Malvo tells sniper strategy, laughs during interview

CHESAPEAKE, Va. -- A cocky Lee Boyd Malvo laughed repeatedly during a police interrogation as he recounted some of last year's sniper attacks, saying of one victim, "He was hit good. Dead immediately," a detective testified at Malvo's murder trial Friday.

Malvo, speaking excitedly on an audiotape played in court, also said he and convicted sniper mastermind John Allen Muhammad selected targets in places with white vans nearby because they knew police and the public were on the lookout for such a vehicle.

And he said he and Muhammad even returned to some of the crime scenes to watch police at work.

"You did what we wanted you to do," Malvo, then 17, told a detective on the tape. "Once you locked onto a vehicle, we made sure that vehicle was there. Made sure we were around them. People are just going to lock onto them."

The conversation with Fairfax County homicide detective June Boyle marks the longest, most detailed account from Malvo about the sniper spree, and sheds some light on how the two men managed to pull off the attacks. The interrogation began on the afternoon of Nov. 7, 2002, two weeks after Malvo and Muhammad were arrested.

Malvo's attorneys do not dispute that he took part in the sniper attacks, but they contend he was brainwashed by Muhammad and is innocent by reason of insanity.

Muhammad's fate

In nearby Virginia Beach, jurors spent nearly four hours deliberating whether Muhammad should be put to death for orchestrating the sniper rampage. Then they asked what they should do if unable to reach a unanimous decision.

"We have spent six weeks. ... I would simply urge you to continue your deliberations. We really want to try to get a unanimous decision," Circuit Judge LeRoy F. Millette Jr. told the jury.

If the jury cannot reach a unanimous decision on the death penalty, Muhammad will automatically receive life in prison. The jury is to return Monday.

Muhammad was convicted this week of two capital murder charges related to the Washington-area sniper attacks that killed 13 people and wounded three last year. The jury is deciding whether Muhammad should live or die for killing Dean Harold Meyers on Oct. 9, 2002, in Manassas.

Malvo is on trial in nearby Chesapeake for the Oct. 14, 2002, shooting death of Linda Franklin at a Home Depot.

Boyle testified that Malvo laughed when he described the Franklin and Meyers shootings. He said that he shot a 13-year-old boy standing outside a middle school because it was "a phase."

Boyle said when she asked Malvo about the Meyers shooting, he again laughed and said, "He was hit good. Dead immediately."

On the tape, Malvo discussed Franklin's slaying with a laugh, too, and said he shot her after she walked into "the zone."

Boyle asked Malvo if he knew where Franklin was hit by the bullet. "He laughed and pointed here, right here," Boyle said, pointing to the right side of her forehead.

Boyle said that Malvo also told her, "A head shot is best" but that he did not shoot 13-year-old Iran Brown in the head because "there were other school kids around."

After her testimony, prosecutors played more than two hours of the taped portion of the interview.

On the tape, Malvo said that the morning after he shot Franklin, he returned to the Home Depot so he could watch police work the crime scene. "Like in all your roadblocks, I leave and get back inside the roadblock," he said.

Malvo also told police that the shootings were carefully planned, even to the point of leaving notes for police beforehand. He described leaving the weapon behind in "all kind of places" after the shootings, thinking that police would not look in the most obvious places, then retrieving it later.

Malvo predicted that if the shootings had continued, the National Guard would have been brought in, creating a "military siege." He said that would have hurt the economy and forced the government to pay the $10 million the snipers had demanded.

He refused to tell police whether most of the shootings were done in or out of Muhammad's car, which prosecutors say was outfitted as a sniper's nest.

"That's for you to figure out," he said. He later bragged, "I can hit you in the head from the car or I can hit you in the head from outside."

Malvo said he couldn't have done the shootings without Muhammad, who acted as his spotter. "It's a team, team, team," he said.