Jury to Hear Sniper Suspect

A Virginia judge ruled Tuesday that Washington-area sniper suspect Lee Boyd Malvo’s admissions to two killings and much of his six-hour confession to police can be used as evidence during his murder trial.

The decision by Fairfax County Circuit Judge Jane Marum Roush strengthened a prosecution case already braced by a wealth of physical evidence. But Roush said she would not allow prosecutors to use statements Malvo made before detectives informed him of his right to a lawyer and other constitutional protections.

Concluding that Malvo’s “statement was made voluntarily,” Roush spurned arguments by his defense lawyers that the 18-year-old Jamaican emigre had been repeatedly deprived of his rights to an attorney and to remain silent.

Before Malvo confessed in November, “he signed a waiver and a consent form with an ‘X’ indicating that he knew what his rights were,” Roush said. “And he waived those rights and chose to speak to the police.”

Malvo is charged along with John Allen Muhammad, 42, in the 13 sniper slayings that traumatized the Washington, D.C., region for three weeks in October. Both men also have been linked to seven other slayings from Arkansas to Washington state. Muhammad is scheduled to go on trial in October and Malvo in November.

The net effect of the judge’s 23-page decision is the addition of Malvo’s oral admission of guilt to a trove of evidence that includes the high-powered rifle allegedly used in the killings, a car that allegedly hid both men and matching fingerprints and DNA traces.

“Potentially, a jury will hear in his own words some of the things [Malvo] did,” said Fairfax Commonwealth Atty. Robert F. Horan Jr. In an interview, Horan said Malvo’s statements include “about two hours of audiotape where this defendant explains some of the things he did.”

Fairfax County’s lead sniper investigator, police Det. June Boyle, had testified that Malvo laughed as he described gunning down FBI analyst Linda Franklin in a Home Depot parking garage on Oct. 14. Malvo also seemed amused, Boyle said, as he told how another fatal rifle shot knocked retired landscaper James “Sonny” Buchanan off a power mower that kept rolling. Malvo also admitted, Horan said, firing a shot that wounded and nearly killed a 13-year-old student in Maryland.

Horan praised Roush’s ruling and insisted the prosecution’s case would not be damaged by the loss of the first hour of Malvo’s statements, in which “he doesn’t really make any admissions at all.”

Boyle testified that much of the first hour of conversation between her and Malvo amounted to small talk about food and his personal history. But defense lawyers said the seemingly innocent chat about raisins and Malvo’s vegetarian diet had an ulterior motive. The attorneys said police were interested in his food choices because a bag of raisins with Malvo’s fingerprints had been found by investigators at one of the homicide scenes.

In a statement released Tuesday, Malvo’s defense lawyers took little solace in the “small portion” of statements ruled inadmissible by the judge.

Attorneys Michael S. Arif, Mark J. Petrovich and Thomas B. Walsh said police efforts to prevent Malvo from consulting with a lawyer before the interrogation were “deliberate and designed to circumvent his constitutional rights.”

Despite having to now defend Malvo against his own statements, his lawyers said, they would point out “inconsistencies and lies” in his conversations with police.

“What may now appear to be the answers everyone has been seeking,” they said, “will in fact pose many more questions as this case progresses.”