Portrait of a troubled teen emerges as Malvo trial nears

By John Hopkins

CHESAPEAKE — Lee Boyd Malvo believed he would be a mountain in his second life.

Other people, he figured, would be reincarnated as dogs, fish and other forms. But he would be a mountain. And as punishment for his deeds, people would walk on him for 5,000 years.

This is how the 18-year-old described his future in November 2002 as he talked with investigators two weeks after his arrest. Malvo was explaining to police how he loved the war films “We Were Soldiers’’ and “Platoon,’’ and how his life felt like a battle.

“Yeah, you fail, you die,’’ he said. “One shot, that’s it.”

In three years, the Jamaican had gone from an honor student who loved playing cricket and reading books to an accused serial killer who reportedly laughed when talking about sending bullets through his victims’ heads.

On Monday, Malvo is scheduled to stand trial in Chesapeake Circuit Court in the killing of 47-year-old Linda Franklin. The Arlington FBI analyst died instantly Oct. 14, 2002, when a sniper’s bullet struck her in the head as she and her husband were putting shelves into their car outside a Home Depot store in Falls Church.

Malvo is expected to enter a plea, and jury selection will begin as the trial of his alleged accomplice, John Allen Muhammad, enters its fifth week in a Virginia Beach courtroom, 14 miles to the east.

Malvo, who faces the death penalty, was born Feb. 18, 1985, in Kingston, Jamaica, and raised as a Seventh-day Adventist. He is the son of Una James, a woman bent on improving her lot in life – even if it meant constantly uprooting her only son.

Leslie Malvo, the boy’s father, was out of his life. Una James, floating from place to place in Jamaica and abroad, wanted it that way, said Michael S. Arif, Malvo’s defense attorney.

“I think he was about 7. I guess, she basically just kidnapped the kid and took him up to the mountains. He had no idea who his father was. She applied for school, put down the father is deceased.’’

Malvo was often left to live with family, friends and strangers – and sometimes alone, according to published reports by The Associated Press.

In 1998, Malvo moved to the Caribbean island of Antigua, where his mother enrolled him in Antigua Seventh-day Adventist of St. John. He was 14.

In late 2000, James left her son on the island as she searched abroad for a better life. During a televised interview with TVJ in Jamaica, the 38-year-old mother recalled the morning she left Malvo.

“I woke him up,’’ she said. “He gave me a hug and said: 'Mommy, I’m not crying, because you’re going to look for your life, so I’m not going to cry. I just wish you luck and prosperity.’ ’’

Malvo was 15 and moving from the eighth grade to the ninth.

With his mother gone, Malvo befriended Muhammad, a former U.S. soldier who was living on Antigua.

Malvo took to Muhammad.

“He’s living in a house. There’s no electricity,’’ Arif said of his client during a recent interview. “There’s no running water. And Muhammad looks like the perfect father. Takes him in. Takes care of him.’’

Meanwhile, Malvo’s mother entered the United States and found work at a Florida restaurant.

James, who had limited contact with her son, made a long-distance call once from America to the Antigua school to check up on him. In her television interview, James recalled the warning she received from the principal.

“When I spoke to her, she said: 'Do you know your son is a Muslim? Come and get him or else he’s lost. You’re gonna lose him.’ And that was one of my greatest fears.’’

At this time, James had little influence over her son. He had adopted Muhammad’s ways, become a follower of Islam and developed a bond that his mother could not penetrate.

Muhammad would reunite Malvo with his mother in Fort Myers, Fla, in 2001, but they were together for only a matter of months.

Malvo ran away in October 2001 to be with Muhammad, who was living in Washington state. He soon began calling Muhammad “father.’’ The two lived in a homeless shelter.

“He is so desperate for a father, so desperate for someone who loves him, who can give him what he wants most, American citizenship,’’ Arif said. “Muhammad promised to adopt the kid. That doesn’t happen. Instead, this, I don’t know, this wave of terror occurs.’’

By the time Malvo began living with Muhammad, the older man had lost his own children in a custody dispute and felt wronged by the legal system. He had received an honorable discharge from the Army but was known by fellow soldiers as a troublemaker. He had failed at business and at love. He was homeless and frustrated.

“At some point there, this Pied Piper of a man who kids love does this 180,’’ Arif said.

Malvo, however, didn’t think so. The teenager told police his bond with Muhammad, 42, was special.

“I know when my friend is around; I can feel his energy,’’ Malvo told investigators last November. “I know when he’s close. We can feel each other. We can be separated and then all of a sudden he taps me on the shoulder.’’

The teen’s childhood dreams of being a pilot or astronaut were gone. He had talked of running his own business, maybe holding health-food seminars or selling vitamins back in Washington state. Instead, prosecutors and law enforcement investigations in several states allege, Malvo took to killing.

Muhammad and Malvo were linked to 13 slayings before they were captured Oct. 24, 2002, at a Maryland rest stop. Investigators allege the two are responsible for 20 shootings in Virginia, Maryland, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Washington, D.C.

In pretrial hearings, Malvo, with his hair closely cut, appears to be a typical teen.He fidgets and will occasionally rest his head on the defense table when hearings go long.When responding to the judge, he stands and answers politely: “Yes, ma’am.’’

This is a different Malvo from immediately after his arrest.

Malvo had refused to speak, often putting his fingers to his lips to make a zipper motion. In an interview room in Maryland, authorities had to pull him down from the ceiling during an escape attempt.

Investigators asked him questions, but Malvo simply made a gesture of turning a key at his forehead.

But some 14 days later, police were face to face with the teen in another interrogation room in Fairfax County. They uncuffed his hands so he could eat the two veggie burgers with ketchup that he had requested.

He told investigators he enjoyed traveling and stopping in small towns. It was one of several interviews in which he made incriminating statements. Malvo said he knew there was no way out of his situation. “Kill me,’’ he reportedly told them. “I don’t care. Or torture me or if it takes bondage, nothing bothers me.’’

His defense attorneys argue that Malvo was insane at the time of the sniper shootings. He was a youngster, they said, with a background that made him vulnerable to somebody like Muhammad with mind-control skills.

Malvo, in his talks with police last November, had another explanation.

“I’m in this situation because I failed. ... I didn’t cross all my T’s and dot my I’s,’’ he told police. “You get about five minutes of pleasure and then you pay for it.’’