D.C. Sniper Confesses to L.A. Slaying

One of the two serial snipers who went on a killing rampage in the Washington, D.C., area in 2002 has told law enforcement officials that they shot and killed a man in Los Angeles earlier that year.

Lee Boyd Malvo admitted to being involved in the Los Angeles slaying and three other shootings in an interview with authorities this spring, the Washington Post reported.

Malvo, 21, reportedly said the shooting involved a robbery and occurred somewhere in Los Angeles in February or March 2002, several months before the sniper shootings in the capital area left 10 people dead.

The revelation had Los Angeles-area law enforcement agencies scrambling Friday, checking through shooting investigations and dusting off old case files.

A Times analysis of state Department of Health Services data found that 114 males were killed by guns during those two months in the county, although it is unclear exactly how many of those cases have been solved or involved a robbery.

The FBI found passenger manifests showing that Malvo and accomplice John Allen Muhammad boarded a bus in Los Angeles bound for Tucson on March 13. The manifests showed the pair were in Tucson through March 25.

From Feb. 1 to March 13, 79 men died in gun shootings, The Times analysis found.

“It would be great if we could clear one of our homicides,” said Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Capt. Ray Peavy, head of the homicide division. Peavy said he had his detectives reviewing dozens of unsolved cases looking for any that match the circumstances Malvo described.

LAPD Robbery-Homicide Lt. Don Hartwell said the LAPD has not linked any slayings to the pair so far.

FBI sources said agents in Los Angeles had been informed of the specifics of Malvo’s alleged statement only within the last day or so.

The sources, who spoke on the condition on anonymity, said they believe Malvo’s description of the location was general enough that authorities are casting a wide net across Southern California.

It remains unclear how much FBI agents in Baltimore, who are leading the investigation, have looked into Malvo’s statements.

Michelle Crnkovich, a special FBI agent with the Baltimore office, said the agency would not comment on the reports because it could compromise an ongoing investigation into other possible victims of Malvo and Muhammad.

Doug Gansler, Maryland state attorney for Montgomery County, did not return a call seeking comment.

Malvo reportedly told authorities that in addition to shooting a man in Los Angeles, he and Muhammad wounded men in Florida and Louisiana and killed a Denton, Texas, man before they arrived in the Washington area, the Post reported.

Authorities have found likely victims in those three shootings. The man shot outside a Hammond, La., shopping center Aug. 1, 2002, John C. Gaeta, told the Associated Press on Friday that two black men had approached him as he tried to change a tire. When he leaned down to pull out his spare, he noticed a shadow near the front of the truck. One of them then shot him in the neck, he said.

Although the Los Angeles link is new, authorities have already been probing the pair’s time in Tucson.

Tucson Police Chief Richard Miranda has previously told The Times that golfer Jerry R. Taylor, 60, was shot and killed March 19, 2002, with a high-powered rifle consistent with the type allegedly used by Muhammad and Malvo.

Miranda said FBI agents told him that the pair traveled there from Los Angeles. They apparently went to Tucson to visit Muhammad’s sister, Odessa Newell, who was stationed at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base.

Authorities have linked the pair to 17 shootings, including 13 fatal ones in Virginia, the District of Columbia, Maryland, Alabama, Louisiana and Washington state.

They were convicted in 2003 of shootings in Virginia and given life sentences. Muhammad was sentenced to six consecutive life terms in Maryland after being convicted of six murders there. Malvo pleaded guilty in those cases.

*

Times staff writer Greg Krikorian contributed to this report.