The Judgement [15]

In 2019, the Supreme Court agreed to hear Lee Boyd Malvo's case for a resentencing. But then a new law in Virginia changed everything. Will Malvo get parole? And should he be allowed to walk the streets again?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Monster DC Sniper, a production of I Heart
Radio 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 I Heart Media, Tenderfoot TV, or their employees. Listener
discretion is advised. Alright, the execution of John Alan Mohammed

(00:25):
has been carried out under the laws of the Commonwealth
of Virginia. Death was pronounced at nine eleven PM eleven.
There were no complications. Mr Mohammed was asked if he
wished to make a last statement. He did not acknowledge
this or make any statement whatsoever. Statement it was certainly

(00:48):
a moment of solace for a number of the victims families,
and it ended the case as far as he was concerned.
But again, we never really heard from him. We never
really got a sense of anything from Mohammed. It sort
of all came to pass rather quietly. In Malvo's case,
he is sitting in Red Onion Prison in Virginia. It's

(01:11):
one of the nation's supermax is. It's a very stark facility.
He's spending twenty three hours a day in a very
small cell. He has no physical interaction with any other inmates. Yeah,
he was sent down there, and the problem was he
was isolated for years. He's not in general population because
of notoriety. Someone could try to make a name from themselves. Obviously,

(01:33):
our goal is to do the best we can for
him and what he wants, and you know what he wants.
He wants to be out of prison and be able
to live his life. I had dreamed at one point
I wanted to do great breaks. This is not what
I wanted for myself. We're gonna have him soon back
to us because the rulings of the Supreme Court United States.

(01:56):
After two separate trials, he was twice sentenced to life
without par role. But then came a U. S. Supreme
Court decision declaring life without parole sentences for juveniles unconstitutional,
and just last year the court said that ruling should
apply retroactively to cases on appeal. Today, a federal judge
in Virginia said, because of those two rulings, Malvo must

(02:17):
get new sentencing hearings. Basically, it's unconstitutional to automatically put
a juvenile now in jail for the rest of his
lives without parole. The issue here is not guilt. Juries
will not be weighing in on whether or not he
is responsible for the crimes. These would be resentencings that
would revisit the time that he would spend behind bars.

(02:41):
A jury can recommend, or a judge can can impose
a sense other than a mandatory life sense. They could
give him something less, and maybe he'll be able to
get out of jail at some point in time in
his life, to at least be able to spend the
rest of his life out of jail. Malvo sentences being
challenged and will be resentenced at some point, and it

(03:02):
won't be life without parole, which means someday he will
walk the streets again. And I'm convinced that's going to happen.
There is a ruthless person on the loose. What un
nerves this community the most is the randomness of the murders,
ordinary people doing ordinary things. They killed the five people

(03:26):
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 gonna
go right straight through our bulletproof vest. From My Heart
Radio and Tenderfoot TV. This is Monster d C Sniper.

(03:53):
Since the time of Lee Boyd Malbow's incarceration, the laws
about sentencing miners have shifted dramatically, so much so that
a pathway now exists for Malvo to be granted parole
and potentially walk the streets again. We're going to quickly
explain the cases which led to this point. It all

(04:13):
started with a landmarked Supreme Court case in two thousand
five which rule that juvenile offenders could not be sentenced
to death. Next, in two thousand twelve, the Supreme Court
ruled in the case Miller versus Alabama that juvenile offenders
couldn't be given mandatory minimum sentences of life without the
possibility of parole. After that ruling, Malvo's attorney submitted a

(04:36):
petition to Virginia and Maryland to vacate his life sentences.
They argued that because Malvo was sentenced to life without
parole with no lower penalties available to the jury, his
sentencing was no longer constitutionally valid, but the petitions were denied. However,
in two thousand sixteen, the Supreme Court weighed in again

(04:59):
on instances for minors Montgomery the Louisiana was a case.
In its language noted that not only does there have
to be an alternative to a sentence of life without
parole for a juvenile sentencing, the judge has to exercise
some kind of discretion to determine whether or not the

(05:20):
juvenile is incorrigible and whether or not that juvenile can
eventually be reformed. This is Mark Petrovich, one of Malvo's
attorneys in Virginia. He says, based on the Supreme Courts
two thousand sixteen ruling, Malvo had new grounds to appeal
his sentences, and this time his appeal made it all

(05:41):
the way up to the Supreme Court of the United States.
The goal is going to be too if we can
reduce the sentence from a life in prison without parole,
you want to go down any anywhere from there. You
want to go down maybe for an opportunity for parole,
then maybe a release when he's in the sixties, whatever
can be obtained. He's going to want to have some

(06:03):
time of freedom. How that I'll play out. We have
no idea. We asked Washington Post journalist Josh White what
he thought could happen. Could Melbo actually get the resentencing
he wanted. You know, certainly a jury in today's world,
all these years later, could look at him and evaluate

(06:25):
him and where he is today and come up with
a different outcome than they did before. It's unclear to
me that a jury would do that, given the nature
of the crimes and how many victims there were and
his own public statements about them. Juries are impossible to predict,
and how this would change anything is unclear. It's certainly

(06:46):
possible that he could get less time on one of
these cases, but there are many, many other cases that
still exists. I think the chances of him being released
are low, but it's why they go through these processes.
And you know, the the determination that a minor should
be given other possible outcomes than just life or death

(07:06):
is something that the courts have decided is important, and
you know that I think they'll carry that process out
as far as it needs to go. On October six, nineteen,
the Supreme Court heard Mathena versus Malvo. Here's a recording
from the hearing. Attorney Toby Heightens argued that Malvo's sentencing
must stand well. Your argument next In Mathena versus Malvo,

(07:33):
Mr Hyden's Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the Court.
Fifteen years ago, Lee Malvo was tried, convicted, and sentenced
for his role in the DC sniper attacks. Almost a
decade later, Malvo sought federal habeas relief, relying exclusively on
the new rule announced by this Court in Miller versus Alabama.

(07:56):
But Miller's rule does not cover Malvo's case and the
lower core it's aired in holding otherwise among many other
legal matters, Heightens asserted that the ruling in Miller versus
Alabama applied only to mandatory sentences. He argued that the
Virginia jury hearing Malvo's case had two sentencing options, death

(08:17):
or life without parole, and send some of malvo sentences
were not mandatory. He certainly could not retroactively apply the
Miller ruling to undo those life sentences. One of Melvo's attorneys,
Danielle Spinelli, also spoke that day. Miller held that before

(08:38):
imposing life without parole on a juvenile, a sentencer must
consider how the characteristics of youth counsel against that sentence.
That individualized sentencing hearing, as Montgomery explained, effectuates the Eighth
Amendment rule that life without parole is an excessive sentence
from most juveniles, those who are not permanently incorrigible. Miller

(09:01):
is not limited to mandatory schemes where life without parole
is the only possible punishment. It invalidated those schemes because
they guarantee that courts won't consider whether youth warrants a
lower sentence, which creates an unacceptable risk of excessive punishment.
But when a court has the theoretical power to consider

(09:22):
a lower sentence but doesn't do so, which is what
happened here, it creates precisely the same risk. Spinelli suggested
that the language in Miller versus Alabama actually did apply
to Malbo that is not limited to mandatory sentences. She
explained how Miller requires that miners must be given an

(09:42):
option less than life without parole, and since the courts
did not offer Malvo anything less than that, his sentence
is unconstitutional. The entire hearing lasted just over an hour.
When it was finished, gallery umbers left the chamber and
walked out into the ringing October afternoon. We attended the

(10:05):
hearing and spoke with some of the observers outside the
Supreme Court building. I generally think everyone should have a
parole chance. I don't see what harm it does to
like see if after a decade somebody can change. I
think everyone probably has that capacity, especially like since the
crime was committed at such a young age. Uh, there's

(10:27):
a lot of there's a lot of change, a lot
of mellowing out that can happen in the years after.
You keep hearing the news. He says that children younger
and younger committing the horrific crimes. But I just feel
like at that age, especially he was under the influence
of an older person and possibly you know, not having
the cognitive powers of like thinking consequence and long term.

(10:54):
I think there's a lot of anger still about the
sniper shootings, especially in this area. Like I remember my
parents telling me they would run from their car in
the giant or home depot. I think it's hard to
look fast, anger and hurt. But I've worked with juveniles,
and I think he was manipulated. I don't think he'll
ever get out, So it's not about him. It's about

(11:14):
the supplying retroactively to other juveniles who may have been
manipulated or caught in a bad circumstance. I want them
to have a chance to be rehabilitated and get out.
Most of the people we spoke to outside the Supreme
Court made a similar point that, regardless of what you

(11:35):
think about malvo sentence, a ruling in his favor would
impact countless juvenile offenders nationwide. If the court sided with Malvo,
inmates who committed crimes as miners would be eligible for
resentencing and could potentially be granted parole one day. We
end up always looking at these fantastic cases like Malvo.

(11:57):
That's not how most of these cases go down to.
These cases are an armed robbery gone bad, a heavy
trigger finger, stupid stupid behavior that tragically results in a stupid,
stupid outcome. My name is Steve Reba. I'm the clinical
director at the Appeal for Youth Clinic at Emory Law School,

(12:19):
where we represent kids who have been tried and convicted
as adults. We take post conviction action and go back
and try to address their lengthy sentences, most of them
are life without parole sentences. Riba says that most of
the juvenile offenders he works with were sentenced by less
tolerant courts from the eighties and nineties, and while those

(12:39):
courts were supposed to help and support miners. They ended
up focusing more on punishment. We lost the idea in
a sense of the rehabilitative juvenile system that's civil in nature,
not a criminal system, and we decided just to start
putting all these youthful offenders into our adult system, giving
them lengthy prison sentences, making them convicted felons. We still

(13:03):
have the exact same laws in place. We're still treating
these children in our adult systems. And and as with
our criminal justice system in general, it's discriminatory. I mean,
it focuses on black and brown kids, and they are
arrested at much higher rates, they are put through our
criminal justice system, and much higher rates they are given
larger sentences, and that's what we're still dealing with today.

(13:24):
Reba says. Supreme Court cases, starting with Roper versus Simmons
in two thousand five, began to usher in more lenient
sentences for miners. Reba's appeal for Youth Clinic has since
overturned numerous lengthy sentences for juvenile offenders, but he says
there's one big challenge in the language. For many relevant

(13:45):
Supreme Court rulings, it was determined that miners must be
sentenced based on two determining factors. So is the juvenile
one irreparably corrupt? Is the juvenile two permanently incorrigible. This
is now sort of the lens in which we're supposed
to look at these offenders to decide if they're quote
unquote the rarest juveniles who deserve this sort of offense.

(14:08):
What those terms mean exactly is not clear, but essentially,
incorrigible means incapable of being reformed or rehabilitated. A lot
of this focuses on brain science, right, the prefrontal cortex
and how it develops. This is what controls whether you
make rash decisions or not, and this develops in your

(14:29):
early twenties. Literally, we have scientific evidence that these kids
do not possess right the same brain as an adult
to control their behavior. And so if we are literally
talking about a brain that is is not developed, how
can we treat these kids? How can we, you know,
put the same level of culpability on them as we
would an adult. That is really what is foundational or

(14:52):
underlying the jurisprudence from the Supreme Court from two thousand
five on. Reba says everyone in his line of work
has been looking to see what happens with Mathina versus Malvo.
The Malvo case will be very interesting. It's really hard
to imagine a series of crimes that are more brutal,
but at the same time, he's doing it with someone

(15:13):
he considers to be his father figure, right, I mean,
it's it's effectively his dad who's telling him to do
these things. And you have this child who spent a
good amount of time in foster care and just had really,
really difficult childhood. You have both sides. You have a
brutal crime, but also at the same time, this child
who's being led to do these things by an adult.
The hope is and I think one day we will

(15:34):
get to the point where we recognize you cannot give
a child a life without parole sentence period. Right, This
irreparably corrupt or permanently incordible idea is just not something
that's applicable. But that's not where we are now, and
that's not the court we have right now. So I
don't I don't think that's happening in Malvo's case. And
Reba says the scale of Malvo's crimes makes his case

(15:56):
more complicated. I totally understand the continued anguish and the
victims families being upset. That is completely natural, and that
is exactly where the pressures live. If you have a
contingency of the victims family who are vocal and against it,
and politically active judges who are elected and prosecutors who

(16:17):
are elected are going to take notice of that. It's
just not the right approach to whether we should be
imposing these life without pearole senses. The right approach is
clearly that we just need to ban life without pearole senses.
It's the easiest thing to do. Most of these states
have parole systems. They can leave it up to these

(16:39):
parole systems and these individuals who it's their job to
determine whether these inmates should be released, to determine whether
they should be released. There's nothing that says if you
get a life sentence that has the possibility of parole,
that you'll ever be released. It's the possibility of parole.
If someone really is irreparably corrupt and permanently incorrigible, our

(17:00):
parole system should be competent enough to know that person
is those things and not release him or her. Right,
I'm not so sure that he won't get out. At
some point, you know he may not. But there's a
really important component to being in prison, and it's called
hope and the idea that you're working towards something, you're
trying to achieve something. There is a light, however dim

(17:24):
and however distant, at the end of the tunnel. Those
are really important things when you know you've been locked up.
This production team, numerous activist groups, and hundreds of incarcerated
juvenile offenders across the nation. We're anxiously awaiting the Supreme
Court decision in the Malvo case. But then back in

(17:44):
February of this year, something unexpected happened, breaking news from
the state capital. The DC sniper Lee Boyd Malvo will
not be re sentenced after a new Virginia law just
signed by Governor Ralph Northam. The new law states minor
can be considered for parole after serving twenty years of
their life sentence. On February, Virginia Governor Rout Northam signed

(18:09):
a bill into law effectively ending the sentence of life
without parole for juvenile offenders. As a result, Lee Boyd
Malvo will be eligible for parole in two thousand two.

(18:39):
As a result of the new Virginia law, Melvo no
longer needs a resentencing in Virginia, and so his Supreme
Court case was dismissed. Here are two of Melvo's attorneys,
Tom Walsh and Mark Petrovitch. My review of the law
is that it's fairly straightforward. Any juvenile who is sentenced

(19:01):
and has served a period of twenty years incarceration is eligible.
The keyword there is eligible, eligible for consideration for being
released on parole. That doesn't mean that they get released
after twenty years. That doesn't mean that there's any kind
of automatic process. It just means that they're eligible to
be considered for release on parole. The exact parameters of

(19:26):
how the new parole scheme and the review process will
specifically be applied, I think, are still to be determined.
The one thing to be mindful of with regard to
Lee is he also faces sentences in Maryland, so we
don't know how their process will work. But if he
even receives parole in Virginia, that's not necessarily the end

(19:49):
of his incarceration. He may still need to FaceTime in Maryland.
Lee has six life sentences in Maryland, and he has
foreign Virginia, so he if he was able to be
paroled of Virginia, he would go to Maryland then and
then proceed that. I know just reading some articles that
Maryland is also attacking it sentencing procedures for juveniles, So

(20:10):
we'll see how that turns out. This development has caused
an uproar amongst those closest to this story. Whether Malvo
should be given parole is a deeply polarizing question. You know,
I don't know if he was ever properly diagnosed. As
far as I'm concerned, he was a psychopathic, cold blooded

(20:31):
killer that can never walk the street again. This has
retired Maryland State Police Lieutenant David Reichenball. No one could
even think about ever letting this guy out in the public.
I've been around a long time. I've arrested a lot
of people, but this is one of those people that
you just know looking at him, this guy isn't done
killing if he gets the chance. I know that was

(20:55):
part of the defense that Mohammed sort of had him
under his thumb, you know, initial Malvo he was just
under the influence of Mohammed. Maybe he did initially, but
I don't buy that for a minute. If you look
at his story and his story from his day of
birth forward. Okay, yeah, I feel sorry. He was a

(21:17):
kid that uh didn't have much of a chance growing up,
But that didn't make him a cold blooded killer. He
was a cold blooded killer, and Mohammed may have enhanced
that and gave him the ability to kill through obtaining
those weapons. Believe that, But hey, fourteen times in our
area alone, and I think they were credited with over

(21:39):
seventeen killings throughout their spree across the country. That's not
a brainwash kid. That's a killer. That's all that kid
will ever be, nothing but a cold blooded killer that
should be kept in a cage the rest of his life.
But some people still believe that Malvo was a victim,
that he committed his crimes while under the influence of

(22:01):
John Mohammed. Most people when they think of the DC
sniper case, they think of the horrific random shootings in
the DC area. A lot of people don't understand that
there's a story that started many years ago, and actually
the very first victim was Mildred. The second victim I
believe was Lee Malvo. This is Melissa Moore, host of

(22:24):
the podcast Happy Face that show is about how Moore
survived her father Keith Hunter Jesperson, the man who came
to be known as the Happy Face serial killer. More
also hosted the lifetime docuseries Monster in My Family. For
that program, she interviewed numerous high profile killers, including Lee

(22:46):
Boyd Malvo. So when I talked to serial killers or
mass killers, they're always sorry that they got caught. This
is not the case for Lee Malvo. And I can
sense it that when he talked about of victims to me,
he was breaking down, and it was a crocodile tears.
I've heard crocodile tears. You know. My dad is even

(23:07):
called his murders a lapse of judgment, and killers will
do that. They will dismiss and minimize what they did.
Not Lee, when I asked him, like, what would you
say to the victims, he was hesitant to even say
anything because there's nothing he could say that could ever
justify or redeem anything he did. Malvo expressed similar feelings

(23:33):
in a two thousand twelve interview with Washington Post journalist
Josh White. I am sorry, I am sorry. I mean
there it is no way to express that. I mean,
what am I going to tell him, I'm sorry, I'm
murdered your own child. I'm sorry I killed your husband.
I'm sorry I murdered your wife. What do I tell

(23:54):
the child who was waiting for his father to come
home and dad never showed up. When I was in
doing him, he didn't hit on any of the major
things that I look for with a psychopath, which are
former animal abuse, blaming other people, thinking that they're above
other people, that they're grandiose, that they're superior. He didn't

(24:16):
delight in talking about the crimes. That is something unusual.
So like when I interviewed like the b t K killer,
he could give a false sense of like, well, I
don't want to hurt the victims families anymore by sharing this,
But then in the next line he would say something
contradictory to that, with lee that that wasn't the case.

(24:38):
I mean, I was a monster. If you look up
the definition, I mean, that's what a monster is. I
was a google, I was a thief. I I stole
people's life. I didn't beating just because they said to him.
I mean, that is the definition of a monster. I
do believe that he should be released. I do believe
that he wouldn't be a threat to society. I believe

(25:02):
this because of speaking to him and knowing that this
wasn't a thought process on his own. This was ingrained
in him. He was conditioned, He was brainwashed to become
a cold, violent killer. And if he had therapy, if
he had treatment the proper resources, which I don't believe
he's probably getting in prison, then I believe he would

(25:25):
actually be an asset. As far as would I ever
if thirty or forty or fifty years and now if
I would begin in the street, would I ever kill
or would I know? I wouldn't do that. Um. But
as I said, I mean learning to be with myself
and forgive myself. They're they're different layers. I mean something
like this, you can't tackle all of it at the

(25:45):
same time, usually be a nervous breakdown a suicid. You
do it incrementally, piece by piece. But some say that
even if Malvo could be rehabilitated, and thus deems say
to walk the streets, that still serves little justice for
the people he killed, as it relates legally, remorse to

(26:08):
me for killing six people doesn't really play into parole.
This is psychologist Anthony Meoli. He worked with Malvo to
co author his autobiography. It doesn't take away from the
fact that eight people, at least will never be brought
back because they cannot. They're dead from his hands and

(26:30):
his hands only, not John's. And regardless of what level
of remorse he has, he needs to be held accountable
for what he did. And for me, life without parole
is the correct sentence whether he was seven, seventeen, or seventy,
it still doesn't take away the fact of what he did.

(26:53):
And there are many people, and I mean many people
in prison who are serving life without parole for far
less and just because he's a hundred and seventeen days
short of his eighteenth birthday doesn't bring back eight people.
Here's one of the individuals whose life will never be
the same. Ola Martin Cooksley, the sister of James Martin,

(27:18):
who was shot and killed on October two, two two.
At the time, I was thinking, well, he should be
locked up forever and ever I would like to kind
of see whether or not he's really changed or or whatever.
I mean, I forgive him, because while I didn't forgive him,

(27:38):
it just tore up my own soul. And forgiving him
gives me peace, so that whatever he does, you know,
if he does get out some day, or if he
gets a lesser sentence or something someday, you know, I'm
not going to feel bitter about it, are angry about it,
or anything, because you know, I've forgiven him, and I

(28:01):
know that Jim would have wanted me to forgive him.
Here's the perspective of Paul Arufa. He was shot on
September five, two thousand two. If I didn't forgive him,
then I would feel the anger that I felt at
the time. And I did feel angry when they when
he was caught, you know, jeez, let me get my

(28:23):
hands on him. A lot of anger. But if I
didn't forgive him, i'd feel that today and I don't
feel that today, and I haven't felt that for years.
He hasn't ruined my life, and that part of forgiveness
is that it just lets you go on with your life.
So yeah, I can say I've forgiven him, but it

(28:45):
doesn't mean what he did was okay with me. I
think he's responsible for what he did. I don't think
he was brainwashed to the extent that he didn't know
right from wrong. He knew, absolutely knew that killing people
wasn't a thing to do and wasn't a right thing.
There's no question in my mind that he knew that.

(29:05):
But I do believe he was brainwashed. For lack of
a better term, I do believe he was under Mohammed's control.
You can't deny psychologically that there was something to this
whole thing. I mean, this kid was abandoned. He was
on his own from the time he was very young.
He was on the streets on his own. There's no

(29:27):
doubt that this kid's from a very early point was
not in the best circumstances to be mentally stable. So
I believe that's true. Now, the only time I really
heard him speak was a reporter from the Washington Post
did an interview with him. Then you can hear his voice,

(29:49):
and you can hear him say that he was a monster.
He understands what happened, and I think he does. I
didn't have a personality to begin when I see that
there was no there were no stable routes. I was
unsure of myself, and so he gave me something to
latch onto and controlled it. It's hard to explain, but

(30:11):
that's that's just what happened. The only time I actually
broke it was on two occasions. The first one was
when he asked me to shoot the pregnant lady and
I couldn't do it. And the second time was when
there was a loan in the shooting for like six
days and we just had an argument. He kicking out
the car and told me to go about my business

(30:33):
and then came back to like about three hours later
to kick me a pile still sitting in the same spot.
I was a nervous retnor. I get the feeling he
feels he has to pay a price for it. I
think the argument is how long a price? And that's
my question. Has he paid enough of a price? I
don't think so. Might he get out someday? I'm convinced

(30:53):
he will, but I don't know when that time is.
I don't think it's now, and I don't know how
much to that he would agree with. I get the
feeling he agrees he has to pay a price, but
I don't know if he thinks he's already paid it
enough for not. I don't know the answer to that,
but I'd like to ask him that. Since going to prison,

(31:17):
Lee Boyd Malvo has expressed remorse for his actions in
an outreach to victims and their families. In a two
thousand twelve interview with Washington Post journalist Josh White, Malvo
said he was haunted by two specific memories. The first
one is Mr Franklin's eyes. They're paying trinking, But if

(31:38):
it is the worst sort of pain I've ever seen
in my life, his eyes words do not dissist the
depth in which the fully convey that emotion and what
I felt when I saw it. You feel like the
worst piece of scum on the planet. The second is
Conrad Johnson's mother when I was since Maryland, and she

(32:02):
had the opportunity to speak for me at that point
in time to certainly said, that's the very first time
the immediacy of how my actions, my ignorant actions, affected
the life of August, that's the first time may be registered.
But no one has ever none of the victims or

(32:24):
the surviving loved ones that ever had the opportunity to
me to confront me. Eventually, Malvo decided to start reaching
out to his victims. The local police. They went to
the Red Onion prison and they interviewed Leboyd Malvo and
he admitted to shooting a man in Hammond, and he

(32:45):
thought that I had died. This is John Gaida, the
victims shot in Hammond, Louisiana, on October one, two thousand two.
He says that about eight years after he was shot,
he received an apology letter from Malva Sundays Havebruary two
thousand and ten. Mr Gata, I am truly sorry for

(33:07):
the pain I caused you and your loved one. I
was relieved to hear that you suffer no paralyzing injuries
and that you are alive. Sincerely, Lee Boyd Malvo. And
then he found it. Yeah, I just kind of confirmed
becoming new. I'm grateful that he said an apology. I
would have sent something back, but all people advised against it.

(33:30):
They just said, you know, just you know, just let
it lie. But I appreciate that he did that. I
believe in forgiveness because that's what the Good Lord taught us,
and that's what we should do. Otherwise we will be
saying the Large Prayer in vain. There are two ways
to look at Malvo's actions from prison. Is it possible
he has truly unwound himself from his past and is

(33:53):
looking for some degree of genuine redemption, or is it
more likely that Malvo has been working to create a
redemption narrative in hopes of getting out of prison someday.
In two thousand twelve, Malvo gave an interview where he
shared new information. He suggested that he had been sexually

(34:14):
abused by John Mohammed. That revelation came as a shock
too many, including the co author of his autobiography, Anthony Meoli.
The first inkling I got of that was right around
two thousand twelve. I believe now here's a man who
wrote his entire diary. Nowhere in any chapter I have

(34:35):
nor amended chapters, because he did amend some of the
things to change things. Nor in any of the conversations
I had, nor in any of the emails I had,
nor in any private letter did I have, nor in
the interview I had with him for sixty six minutes
that he could have said anything he wanted, did he
talk about sexual abuse. Ever, it is possible that Mohammed

(34:56):
really did sexually abuse Malvo, and Malvo just didn't want
bring it up with me only. It is common for
survivors of abuse to feel shame and stay silent about
it for years. Malvo story would be even more confusing
and tragic if that were the case. But me only
is afraid that it is all maybe just a ploy

(35:16):
for sympathy. So I have been writing, emailing, speaking the
inmates on the phone, and visiting them for a quarter century.
And I can tell you, just like almost every human being,
at the end of the day, if you have an
opportunity to have a better slice at life for yourself,

(35:39):
chances are you'll take it. And I never put it
past any inmate. And I have to sometimes look at
myself in the mirror about this. Hey, am I being
used for their own personal goal, which is to tell
their story for whatever purpose it isn't it. It's something
that you have to be wary of, and in this

(36:00):
particular case, it's right for that. Meoli says that Melville
might want to use people to rewrite his story to
paint him as a more stable and normal person, a
person more worthy of freedom. It's impossible to know Lee
Boyd Malvo's true intentions, but late last month he added

(36:22):
another chapter to his story, The man serving a life
sentence in prison for his role in the two thousand
to Sniper's Free that terrorized Washington, d C. Is now
a married man. On March six, Lee Boyd Malvo married
Sable Noel Nap at a small ceremony inside Red Onion
State Prison. Nap is a social activist and granddaughter of

(36:44):
Bill Nap, a prominent real estate developer in Iowa. We
reached out to Nap for comment but received no reply.

(37:08):
Malvo's marriage disable Naps suggests that he intends to build
a life beyond his prison confines, and that if he
were released, he might have some sort of support system
in place. That's something a parole board might view favorably,
and perhaps it's something that Malvo things could increase his
chances of getting parole. I had dreams at one point,

(37:33):
I wanted to do great brinks. I had a lot
of ti I had a lot of friends who thought,
you know, you're gonna be known some day. But no
one would think not for this, not for this, Because
when I set my mind to something, I always had
a one point of focus, you know, and he do
days I was going to school adding it for two days.

(37:54):
I didn't complain to my classmates. I wouldn't school took
the same test day, didn't did the best I could.
I stud themastry life. When my landlord kick me out,
turn the light off. You know, I did everything I
could and my best failed. And in life it works
out like that. Something we would like, the thing that
we're logical, But if you sit for ten minutes and
look at your thought process, it's random feelings and thoughts

(38:18):
about different things you've seen and heard, read and witness.
We're not logical. We're moved by our deepest sentiments, and
then for most part we we think about in rational life.
Late when we look at the world we're living today,
most people move off that feeling, that sentiment. What we
see you, whether it's wittingly or unmated, whether we know

(38:40):
we don't know, whether it's conscious owners and unconscious drives.
That's what we're gonna ask them. Whatever happens with Malvo,
his earliest chance of parole is in two at that point,
twenty years while that passed since he was arrested. That
means nearly twenty years since the attack that paralyze the nation.

(39:04):
The way that we live our daily lives. Now, you know,
we are a much more fearful people. This is journalist
and historian Garrett Graf. He says that While the DC
attacks did come to an end, the impact has lingered on.
Now we see these videos, for instance, of a motorcycle

(39:24):
backfiring in Times Square and everybody runs for their life.
The terror threat has shifted from you know, these large
scale attacks carried out by international groups like al Qaeda,
like nine eleven, and is much more about almost unpreventable

(39:48):
attacks on daily life. Mass shootings at schools, at churches,
at movie theaters, These small scale attacks that are utterly
devastating thanks to the firepower of assault weapons, and that
have become just part of daily life in America in

(40:11):
a way that was unrecognizable or would be unrecognizable to
the America before Columbine and before nine eleven. Graph says
that the DC sniper shootings were one of the first
of these new types of terror attacks. This was not
a mass shooting in the way that we think of

(40:32):
mass shootings, but I think it was a big change
in the way that people sort of thought about their
safety in public space. Graph also wonders why when we
look back on the early two thousands, the DC sniper
story is often forgotten or overlooked. It gets lost for
a couple of different reasons. I mean, one the suspects

(40:54):
and the motive end up being just sort of weird,
and so you know, there was no real political motive
attached to it. It wasn't part of the terror threat
that we traditionally thought about at the time in terms
of Islamic extremism. And then, you know, the sad truth
of it is, for as many people who were killed

(41:15):
and injured back then by the DC sniper mass shootings
are such a regular part of American life now that
just gets lost in a casualty toll of unthinkable proportions
in the years since. Well, that may be true for
the general public, many people directly impacted by the case

(41:38):
will never forget. The life of every person involved in
the DC sniper attacks was changed forever, and each of
those individuals deals with that trauma differently. At first, I
hated for anybody to say it was God's will, No,
it was God's wealth, because it just did not resonate

(42:00):
with me. How could have been God's will? It was
not God's will. This is Ola Martin Cooksley again, sister
of sniper victim James Martin, and I still don't think
it was God's will, But I think that people can
over override God's will. Sometimes I know that I will
see Jim again someday, and the older I get, the

(42:22):
closer I know I'm getting to that day. So um,
I look at it more like something that happened. It
changed me, it broke me, But it's not something I
struggle against the very thought. I mean, I don't scream
at God or anything anymore like I did right first.

(42:44):
I don't think there's ever actually closure, because you always
wonder why, you know, why did this happen? Why? Why him?
You know, a little boy born in St. Louis, he
ends up in a grocery store parking lot in Wait
and Maryland. What could have happened that could have kept
him from being there? And that kind of thing. So
it's it's not really closure. I am at peace. Ola

(43:08):
says it's impossible to completely escape the memories, but she's
learned how to turn those experiences into positive changes. My
grandchildren and I have all marched in in marches for
gun reform and gun laws and things. We continue to
do that. Even though some of my grandchildren never met Jim,

(43:29):
they still feel passionate about it. That makes me feel
very good too, that we can march and we can
say what we think about that guns shouldn't be on
the street or anything, especially that kind of gun that
was a Bushmaster, which he should never have had. Nobody
should have that kind of a gun for anything. Not

(43:51):
long after the DC attacks, family members of aid of
the victims sued Bushmaster Firearms and Bulls Eye Shoot Supply,
where the rifle was stolen from. At the time, Bull's
Eye owner Brian borg Gelt said he never knew the
gun was missing. An a t F investigation discovered that

(44:12):
the store could not account for over two hundred missing
guns and revoked bore Gelt's license to sell firearms. The
lawsuit with Bushmaster was settled out of court, with Bushmaster
paying two point five million dollars split between the victims families.
Sonya Wills, the mother of victim Conrad Johnson, spoke to

(44:35):
w t o P News after the settlement and said quote,
I think a message was delivered that you should be
responsible and accountable for the actions of irresponsible people when
you make these guns and put them in their hands.
While some got involved in activism, others decided to write

(44:56):
books after the story was over. None was more controversial
than the book by Charles Moose, the chief of police
for Montgomery County at the time of the d C shootings.
Moose accepted a hefty book deal shortly after the attacks,
but Moose was criticized for attempting to profit from his
work as a public officer. The Montgomery County Ethics Commission

(45:19):
initially rejected an exemption for Moose, saying it's prohibited for
employees to quote use the prestige of office for private gain.
Moose published his book anyway, but he ultimately resigned as
chief of police and moved to Hawaii to work as
a beat cop. Another person to write about his experience

(45:40):
was the officer in charge of the takedown, now retired
Maryland State Police Lieutenant David Reichenball. After retiring, he wrote
the book in Pursuit The Hunt for the Beltway Snipers.
I wrote the book primarily because I felt that the
true story had to be captured as to how we
got him. We all came together and we were cooperating

(46:01):
and working with each other like never before. The FBI,
a t F, Montgomery County, Baltimore City Police Department, Metropolitan
Police Department, and of course when you work together, you
break bread together, you maybe drink a beer together. You
get to know each other, and all of a sudden,
you're no longer competitors your comrades. Hey, I got your back,

(46:24):
you got mine, which is the way it's supposed to be.
Those were one thousand highly dedicated police officers that give
a damn. And if there's anything that the public needs
to take out of this is your cops, whether they're
your local police department, your state, of your federal point
nine percent of us care. We care about you, we

(46:47):
care about protecting you, and that's what it's all about.
Mildred Mohammed now works as a professional public speaker. She
talks to audiences around the world surviving domestic abuse as
a once victim who became a survivor and now I
am a warrior on the issues of domestic abuse and violence.

(47:12):
I have found that it is important to reach back
to help others men and women who feel that the
relationship that they are in is abusive. Eight percent of
victims do not have physical scars to prove that they
are victims, although do I choose to concentrate on the

(47:36):
eight percent, and it is my mission to shift the
thinking of society to understand that you do not have
to have physical scars to be a victim or a
survivor of domestic violence. In the coming weeks, Monster will
feature a bonus episode about military Mohammad and her message

(48:00):
to victims around the world. Meanwhile, Lee Boyd Malvo remains
behind bars at Red Onion State Penitentiary. Has mentioned he
will be eligible for parole in Virginia in two thousand
twenty two. Malville has not given a public interview since
two thousand twelve. However, this team has reached out to

(48:22):
Malvo and will continue to do so. Finally, the surviving
victims continue to live on, including John Gaida, the victims
shot in Hammond, Louisiana in two thousand two. When I
did go back to work, I found like a prayer
that I really took to heart, just appreciating everything about life.

(48:49):
He takes for granted, so many things. Even grass just
looked amazing to me. It's just like it had a
new meaning, the blades of grass, which is beautiful. I mean,
I just couldn't believe I've been shot and I was
still alive. I just think of the miracle that my

(49:10):
life was spared and that there must have been a
reason for sparing me. We're prayerful and Christians, so we
especially pray for the families who did lose loved ones.
One of the people to lose a loved one was
Nelson Rivera, whose wife Lorie and Louis Rivera, was shot

(49:31):
and killed on October three, two. My life changed completely,
you know, after seventeen years. It's just it never goes away,
never goes away. You know. Now I'm a little bit better,
you know, but I always think about her all the time.

(49:55):
How my life will be now? Is she's still here? Yeah,
you know, I just thinks to God. You know, Joselyne
grew up and you know now she's twenty. She helped
the best for her. I guess that's what her mom wants.
I have, you know, pictures, I have some clothes. I

(50:17):
have her her wedding dress. Keep it with me until
you know, when you're thinking married she wanted to wear.
You know, something like that that happens to you, you'll
never forget it. Here's Paul Larufa again, the victims shot

(50:40):
on September five, two two. I've always said you're never
over it. Over it in the sense that well, it
was nothing. I barely remember what happened. It was like
tripping on the sidewalk. It was just nothing. That's just
never gonna happen. It doesn't haunt me, and it doesn't
affect me negatively. I like to think that it affected

(51:04):
me positively. People say all the time, well lived it today.
You never know, you could be dead tomorrow. I experienced
it where it could have ended in a split second.
So that's something positive that you think about that you
know it can end any time, so you do make
it affect how you act. You try to act maybe

(51:27):
differently than you did before. I've gone on with my
life and enjoy life, and it just hasn't affected me negatively.
That's a good thing Larufus has. The anniversary of the
shooting is a special day every year, September five. My
brother calls me at ten fifteen at night, UH two

(51:50):
celebrate my survival because he he's the more outgoing about things.
My two sisters and my other brother are more in
the area of they don't like to talk about it
because they think it hurts me and and and and
it hurts them to talk about it. But my other
brother is more understanding of where I am. So my

(52:14):
wife and I have a toast, and my youngest brother
calls me and and we celebrate the fact not that
I got shot at that moment, but that I lived.
And so he calls me and says, glad you're alive,
and I say thanks, and we talked for a few minutes,

(52:36):
and and uh, that is emotional. The stories of these
survivors are just a few of the thousands of stories
surrounding the DC sniper saga. While making this podcast, it

(52:58):
seemed like nearly everyone we boak who had some story
or connection to the case, whether they lived in the
DC area at the time and remember having to pump
gas from behind a blue tarp, or knew someone who
was affected by the shootings. This was the story that
impacted the d C area and an entire nation in
chilling ways, and as we're seeing today, the after effects

(53:22):
continue to influence the daily lives in uncertain futures of
countless others. We also learned over the course of producing
this podcast that the lives of these killers are complex
as well. There are so many factors involved in their actions.
But I make sure to never lose sight of the
fact that the consequences of their actions are devastating for

(53:46):
victims and their loved ones. We are curious people, perhaps
morbidly so, we want to know more about the people
who kill and why they do it. We call the monsters,
I think because we can't come up with another term
that captures our shock, fear, and outrage at their actions.

(54:09):
As a journalist, I will continue to try to explain
the seemingly unexplainable, and I'll continue to ask you to
consider all the factors that go into building a life,
breaking a life, and destroying a life. Maybe when we
understand these complexities better, we can create a world with

(54:30):
a little more empathy, the world that's hopefully free of monsters.
I'm Tony Harris, and this is Monster DC Sniper. Monster

(54:51):
DC Sniper is a fifteen episode podcast hosted by Tony
Harris and produced by iHeart Radio and Tenderfoot TV. Matt
Frederick and Ol Williams our executive producers on behalf of
I Heart Radio, alongside producers Trevor Young, Ben Kieburn and
Josh Thain. Payne Lindsay and Donald Albright are executive producers
on behalf of Tenderfoot TV, alongside producers Meredith Steadman and

(55:15):
Christina Dana. Original music is by Makeup and Vanity Set.
If you haven't 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 i heeart media dot com, or you can call
us at one eight three three to eight five six

(55:37):
six six seven. Thanks for listening. Monster d C Sniper
does not end with today's finale. Be on the lookout
for upcoming bonus episodes, including an intimate discussion with the
ex wife of the DC Sniper, Mildrid Mohammed. In the meantime,

(55:57):
if you missed anything this season, we encourage you to
go back and re listen to earlier episodes of the show.
Your reviews make us better, so please leave your feedback
on Monster DC Sniper. Then if you would tell your
friends to go find Monster DC Sniper and subscribe now.
All episodes are available on the I Heart Radio app,

(56:19):
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.