Testimony on Kinder, Gentler Malvo

After a week of hearing evidence portraying sniper suspect Lee Boyd Malvo as a hardened killer who bragged of lethal “head shots,” jurors on Tuesday were introduced to a very different defendant -- a youth witnesses described as intelligent, generous, curious, obedient, loving and humorous.

The testimony came from teachers, family members and two school friends who had traveled from Jamaica to the courtroom where Malvo, 18, is on trial in last year’s shooting spree that terrorized the area in and around the nation’s capital, leaving 10 dead. His alleged accomplice, John Allen Muhammad, 42, was tried separately, convicted, and a jury recommended Monday that he be executed.

As the defense opened its case Tuesday, Marie Lawrence -- the aunt with whom Malvo had lived for two years in Jamaica -- testified that “Lee was a caring, loving boy.... If I asked for something and my husband couldn’t provide it, [Lee would] go to the grocery store and get it on credit until he had the money to go back and pay for it.”

As Lawrence stepped out of the witness box and passed her nephew -- who might join Muhammad on death row if convicted -- she broke into sobs and said: “Oh, Jesus.” Malvo, who has been unemotional throughout his trial, appeared to choke up. One of his court-appointed attorneys, Michael Arif, rubbed Malvo’s shoulders.

And after Eamie McLeod told jurors that she remembered her former student as an effervescent and smart boy -- “just a lovely child” -- defense attorney Craig Cooley asked whether she had ever known him to be abusive. “Lee Malvo? Abusive?” she replied incredulously.

Several witnesses, however, agreed that there was a sadness about Malvo. The youth, who had been abandoned by his father and lived with various relatives after his mother left Jamaica in search of work, seemed in desperate search of a father figure, they said.

“Lee was friendly and fun to be around,” said Onyeka Nevins, 18, one of his best school friends. “But sometimes you’d see him sitting by himself, his head down. I’d go over and ask if everything’s OK. ‘What’s going on?’ I never found out.”

Renollo Powell, a cousin who cared for Malvo briefly in 1997, testified Monday that the then 12-year-old told her: “You adults keep moving me. You’re always moving me, always moving me from place to place. I don’t have a puppy dog. I don’t have a kitten. I don’t have a bird. I don’t have anything.... You just keep moving me.”

Tuesday’s parade of witnesses provided a glimpse into how attorneys, who admit Malvo’s involvement in the attacks, plan to handle his defense. Earlier in the trial, the prosecution presented a case that included fingerprint and DNA evidence, the rifle used in the attacks and Malvo’s taped confessions that he was the triggerman.

During a defense expected to last several weeks, the attorneys intend to portray Malvo as being a normal teenager until he fell under the influence of the strong-willed Muhammad, who they argue brainwashed his young partner and turned him into an obedient child soldier. Malvo has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity during the three-week string of sniper attacks.

Legal experts say insanity is a tough argument to prove, as jurors often don’t buy the idea that someone suddenly loses the ability to tell right from wrong or could be programmed to carry out violent acts. Virginia has no insanity statute; under established case law, a defendant claiming insanity must convince jurors that he has what is tantamount to a “mental disease or defect.”

Patty Hearst claimed she had been brainwashed by her Symbionese Liberation Army kidnappers in 1976 when she participated in a bank robbery. A California jury found her guilty and she went to prison. She was later pardoned. In 2001, Andrea Yates, diagnosed with schizophrenia and severe depression, used insanity as a defense when she drowned her five children. She was convicted of murder in Texas.

The burden of finding a defendant not guilty by reason of insanity falls on the defense. If the jury accepted the plea, Malvo would go to a high-security mental institution until his sanity was restored. He could then be released at a judge’s discretion, but could face charges for shootings in Maryland, Washington state and other jurisdictions.

The trial was recessed until Monday because of Thanksgiving.