Lee Boyd Malvo biography

Synopsis

Friendship with John Allen Muhammad

Infamous person. Born on February 18, 1985, in Kingston, Jamaica. Known as one of the D.C. snipers, Lee Boyd Malvo, along with John Allen Muhammad, went on shooting spree near the nation's capital for three weeks in 2002, which left 10 people dead. The son of Una James and Leslie Samuel Malvo, he spent most of his childhood in Jamaica. With an absent father and a mother who often left him in the care of others, Malvo was shuffled around a lot with little supervision.

Around 1998, he and his mother moved to Antigua. It is believed that Malvo and Muhammad met there. He eventually made his way to the United States in 2001. He lived with his mother in Miami where Malvo briefly attended high school, and they later moved to Bellingham, Washington. It was in a homeless shelter there that Malvo and Muhammad really began to develop their strange bond. While it was reported that Muhammad and Malvo's mother dated for a time, Muhammad seemed more dedicated to her son. Muhammad became a father figure of sorts to Malvo, playing chess with him and imposing a challenging exercise and diet regimen on him. A former member of the U.S. military, Muhammad also taught Malvo how to shoot, and they spent hours practicing. Many that knew the pair said that Muhammad appeared to be very controlling of Malvo.

In December 2001, Malvo and his mother caught by the INS for being in the country illegally. But they were freed a month later pending a deportation hearing. Malvo caught up with Muhammad soon after and the two have been linked to a murder that happened that February.

D.C. Sniper Murders

By the fall of 2002, Malvo and Muhammad had begun their deadly tour around the country. They have been tied to four shootings that left three dead and one injured in Maryland and Louisiana in September, and the next month they began their assault on the Washington, D.C. area. Using a rifle and creating their own sniper nest in the trunk of their car, Malvo and Muhammad worked a murderous team—one selected the victim while the other pulled the trigger. From the car, they killed 10 people and injured three others.

For more than 20 days, people in Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia were living in fear of the sniper shooters. Many were afraid to pump their own gas or cross a parking lot as several of the victims had killed while performing these once mundane tasks. The police initially had a difficult time getting a handle on the shooting—there appeared to be no pattern and the victims ranged greatly in age.

After the ninth fatality, Malvo and Muhammad sent a letter to the police asking for $10 million to end their reign of terror. But several calls made by a unknown male claiming to the sniper—it may have been Malvo or Muhammad—telling authorities and two priests that should check out a robbery-homicide in Montgomery, Alabama, that led to a break in the case. Malvo had left a fingerprint on a document found at the scene, which helped authorities