Malvo Called ‘Boastful’ in Sniper Prosecution Brief

Fairfax County, Va., prosecutors said for the first time Tuesday that Lee Boyd Malvo has admitted that he shot and killed an FBI analyst outside a Home Depot store last fall and that he “has also admitted to killing a number of other victims himself with the aid of his co-defendant who acted as his spotter and helper.”
In court papers filed Tuesday , Chief Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Raymond Morrogh wrote that Malvo said he and the co-defendant, John Allen Muhammad, were equal members of a “sniper team.”
“One would be the spotter, while the other would do the shooting,” Morrogh wrote. ‘‘They acted as a unit. … In fact, (Malvo) claimed both were equals and either could call a particular shot on or off.”
The papers do not actually name Muhammad, but he is the only other person charged in October’s Washington area sniper shootings.
Morrogh also contends that Malvo was “rather boastful” in admitting his role in the killings and that he often referred to his co-defendant as his father.
The disclosures were made in a prosecution brief responding to requests by Malvo’s attorneys for more information about the investigation into last fall’s sniper shootings, which left 10 people dead and three wounded in the Washington area. Malvo, 18, and Muhammad, 42, were arrested in October, and both face capital murder charges.
Morrogh and Michael Arif, a Malvo attorney, did not return calls Tuesday seeking comment.
Malvo is facing trial in Fairfax in the Oct. 14 slaying of Linda Franklin, 47, outside the Home Depot. Muhammad is charged in Prince William County, Va., in the Oct. 9 slaying of Dean Harold Meyers, 53, of Gaithersburg, Md., at a Manassas area gas station. The court papers filed Tuesday in Fairfax do not mention the Prince William shooting, and Muhammmad has not said anything of substance to investigators. The Fairfax brief does not say who investigators believe pulled the trigger in shootings other than Franklin’s.
The 28-page brief is the first official acknowledgment that Malvo may have cooperated with police after he was transferred from federal custody to Fairfax on Nov. 7. Fairfax Detective June Boyle testified at a hearing last month that she questioned Malvo for six hours, but she did not disclose what was said.
Morrogh’s brief asks Fairfax Circuit Judge Jane Marum Roush to reject virtually all of the defense’s requests for police reports and internal memorandums. Morrogh, the top assistant to Commonwealth’s Attorney Robert F. Horan Jr., also indicates that prosecutors do not intend to provide the defense with a witness list before trial, which is not required by Virginia law. Morrogh also asks Roush to rule that prosecutors do not need to provide the criminal histories of their witnesses until after their initial testimony and before cross-examination.
Roush has scheduled a hearing for March 3 to hear oral argument on the motions. Defense attorneys have asked Roush to appoint mental health experts and five investigators, to require prosecutors to turn over various types of evidence and to rule the state’s death penalty unconstitutional.
Horan responded to the death penalty motion with a two-page filing that lists 24 previous Virginia Supreme Court cases that rejected the same defense arguments. Horan characterized the defense motion as “68 pages of diatribe against the Supreme Court of Virginia.”
In response to the defense’s request for evidence that might prove Malvo’s innocence, Morrogh alleges what law enforcement sources have told The Washington Post: that Malvo admitted “that he personally shot Mrs. Franklin in the head.”
The prosecutor wrote that Malvo made the assertion to “more than one person,” but he does not say who. Morrogh wrote that “this confession was uncoerced and completely voluntary. There were no threats or promises made to the Defendant in the course of his admissions. In fact the Defendant was calm and rather boastful of his doings in this case.”
Morrogh said Malvo’s statement “contains a fantastic amount of detail in support of its validity.”
In response to the defense’s request for information about Muhammad, Morrogh said he would provide Muhammad’s record. But he added, “There is nothing in (Malvo’s) demeanor or history to suggest that he is less violent or dangerous than his co-defendant.”
Morrogh continued: “This Defendant often refers to his co-defendant in conversation as his father, although there is no blood relation.”
Malvo and Muhammad were arrested Oct. 24 while sleeping in a car at a Frederick, Md.-area highway rest stop and placed in federal custody in Baltimore. But on Nov. 7, after numerous jurisdictions charged them, they were taken to Virginia.
That afternoon, before they made a formal court appearance, both suspects were questioned by detectives. Sources said Malvo, then 17, admitted to several shootings, including the slaying of Franklin and the wounding of a 13-year-old boy outside Benjamin Tasker Middle School in Bowie, Md.
Morrogh’s brief confirms much of what the sources said in November: that Malvo was smiling, even bragging about the shootings and that he described how he and another person–the sources said he never used Muhammad’s name–scouted out “missions” and used two-way radios to communicate while lining up a shooting.
While Malvo was speaking to investigators, a Fairfax juvenile court judge was appointing him a guardian. That guardian, Todd Petit, tried to stop the questioning but was rebuffed by Fairfax police. The federal court in Baltimore also had appointed lawyers and guardians to represent Malvo, and Malvo’s current attorneys contend that police had no right to question a juvenile without the consent of his attorneys or guardians.
Roush has appointed Arif and Craig Cooley of Richmond, Va., to head Malvo’s defense team. Arif has said he would move to bar Malvo’s statement from his Nov. 10 trial.