Lee Boyd Malvo
Lee Boyd Malvo (born February 18, 1985), also known as John Lee Malvo, is an American convicted murderer who, along with John Allen Muhammad, committed a series of murders dubbed the D.C. sniper attacks over a three-week period in October 2002. Malvo was aged 17 during the span of the shootings. He was serving multiple life sentences at Red Onion State Prison in Virginia, a supermax prison. Muhammad was executed in 2009.
Lee Boyd Malvo | |
|---|---|
| Born | February 18, 1985 |
| Other names | John Lee Malvo, Malik Malvo, The Beltway Sniper, The D.C. Sniper |
| Criminal status | Incarcerated |
| Conviction(s) | Capital murder (10 counts) |
| Criminal penalty | 10 consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole; commuted to life-with-parole |
| Details | |
| Victims | 10 killed, 3 injured (D.C. metropolitan area); 14 victims elsewhere |
Span of crimes | February 16 – October 23, 2002 |
| Country | United States |
| State(s) | Alabama, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Texas, Virginia, Washington, and Washington, D.C. |
Date apprehended | October 24, 2002 |
Although the two men's actions were classified by the media as psychopathy attributable to serial killer characteristics, researchers have debated whether their psychopathy meets this classification or that of spree killing.
The D.C. sniper attacks were the last in a series of shootings across the United States connected to these individuals which began on the West Coast. Muhammad had befriended the juvenile Malvo and enlisted him in the attacks. According to Craig Cooley, one of Malvo's defense attorneys, Malvo believed Muhammad when he told him that the $10 million ransom sought from the U.S. government to stop the sniper killings would be used to establish a Utopian society for 140 homeless Black children on a Canadian compound. In 2012, Malvo claimed that Muhammad sexually abused him.