your children. You need to fax all of your paperwork
to Detective McCarthy. So I did that, followed up with
a phone call. I said, did you get my paperwork?
He said yes, Smam, I did. But Ms Muhammed, do
(13:50):
you know where we are? I say, you're in Bellingham, Washington.
He said correct, but we're on the border of Canada.
If he gets across the border with your children, there
will be nothing we can do. I said, I appreciate
(14:11):
that information, but if you could just go get my children,
I would appreciate that too. August thirty first, four thirty
five pm. He called and he said, Miss Mohammed, we
(14:32):
got your children. I screamed, and my brother in law
came downstairs.
Speaker 8 (14:37):
What's going on?
Speaker 2 (14:38):
I said, hey found my children.
Speaker 5 (14:39):
Can you please talk to him.
Speaker 15 (14:40):
I'm running up and down the stairs, running outside and
in and he said, nol, do you want to talk
to him?
Speaker 16 (14:46):
I stopped.
Speaker 15 (14:48):
I hadn't heard their voices in eighteen wards. So the
first person I talked to is Taliba and she says, hi, mommy.
I said, hey, honey, how you doing? She said, I'm good.
Speaker 16 (15:01):
You want to talk to my sister. Let's said, yes,
say me talked to your sister.
Speaker 15 (15:08):
She said, hi, mommy. I say, hey, honey.
Speaker 16 (15:10):
She said guess what.
Speaker 15 (15:12):
I said, what honey, I'm nine years old and you
missed two birthdays. I said, oh, I'm sorry. I'll make
it up to you.
Speaker 17 (15:22):
I promise.
Speaker 15 (15:23):
She said, okay, mommy, but John doesn't want to talk
to you because he's angry. I said, okay, that's fine.
So Detective McCarthy gets back on the phone and he said,
it's Mohammad. We need for you to come back to
Tacoma for any emergency custody hearing.
Speaker 16 (15:41):
Mildred flies out the next day and she calls me
up that next morning and she says, will you go
with me to the courthouse? And I said sure. I
didn't think anything about it. You know, eighteen months have
gone by. I want to see the kids.
Speaker 15 (15:56):
I so went with me to court and We're standing
in the hallway and I said, oh, my god, there's John.
Speaker 16 (16:06):
Mildred looks at John. John stares at Mildred. Mildred starts
running and screaming. She's just scared. She hasn't seen John
in eighteen months. The sheriff's apartment is in the courthouse,
and they come out and they get her and they
put us in a room somewhere until the court case.
Speaker 15 (16:26):
So we walk in the courtroom and as soon as
I get in the door, I see John on the
back road to the right side, and I froze and
I just remember feeling that I was so scared. But
he was just sitting there, just oh, nonchalant. And I
(16:46):
used to say, Mildred, just.
Speaker 16 (16:47):
Breathe, breathe. What do you mean, just breathe.
Speaker 15 (16:49):
Do you know how fast this man can move?
Speaker 17 (16:52):
She said, Mildred, we just have to breathe.
Speaker 16 (16:55):
So we're calming her down. She's holding my hand. Were
sitting by her attorney. They're going over the paperwork, and
the judge hiss the.
Speaker 7 (17:02):
Gavel morning, please be seated.
Speaker 11 (17:07):
This is enery the marriage of Mildred Denise Williams, John
Allen Williams Council, Your honor, Heather Smith on behalf of
the petitioner. This is Mildred Williams. She is present in
the court. Let me swear both parties in before it begins. Sir,
if you raise your right hand, ma'am you both saw
me swear from the name testimony. You're about to provide
the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Yes, yes, sir, sir,
(17:29):
what is your name? Legal name is John Allen Muhammad
and ma'am what is your name mild Muhammas. But they
said that we needed to use the ninth that we
were married on their death wives under William Council. You
have if I believe a return on a rid of
habeas corpus. I do have at Commissioner Dickie issued it
back in June of two thousand and this is the
(17:49):
first contact with these children since that time. Yes, it
is your honor. The divorce decree and apparenting plans were
entered in October of two thousand, after the writ that
the final parenting plan gives who custody the children?
Speaker 3 (18:05):
All three children? Yes, I can I say something just
a moment, okay.
Speaker 11 (18:09):
The concern I have right now is I don't know
who's got these children where they're at and speaking with
a deputy right this morning. All they would need was
an order releasing the children from protective custody to the
mother's custody. Cyah, would you like to say, Yohna, can
you please tell me what's going on? There is a
parenting plan was entered by the court on October six,
(18:30):
two thousand. Awarepons, there was an order of default taken
against you because you did not respond to divorced summons.
It was published against you. As part of that Mother
obtained on her own without the help of an attorney,
for ritt of habeas corpus, which allows her to have
the physical possession of the children, so the children to
have a mission the waradots whenever known by mother. That's
(18:53):
why the court apparently issued the writ you never responded
to the published summons for divorce. Are you telling me
the reason why I don't have my children won't be
to keep my children because I don't have the proper
paperwork ynt No, I'm saying that you've been divorced. The
court has entered orders that mother had sole residential placement,
care and custody of the children, and then you've got
(19:14):
no visitation at present without for the court order. So
I'm not able to see my children by virtue of
the private court order, not today's court order. So if
you believe that the allegations are not valid, you should
bring that to the court's attention, all right. If you
do not have copies of the court orders, I suggest
that sir, you ask for copies of those documents so
(19:36):
you can look at them and reflect on what you'd
like to do next.
Speaker 13 (19:41):
Thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 16 (19:44):
John finds all of that information out in the courtroom
that day that he is divorced for Mildrid and she
has sole custody of the children. He was so angry
he flipped. It was that look that I will never forget.
(20:06):
John leaves the courtroom. We come out and we're standing
against the wall.
Speaker 15 (20:12):
And all of a sudden, I fell a presence and
I turn and it's John. I take off down the hallway,
My shoes go everywhere.
Speaker 16 (20:24):
Mildred takes off sprinting down the corner. I look up
and John passes by me, heading towards Mildred. He was
just so focused, he just had this dead stare. He
was so angry, and I look back.
Speaker 15 (20:41):
John puts his hand on the courtroom door, looks at
me and says, gotcha.
Speaker 16 (20:50):
He turned around and he walked back the other direction,
and I was just up against the wall, hoping he
wouldn't see me.
Speaker 15 (20:57):
My attorney said, oh, hell no, we gotta get out
of here.
Speaker 16 (21:02):
I'm scared. I'm letting my daughter know. Lock the doors,
don't answer if anybody comes to the door, because I
figured he would probably come there looking.
Speaker 15 (21:11):
So we take the stairs to go down to the
police station and we explained to them what happened, and
can we please go out of their back door. They
say no, we need to go out the front door.
Speaker 17 (21:24):
Just like everybody else, John was no joke.
Speaker 15 (21:42):
I believed everything he said to me. He was gonna
kill me. It was gonna be a headshot, and he
was gonna bury me when nobody would be able to
find me. I was terrified, and the terror came because
nobody believed me. They thought I was being dramatic. They
were actually gonna let me die. And then what were
(22:04):
they going to say? Oh, she was a good old girl,
you know, she loved the children. We did not see
that coming, Yes you did. When I hear people say that,
oh I didn't see that, Yes you did. Victims always
give signs, they always tell somebody. So we walk out
of the court like a triangle where everybody's watching each
(22:25):
other's back.
Speaker 16 (22:26):
Get to the car.
Speaker 15 (22:28):
I slouched down in the car so no one could
see that I was in the car. We go over
to the Department of Health and Human Resources because that's
where my children were, and the first person I see
is my son. He's tall, he's skinny, he's trying to
wear afro, but it's in a dome, you know. And
(22:54):
I walk up to him and he got his pants
on his butt sagging.
Speaker 16 (22:59):
Oh geez whiz.
Speaker 15 (23:01):
And I should have said, honey, I'm so glad to
see you, but I'm pulling up his pants, sayings, this's
gonna be an issue, and he starts laughing. And then
I hear my daughters, mommy, mommy, mommy, they're coming down,
and I'm just so overwhelmed.
Speaker 16 (23:18):
I'm crying might in my eyes.
Speaker 14 (23:19):
I can't see you.
Speaker 16 (23:20):
I can't see you.
Speaker 15 (23:23):
And Selena said, Mommy says, honey, Daddy said he was
looking for you, but he couldn't find you. I said, really,
I was trying to find you, but he changed your names.
So you were looking for us? Absolutely, Mommy. I just
(23:44):
want to let you know that God answered my prayer
because I was.
Speaker 16 (23:49):
Praying and praying and praying for him.
Speaker 15 (23:51):
To send you back to me, and you're finally here.
I say, honey, no one will have for take you
away from me again.
Speaker 16 (24:04):
Okay, okay.
Speaker 15 (24:07):
So we get in the car and we drive over
to the airport. Security picked us up from the car,
brought us to their security office. Once the pilot was
ready to go, security took us to the plane. We
landed BWI September fifth, two thousand and one.
Speaker 5 (24:28):
Did you speak to John again?
Speaker 3 (24:30):
Now?
Speaker 10 (24:31):
Why would I?
Speaker 16 (24:33):
No career?
Speaker 17 (24:34):
Why would I?
Speaker 5 (24:36):
Did he ever try to reach out to you.
Speaker 15 (24:39):
He didn't know where I was. I wasn't hiding.
Speaker 5 (24:44):
So the last thing you remember hearing from John was
got you.
Speaker 16 (24:48):
Yes.
Speaker 13 (24:58):
One story is the John is just a psychotic killer.
I guess that's plausible. But the other story is that
he melted down under the pressure of not being ever
able to either see his kids or even get into
court to talk about seeing his kids.
Speaker 5 (25:13):
This is J.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Mills, a divorce attorney who took on John's case at the.
Speaker 13 (25:18):
Court hearing the kids were turned over to Mildred. The
judge did that on a temporary basis, told John Muhammad
that he should come back and set up a hearing
to discuss the kids further. And so it was after
that hearing where he lost the kids that he came
to see me.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Mills didn't know much about John's background. He thought John
was just going through a rough divorce. Mills actually felt
sorry for John, so he took on the case pro bono.
Speaker 13 (25:45):
He was a pretty normal, routine sort of person, fairly focused.
He wasn't very happy about how things had turned out
in court, but he understood would had gone on. The
judge wasn't permanently depriving him of contact with the kids.
The judge wanted him to set up a hearing to
discuss what sort of a parenting plan would be appropriate,
(26:06):
and that's very routine. I did set up a hearing
which would require Mildred to show up in court and
then talk about the kids, but we never had a
court hearing because we can never find Mildred. Mildred vanished
with the kids. After I had set up a couple
of the hearings without being able to serve Mildred with papers,
(26:27):
I went to him and said, look, let's find Mildred.
Because I can set up hearings all day, but what
difference does it make if we can never locate Mildred?
And so he set off to do that. I've given
this story to other people, and sometimes the blowback is
that I am trying to justify what John did, or
(26:49):
that I don't think he's a bad guy. I mean, clearly,
the guy is a bad person with very, very severe problems,
and I wouldn't try to justify that. But there's more
to this story. These preliminary decisions get made, and people
freak out about him because they're dealing with people's real
personal lives and their intimate relationships with kids. People who
(27:10):
go through the process get really disturbed by that. And
I've been involved in a number of cases where the
end result is shootings. Tacoma was fairly famous for an
incident where the chief of police shot is soon to
be ex wife and killed her. That was the chief
of police, right, so that guy must have had some
(27:30):
degree of normal personality, but then he lost it and
he melted down. And it's not uncommon for these things
to result in a lot of violence. One way to
hopefully avoid that. If it's possible is to have people
air their grievances in court, win or lose, they've at
least been able to tell their story or Now. I'm
(27:53):
not saying that that should require Mildred to come stand
with John by her side, but John Muhammed's out there.
There was some process that could have played out where
everybody could have had their day in court, and he
never did so. I again, I try to make clear
that I think what he did was horrific, and.
Speaker 5 (28:11):
I think it's it's just evil stuff.
Speaker 13 (28:16):
But the kind of background story to it that should
be aired is that I think there were ways that
the system failed to diffuse that kind of problem, and
instead it just sort of threw gasoline on a fire.
If we do not address the systemic failures that occurred
in this case, I worry that there are other people
(28:38):
like that wandering the streets, and people are going to
die if this problem isn't addressed in a better way.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Just a week after John lost, the Kid's tragedy struck.
Speaker 11 (28:55):
Apparently a plane has just crashed into the World Trade
Center here and knew New York City had happened just
a few moments ago.
Speaker 13 (29:03):
I had been meeting with John in my office when
the World Trade Center was burning to the ground. He
had no interest in any of the politics. He wanted
to see his kids.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
John would later say that losing his kids was his
own personal nine to eleven. It was surely a low
point in his life. He'd lost his money in the
rate of Antigua, he was living in a homeless shelter,
and now he'd lost his children. John's friend Robert Holmes,
the same friend who reported John to the FBI, says
(29:36):
John was devastated. Holmes told Vanity Fair in two thousand
and four, quote, I think that after his kids got
taken away, John had a nervous breakdown. I'm not a
professor or a doctor, but John changed in a million
subtle ways. He'd spend all day some days just crying.
All he could think of was getting his kids back.
Speaker 5 (30:00):
Back.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
In Fort Myers, Florida, Lee Boyd Malva was also struggling.
He was trying to adjust to yet another new living situation.
Lee had enrolled as a junior at Cypress Lake High School.
He was getting good grades in his classes, but he
was struggling to navigate the American system. Lee wanted to
go to college and one day become an airline pilot,
(30:23):
but he didn't have the necessary documentation to sign up
for the SATs, so he turned to John for help.
Una thought that John had been a bad influence on
her son and had forbidden Lee from talking to him,
But on weeknights, while Una worked at Red Lobster, John
would secretly.
Speaker 3 (30:40):
Call I was unable to distinguish between Mohammad's father I
had wanted and Mohammad and nervous wrecks. That was his
falling to pieces.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
John told Lee he could get him into college, but
John wanted something in return, and he needed Lee to
join him in Washington. Fired leave money for a greyhound ticket.
Lee says that sometime late in two thousand and one,
after his mother fell asleep, he packed up his clothes,
a tennis racket, and a portable CD player. He snuck
(31:13):
out of the house at four thirty am and got
on a bus headed northwest. Lee arrived in Bellingham, Washington
a week later.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
When I first arrived in Bellingham, he told me that
he's searching for the children. He said, in order to
get the children, we're going to have to do whatever
it takes. I looked at him as my family, and
they had my siblings, so I'm like, okay, we're going
to do whatever it takes. I didn't understand, but that
man at the.
Speaker 10 (31:42):
Time I read.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
In Bellingham, John introduced Lee to everyone as his son.
Lee stayed with John at the homeless shelter and soon
enrolled at Bellingham High School, but one school was out
for the day. Lee says, John was of his education.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
Day in day out. He controlled what I read, what
I did, what I ad when I slept, in every
single aspect from diets, studies, my activities, every single aspect
and fastt of my life. And he didn't give me
a time to rest. He understood exactly how to motivate
me by giving approval or denying approval, and he verse
(32:26):
it wasn't violent at all. It was I mean, it's
like with a temp does to a woman. That's the
best description I can offer.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
Sometimes they'd leave the homeless shelter in Bellingham and stay
with John's friends in Tacoma. One friend they would often
visit was Earl Dante, the friend you heard from earlier
who photoshopped a birth certificate for John.
Speaker 12 (32:48):
John didn't dress up as much the more he wasn't
flashing more. He had come around her with a white truck.
One time he popped my door and had leave with him. Hey, Earl,
this is my son Lee. Oh, how you don't want
to call a processor? That'd be a nice to you.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
After a while at Dante's, Lee says they would play
video games and watch movies. They'd watch some movies over
and over. One favorite was The Matrix. Another was Carlos
Hathcock Marine Sniper. It was a sort of instructional video
with advice for snipers.
Speaker 5 (33:21):
Continue your training. You cannot do it too much. You
cannot do it too much, So do it as much
as you can. Put all your men and body into it.
Speaker 11 (33:30):
Train Train, Train.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
And John and Earl began giving Lee's shooting lessons as well.
Speaker 3 (33:37):
He had a friend Earl. He just said, look, I
need you to go to the range and just tell early.
Teach me how to shoot. It's amazing how quickly I
would pick on these things.
Speaker 10 (33:47):
Let go shooting.
Speaker 12 (33:48):
I couldn't go as often as he could because I
had to work. He is a I'm gonna take your
god to the range. So okay, I had a six
hour forty five. I had a smith and Wesson forty
four caliber. I had a AK forty seven, I had
a Winchester TO seventy, and I had a Remington seven
hundred Model three eight series and a Twin to calibist.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
Back in Florida, Lee's mom, Una James, had been searching
for Lee since he'd left. Una paged through her caller
ID and found a strange number. It was for a
homeless shelter in Washington State, and she had a feeling
that Lee might be staying there with John. So for
weeks she called the number but could never get through
(34:34):
to either of them. In an interview with Vanity Fair,
Una said that she kept calling and one day finally
she heard John's voice on the other end. She demanded
that John Sendley back to her in Florida. She remembers
John saying, I have a job to do and I
can't rely on some cookeead to do it. Terrified of
(34:55):
what that meant, Una got on a Greyhound bus and
headed for Washington State. When Una arrived, she confronted John
at the homeless shelter and some one called the cops.
When the cops arrived, they reunited Lee and Una, but
the cops suspected they were both undocumented immigrants, and reported
them to Border Patrol. They were arrested and finger printed.
(35:17):
These were the finger prints and the rest report that
would later supply authorities with the names Lee Boyd Malvow
and John Mohammad. Following their arrest, Una and Lee were
separated and detained. Then on January twenty third, both were
released into an I and S safe house to await
a deportation hearing. In an interview at Vanity Fair, Una
(35:38):
said that Lee told her mom, we are being followed
and if I don't go, they'll kill you. Two days later,
Lee climbed out of a bathroom window and ran off.
Lee ran back to John.
Speaker 5 (35:59):
Now.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
Lee's grooming began in earnest. Lee says he and John
would go shooting for hours a day.
Speaker 3 (36:07):
He'd stand behind me and he would taught me through
the process. He would explain to me all the things
that I hated about myself and why this has to die.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
Lee Boyd Malvoe says John told him to visualize his
own face onto the targets, to imagine that with each
shot he was destroying his own weakness.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
Heat needs killed myself over and over and over and over.
He told me, the old person has to die. Lee
Malville has to die it because Lee Malvau cannot do this.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
Lee says they would go to nearby woods and pretend
they were hunting each other with sniper rifles to practice
stealth and camouflage techniques. Lee says that on one of
those outings, when it was snowing, John stripped off Lee's
shirt and chained him to a tree. John left him
there for hours and told him it was an exercise
(37:02):
to mentally hardened him.
Speaker 3 (37:04):
It's like a woman messing in a music relationship. Someone
looking from the outside said, man, they're a multiple opportunities.
Why couldn't she leave? Why she stayed for twenty years?
It's not that simple. The body is just obsessed. Once
someone has me emotionally, they have your mind.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
Lee Boyd Malvo's training was almost over. Soon John would
give him his first real mission. Not too far away
in Tacoma, Ia, Nichols had been keeping in touch with
Mildred Muhammad.
Speaker 16 (37:38):
We were having different conversations, probably maybe once or twice
a month as she begins to re establish her life
after eighteen months without her children.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
Isa was glad all the drama with John seemed to
be over and that the kids were back with their mom.
Speaker 16 (37:54):
My life was so intertwined with hers in terms of
her children and keeping her alive and keeping her safe.
Now I'm faced with where I left off in my life.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
Asa had her own struggles at home. Her niece, Kenya Cook,
had just gotten out of an abusive relationship.
Speaker 16 (38:12):
Before they had fought, but they had a baby. Now
now she's scared for the baby, and she's decided to leave.
And I said, yes, I'll take her home. She can
come with me. So now I have her, her three
month old child, my teenage daughter who's now fourteen, and
my husband, and it's working. I'm very proud of her.
(38:37):
She's enrolling in school. She had gotten a job and
got up to a supervisory position, and the baby's thriving,
and Kenya saving money. She was helping me around the house,
and we would go shopping together and different things of
that nature. And one day, February sixteenth, two thousand and two,
(39:00):
we had went grocery shopping and I was gonna make
some chicken tacos that I do pretty good, and we
forgot the taco shells, and so I was going back
to the store I told Kenya to watch the food
in the pot because I was boiling the chicken, and
she said, okay, Auntie and I left, and then my
fourteen year old, who was at a sleepover, decided she
(39:22):
didn't want to stay, so she called me and asked
me to come pick her up, and I did, and
then we went to the store. We were gone about
an hour, maybe an hour and a half, and I
pull in and our driveway remote control wasn't working. So
I sent my daughter into the house to open the
garage door, and I'm waiting. Garage door doesn't open, and
(39:45):
my daughter finally comes back to the car and she's
standing there and it's starting to rain, and I said, hey,
what are you doing. My daughter has the look of
trauma on her face. I said, girl, what is it?
What's wrong? She sent Mommy, Kenya's lying on the floor
(40:06):
and the house is all smoky. So I go to
the house and just as she said, my niece was
lying on the floor in the doorway, and the house
was covered with smoke. The pot and its contents had
disintegrated and melted. And so somehow, by the grace of God,
I was able to get that stove turned off with
(40:28):
all of that heat, my daughter standing in the doorway,
just staring. I called nine one one. I ran upstairs
to check on the baby, because I'm thinking that they
had to succumb to smoke in elation. And so I
ran upstairs and the baby was on the edge of
the bed. All around her was the diaper, the nighty
wram bottle was still there, and I didn't know if
(40:50):
the baby was alive or not. I didn't know if
the baby was breathing, and so I touched the baby
gently and she jumps up and she's screaming from where
she left. So I grabbed the baby diaper and took
the baby downstairs, and handed the baby to my daughter
and told her to go to the neighbors and went
(41:12):
back to Kenya. And I got over Kenya's body and
I saw a little bullet casey and a little hole
in her face. I stayed there. I had already called
nine one one, and I can hear the ambulance in
the background. They're on their way, and I'm talking to
(41:32):
Kenya hanging there and I'm praying and I'm telling her
help is coming, and the ambulance get there, and I'm
sitting on the step and they come into the house
and they get her body and they pull her from
the fourier into the living room where they start working
on her, trying to revive her. And they finally say
(41:54):
she's gone. And I just stared and looked in just dismay.
I couldn't process what they meant by saying she's gone.
And I saw where Kenya's head had laid. The bullet
(42:15):
casing was still there, and I just saw blood. The
back of her head had just been blown out. I
just went into a cold state. I was just on
auto pilot. I was just following commands.
Speaker 2 (42:38):
According to Lee's autobiography, that very same night, John Muhammad
gave Lee his first test.
Speaker 3 (42:47):
One night, he says, Okay, this is what I need
for you to do. There was a house on the hill.
I want you to go there. I want you to go.
I want you to talk to this parson.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
Lee says, John drove him to a house, ranting about
politics and wars and necessary sacrifices. John dropped Lee off
and told him he'd be watching. Lee was wearing a
dark hoodie and he was holding a brown paper bag.
He tried to calm himself as he walked up to
the house. He knocked on the door, and after a
(43:20):
short delay, it opened. A young woman greeted him. He said,
good evening, is missus Nicholls in. He remembered that she
seemed lonely and eager to talk. She gave him a
long answer, explaining that Isa was at home. John had
prepared Lee for this possibility. I have a message for her,
(43:41):
Lee said. He reached into the brown paper bag and
pulled out a forty five caliber pistol, one they borrowed
from Earl Dance. John had told Lee to visualize his
own face on top of hers, just like in the training.
Here's what Lee wrote about that moment in his autobiography,
(44:02):
read by a voice actor.
Speaker 6 (44:04):
A voice deep inside me said, don't, don't, don't, I thought, Lee,
you cannot face John unless you do this. I pointed
the forty five caliber gun to her face, and in
an instant I saw not her but me, my old
self that I hated, that scared hurt self. That night,
(44:30):
Lee boy Malvo died. I pulled the trigger. In an instant,
she too was gone.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
Next time on Monster DC Sniper, I.
Speaker 16 (44:50):
Was sudden, there's these helicopters flying all over the Tacoma community.
They are actually saying the DC Sniper is linked to Tacoma.
Speaker 8 (45:01):
Again a note found, this time it's an angry note.
Speaker 1 (45:05):
You did not respond to the message.
Speaker 5 (45:07):
You departed from what we told you to say.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
Your incompetence has cost you another life.
Speaker 8 (45:12):
We need to find these guys, and we need to
do it now.
Speaker 7 (45:16):
She's got sources telling her that they're getting close, that
they have names, and that they have a vehicle that
they're looking for.
Speaker 8 (45:23):
By about nine thirty ten o'clock at night, we had it.
We knew who we were looking for, we knew what
they were in. We just didn't know where to find them.
When do we release the information about the Caprice to
the media.
Speaker 7 (45:37):
Police were there to see if John Muhamma showed up.
While we were down there, we got a call on
I seventy in northern Maryland. They believe that the snipers
are there and they're waiting.
Speaker 5 (45:47):
To move in.
Speaker 1 (45:49):
Monster DZ Sniper is a fifteen episode podcast hosted by
Tony Harris and produced by iHeartRadio and Tenderfoot TV. Matt
Frederick and Alex Williams are executive producers on behalf of
iHeartRadio alongside producers Trevor Young, Ben Keebrick, and Josh Thain.
Paint Lindsay and Donald Albright are executive producers on behalf
(46:10):
of Tenderfoot TV, alongside producers Meredith Stedman and Christina Dana.
Original music is by Makeup and Vanity Set. This episode
included segments of a phone interview with Lee Boyd Malvo
conducted by journalist Josh White. This interview was from The
Washington Post copyright twenty twelve The Washington Post, All rights reserved,
(46:31):
used under license. This episode also included a passage from
Lee Boyd Malvo's autobiography, The Diary of the d C Sniper,
re enacted by actor Alec Bay. This episode included a
recorded interview of Earl Donza provided by the Tucson Police Department.
Earl Donzi was contacted by our team for this podcast,
but he did not respond for comment.
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