D.C. sniper Malvo expresses remorse
WASHINGTON — Convicted D.C. sniper Lee Boyd Malvo said in a newspaper interview published Sunday that the devastated reaction of a victim’s husband made him feel like “the worst piece of scum.”
Malvo expresses remorse in the interview with The Washington Post and urged the families of victims to try and forget about him and his partner John Allen Muhammad so they can move on.
Tuesday marks the 10th anniversary of the beginning of the deadly spree in the Washington area carried out by Malvo and Muhammad.
The pair has been linked to 27 shootings across the country, including 10 fatal attacks in the Washington area.
Malvo, 27, told the Post in a rare interview that the look on the face of victim Linda Franklin’s husband right after she was shot stands out in his memory of the rampage. Franklin, a 47-year-old FBI analyst, was killed as she and her husband loaded supplies outside a Home Depot in Falls Church, Va.
“They are penetrating,” Malvo said of Ted Franklin’s eyes. “It is the worst sort of pain I have ever seen in my life. His eyes. … Words do not possess the depth in which to fully convey that emotion and what I felt when I saw it. … You feel like the worst piece of scum on the planet.”
Malvo is serving a life sentence with no parole at a prison in southwest Virginia for killing Franklin.
Muhammad, who was born in New Orleans but reared as John Allen Williams in Baton Rouge, was executed in Virginia in 2009.
Almost two weeks before the deadly spree began in the Washington D.C. Area, Malvo and Muhammad are accused of killing a woman in Baton Rouge.
The two were indicted in the Sept. 23, 2002, robbery and slaying of Hong Im Ballenger, the manager of a beauty shop on Florida Boulevard.
Police linked the bullet used to kill Ballenger to the rifle used in the D.C. shootings.
The two were also accused in the shooting of John Gaeta, of Albany, who was shot and wounded while he changed his tire outside the Hammond Mall on Aug. 1, 2002.
Police said at the time that Malvo slashed one of the tires on Gaeta’s car, then he and Muhammad walked up to Gaeta as he was changing the tire.
They asked if the mall was closed, walked away then walked back to Gaeta, shot him in the neck and robbed him.
In 2010, Malvo wrote Gaeta a letter, admitting to shooting him and apologizing for the pain he caused Gaeta and his family.
The sniper-style attacks that occurred in the Washington D.C. area all but paralyzed the nation’s capital, as people were shot at random while going about their everyday life — pumping gas, buying groceries and, for one young boy, as he went to school.
The shooters used a high-powered rifle, firing from the trunk of a modified Chevy Caprice until they were tracked down at a Maryland rest stop.
Malvo also repeated previous assertions that he was manipulated by the older Muhammad during the string of attacks that took place when Malvo was 17.
But he acknowledges: “I was a monster.”
Malvo has declined to respond to many media requests.
He was interviewed in 2010 for a cable TV special.
When asked by the Post what he would say to victims’ families, the remorseful Malvo said there’s no way to properly convey an apology.
“We can never change what happened,” Malvo said. “There’s nothing that I can say except don’t allow me and my actions to continue to victimize you for the rest of your life.”
He added: “Don’t allow myself or Muhammad to continue to make you a victim for the rest of your life. It isn’t worth it.”
Linda Franklin’s father, Charles Moore, was incredulous about the idea that victims’ relatives would be able to forget about what Malvo and Muhammad did.
“There’s no way. I can’t believe that. No one can go through something like that,” Moore said.
Moore said he believes his daughter’s slaying contributed to his wife’s death several years later.
“What he did just destroyed my family. I’ll never be able to put it aside. Never,” he said.
“There are things that stand out in your life that you think about. I’m 83 years old and I’ll carry it to my grave.”