Lee Boyd Malvo

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Lee Boyd Malvo (also John Lee Malvo ; born February 18, 1985 in Kingston ) is a serial killer who, together with his foster father John Allen Muhammad , killed ten people and injured three in the Washington area in October 2002. The acts became known as the Beltway Sniper Attacks .

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Lee Boyd Malvo was born in Jamaica to Leslie Malvo and Una James. The father left him and his mother early, Una James had to raise Lee Boyd Malvo alone. As a result, Lee Boyd Malvo was often left alone with friends and relatives, while the mother had to take care of work for the two of them. Lee Boyd Malvo has been described as a polite boy who was rather inconspicuous in school. When he was 14 years old, his mother left Jamaica with him as she hoped for a better life for her son in Antigua .

In Antigua they both met John Allen Muhammad, who was staying there with his children he had kidnapped and who kept himself afloat by selling forged documents. According to her, his mother did not have an intimate relationship with John Allen Muhammad. However, Lee Boyd Malvo, who was looking for a father replacement, developed a close relationship with John Allen Muhammad.

The mother eventually left Antigua for Fort Myers , Florida . John Allen Muhammad also left Antigua with his children. Lee Boyd Malvo briefly visited his mother in Florida and then followed John Allen Muhammad to Bellingham ( Washington ). The US authorities deprived John Allen Muhammad custody of his children, as he and his wife this deprived had.

Muhammad then converted to Islam and joined the Nation of Islam . He started living in homeless shelters and in the car with Lee Boyd Malvo.

The actions

John Allen Muhammad was trained as an excellent marksman in the military. He received the Expert Rifleman's Badge from the US Army , which is the US Army equivalent of the Bundeswehr's gold rifle cord . He passed this skill on to Lee Boyd Malvo. They began converting the car they lived in so that either of them could shoot people lying in the trunk. According to Malvo in a 2006 trial in Maryland, Muhammad was allegedly motivated by hatred of the United States.

A Bushmaster ACR semi-automatic rifle with a laser sighting device that was stolen from a gun shop in Tacoma, Washington state , was used indiscriminately at people passing by in front of supermarkets, bus stops, park benches or gas stations within three weeks of October 2002. The victims were selected spontaneously , regardless of age , appearance , gender or skin color . According to current knowledge, the shooter was always Lee Boyd Malvo. Mostly it was a single shot. Ten people were killed and three injured during this period. On most sensational killing was one profiler the FBI .

Malvo's fingerprint was left on one of the crime scenes . This was known to the authorities from investigations by the immigration authorities . Lee Boyd Malvo and John Allen Muhammad were then arrested on October 24, 2002, sleeping in their car.

Processes and discussion

First trial in Virginia

The then US Attorney General John Ashcroft had to Malvo and John Allen Muhammad Virginia deliver, because in this state some of the acts had been committed.

In December 2003, the trial of Malvo, who was 17 at the time of the acts and was therefore a minor, began in a court in Chesapeake , Virginia . He was charged with the murder of Kenneth Bridges, 53, who was shot dead on October 11, 2002. On December 23, 2003, after eight and a half hours of deliberation, the jury decided not to the death penalty , but to life imprisonment with no prospect of parole. The verdict was upheld on March 10, 2004.

Trial in Maryland

In 2006 a new trial of Malvo and Muhammad began in Maryland, which the local prosecutor had sought in the event that the Virginia appeals were overturned. Malvo pleaded guilty and struck a deal with prosecutors. He also agreed to testify against Muhammad. He was spared the death penalty there too.

Discussion of the Malvo case

The trial of Lee Boyd Malvo sparked heated debates in the United States about the punishment of juvenile criminals, particularly the death penalty. Critics of the current practice argue that the threat of the death penalty against juveniles violates original American legal principles, which would require juvenile offenders not to be treated equally with adult offenders. A large number of American and non-American organizations, such as Amnesty International , the European Union , various churches or American youth protection and legal associations would oppose the death penalty for persons who were minors at the time of the crime. With the death penalty on such persons, the US would be sidelined internationally instead of being a role model.

On May 26, 2017, a federal judge overturned Lee Boyd Malvo's verdict and ordered new hearings after the Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that automatically imposed life imprisonment on juveniles was contrary to the constitution.

Film adaptations

The case of Muhammad and Malvo was filmed in 2003 under the title DC Sniper: 23 Days of Fear ( German  Sniper - The sniper of Washington ) directed by Tom McLoughlin for television. Trent Cameron played Lee Boyd Malvo here.

He was portrayed by Tequan Richmond in the 2013 drama Blue Caprice .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/federal-judge-tosses-out-life-sentences-for-dc-sniper-malvo/2017/05/26/26107c8c-4277-11e7-b29f-f40ffced2ddb_story.html
personal data
SURNAME Malvo, Lee Boyd
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Malvo, John Lee
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American serial killer
DATE OF BIRTH February 18, 1985
PLACE OF BIRTH Kingston