Malvo Describes Two-Step Plan
Phase Two Involved Blowing Up Schools, Children's Hospitals

By Ernesto Londoño and Eric Rich
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Confronting his accomplice for the first time, Lee Boyd Malvo testified yesterday that John Allen Muhammad intended to bomb schools, school buses and children's hospitals after the sniper shootings that paralyzed the Washington area in October 2002.

Malvo, speaking evenly for five hours at Muhammad's trial in Montgomery County, said Muhammad pulled the trigger in nine of the 10 fatal shootings and actually sought to claim six lives a day for a month.

The young sniper, testifying for the prosecution, described a number of planned shootings that were aborted because there were too many potential witnesses. The men scouted dozens of locations. In one instance, Malvo said, he spent hours staring at a fast-food restaurant through the scope of his high-powered rifle, under instructions from Muhammad to shoot a pregnant woman.

Muhammad's ultimate goal was to indoctrinate 140 young homeless men at a compound in Canada who would "shut things down" in cities across the United States, Malvo testified.

The testimony, the first inside account of the shootings, teemed with new information about motives and methods and riveted courtroom spectators and victims' families as Malvo faced the man he said he once would have died for. He said he chose to testify "for what it's worth for the victims."

"I think he's a coward," Malvo said, looking directly at Muhammad and holding his gaze. "You took me in your house, and you made me a monster."

Muhammad, who is conducting his defense and has claimed the pair's innocence, began cross-examining Malvo late in the afternoon. He said that he had been asked by prosecutors not to refer to Malvo as "my son" and noted that Malvo has provided conflicting accounts about the shootings.

A handcuffed Malvo, wearing a dark blazer and white shirt with open collar, was escorted into the courtroom by three sheriff's deputies. His testimony was articulate and animated. He spoke with a hint of a Jamaican accent and showed neither grief nor regret as he deconstructed the slayings. His speech grew halting one time, as a relative of victim Premkumar A. Walekar was escorted from the courtroom, sobbing.

It was a very different Malvo who spoke to investigators in November 2002, shortly after he was turned over to Virginia authorities. In a tape played in court during his murder trial, a boastful, remorseless Malvo spoke in mocking tones but great detail about the sniper shootings, parrying with interrogators but ultimately claiming he fired the shots in all but one or two of the killings.

Yesterday, Malvo disavowed his earlier statements, saying he and Muhammad had planned that he would accept responsibility for the shootings if they were caught. As the younger of the two, he said, he would be less likely to be sentenced to death.

Malvo, 21, who has agreed to plead guilty to six counts of first-degree murder in the six Montgomery killings, said he fired the weapon in the slaying of Montgomery County bus driver Conrad Johnson and the shootings of 13-year-old Iran Brown and Jeffrey Hopper, now 42, two of the victims who survived.

All other shots were fired by Muhammad, Malvo testified.

He said he met Muhammad in Antigua in May 2000, when he was a 15-year-old neglected by his parents. His mother, whom he described as "authoritarian," abandoned the teenager to move to Florida. He was also estranged from his father.

Malvo became Muhammad's surrogate son and grew fond of Muhammad's children.

Muhammad introduced Malvo to the Nation of Islam and spoke to him about race and socioeconomic disparities. "The white man is the devil," Malvo said, summing up Muhammad's thinking.

He said Muhammad helped him sneak into the United States in May 2001, where Malvo initially lived with his mother in Fort Myers, Fla. Muhammad had moved to Washington state with his three children. The pair spoke regularly on the phone, and one day, after a devastated Muhammad told Malvo he had lost custody of his children, Malvo decided to join him.

Under Muhammad's tutelage, Malvo began a strict diet that involved taking 72 vitamins and eating only one meal a day. Muhammad took Malvo to a shooting range, where he taught him to shoot a variety of weapons and trained him to sneak up on people, Malvo testified.

Malvo said Muhammad told him he intended to recover his children, who were taken from him after he kidnapped them for 18 months.

"No white man in a black robe is going to tell him when and where and why he can see his children," Malvo said, quoting Muhammad.

The Sept. 11, 2001, attacks had a considerable impact on Muhammad.

"He said bloodshed begets bloodshed," Malvo said, summarizing Muhammad's reaction. "It's a process. America began this. Osama bin Laden didn't develop in a vacuum."

During summer 2002, Malvo said, Muhammad told him about the two-pronged scheme he had designed to terrorize the nation's capital. Phase one was the month of random shootings. The next stage, which was intended to heighten the terror, involved setting explosive devices -- which Muhammad told Malvo he had learned to use in the military -- to kill massive numbers of children in the Baltimore area, Malvo testified.

Malvo said he balked at the idea and suggested that they should simply recover Muhammad's children, who at the time were living with their mother in Clinton. Agonizing over the prospect of going forward with the plan, Malvo said, he locked himself in a bathroom shortly after Muhammad told him about the plan and played Russian roulette with a .22-caliber revolver.

"I loaded one round, spun it, put it to my head, fired," he said. After no bullets were fired, "I broke down and couldn't do it."

They headed to the Washington area late that summer, where Malvo conducted "surveillance" on the townhouse where Muhammad's wife, Mildred, lived with their three children. Later that summer, they bought a 1990 Chevrolet Caprice in New Jersey, tinted its windows and modified the rear to facilitate shooting from a hole in the trunk while lying face down inside it, Malvo testified.

The murderous rampage began in Silver Spring the evening of Oct. 2, as James Martin, a federal employee, walked across a supermarket parking lot. Muhammad believed Montgomery County was the ideal place to unleash the terror, Malvo testified, because it was affluent and predominantly white.

This was the well-rehearsed routine they used in most of the slayings, according to Malvo's testimony: Muhammad would pull a lever that dropped his seat back, climb into the back seat and then the trunk. Sitting in the passenger seat, Malvo would act as the spotter, clearing Muhammad to pull the trigger when there were few or no witnesses nearby.

"I told Mr. Muhammad, 'You got a go,' " he said again and again, describing the shootings. "He took the shot."

In addition to the 13 known sniper shootings, Malvo described a number of planned shootings that were called off because there were too many potential witnesses.

In one instance, Malvo said, he assumed a position at a cemetery in Baltimore at Muhammad's urging, looking for pregnant women to kill. Muhammad selected that target, Malvo said, "for the sheer terror of it.''

Muhammad also planned to kill a police officer and later detonate a bomb during the well-attended funeral, Malvo said.

Unable to meet his goal of six slayings a day, Muhammad grew restless toward the end of October, Malvo testified.

Muhammad, 45, said that he expects his cross-examination of Malvo, which is expected to resume today, will be lengthy.

He began by asking the witness to elaborate on his earlier testimony that Muhammad was a man of his word. What then could be concluded, Muhammad asked, from the fact that Muhammad had told the jury he would prove that he and Malvo were not involved in the shootings?

"I said your word is bond," Malvo shot back in a firm voice. "I never said you were telling the truth."

After noting that Malvo had been sentenced to life in Virginia for a shooting that was not among the three in which he admitted to being the gunman, Muhammad said, "So, in essence, you were an innocent person in jail."

"No, I'm not innocent," Malvo said tersely. "I took part in that shooting. I'm an accomplice."

At times, Muhammad's examination seemed to wander as he stood behind the defense table, often with several sheets of yellow paper in his left hand.

"The last time we played basketball, who won?" Muhammad asked.

"You won."

"The last time we ran a mile, who ran faster?"

"You."

"And the last time we ran five miles, who ran faster?"

"You did."