Excerpts from a taped interrogation by Prince William County Detective Samuel Walker with teen-age sniper suspect Lee Boyd Malvo in November 2002:
Malvo: “I’ll talk about this, but I
won’t incriminate.”
Walker: “I’m not asking you to incriminate anybody. …”
Walker: “Have you decided that you
want to take the blame for all of
this? I mean, have you? Because if
you have not decided that you want
to take the blame for all of this, OK,
he’s already incriminated.”
Malvo: “Well I don’t put the blame
on anyone. We both are already
incriminated. I know the evidence
that you found in the car. …”
Malvo and Walker discuss the
shooting of Dean H. Meyers at a
gas station near Manassas, Va., on
Oct. 9 of last year.
Walker: “OK, now let me ask you
this question, OK, he’s pumping
gas, OK. Is he facing you or is his
back to you or?”
Malvo: “He’s in more of a diagonal,
sideways.”
Walker: “He’s sideways?”
Malvo: “Like this, his body twisted
sideways so I couldn’t get a body
shot. …”
Walker: “You couldn’t get a body
shot, so you had to go for the
head?”
Malvo nods.
Walker: “When he was hit, OK, what
did he do? What happened?
Malvo: “He went down. I just saw
the body started falling. I didn’t
stay around and watch it go down.
…”
Walker: “Obviously you guys
weren’t working right during that
time?”
Malvo: “It was work.”
Walker: “You were working?”
Malvo: “Um huh.”
Walker: “How were you working? I
mean other than the work that you
were doing, other than the shootings.”
Malvo: “It took time to plan it.”
Walker: “So that was work?”
Malvo: “So that was work.”
Walker: “Other than that work, OK,
other than that work, OK.”
Malvo: “Nope.”
Walker: “How were you all living?”
Malvo: “Now you are deviating, you
said it was only about a specific
crime, and it wouldn’t go any further than that. Now you are deviating from what you said.”
Walker: “OK, all right. Thanks for
telling me because if that’s a problem, I won’t, OK. OK, um, let’s go
back to the gas station there. If
there were other people at the gas
pumps, OK, why did you select the
target, the man?
Malvo: “He came within my zone.
…”
Walker: “How long have you been
shooting?”
Malvo: “Not even a year.”
Walker: “Not even a year? You
learned pretty fast.”
Malvo: “I tried.”
Walker: “What did you train on?”
Malvo: “Paper plates.”
Walker: “Paper plates? Oh yeah.”
Malvo: “Head.”
Walker: “For the head? So paper
plates represent the head? What
kind of weapon? Because obviously
you are pretty good. I mean. “
Malvo: “All. …”
Walker: “OK, now for my understanding, OK, because I have had
some thoughts about this, OK,
were there some people you
wanted not to die?”
Malvo shakes his head.
Walker: “You intended to kill them
all?”
Malvo nods his head.
Walker: “Everyone you shot you intended to kill?”
Malvo: “Well I I intended to kill
them all. …”
Walker: “OK, did you want us to
catch you?”
Malvo: “I would prefer to be elusive,
unknown and free.”
Walker: “So why do you think we
caught you?”
Malvo: “My my laziness, my lack
of discipline.”
Walker: “Your lack of discipline?
What does that mean?”
Malvo: “I departed from something.”
Walker: “You departed from something?”
Malvo: “Yeah that I know works
for five minutes of pleasure. …”
Walker: “Were you the triggerman
in all of them?”
Malvo: “Basically, yeah.”
Walker: “Basically, OK, basically
means in most of them but not all?”
Malvo: “In all of them.”
Walker: “You were the triggerman
in all of them.”
Malvo nods.
Walker: “OK, why?”
Malvo: “It’s a plan, you stick to it.
You don’t deviate, you don’t change
it.”
Walker: “But why was the plan that
you be the shooter?”
Malvo: “It’s definitely because we’re
both capable. …”
Walker: “Now had you already
planned where your next target
was going to be at that time?”
Malvo: “They were all planned beforehand.”
Walker: “You planned them all beforehand? Every single one was
planned, and you just went in some
kind of order in which they were
planned.”
Malvo: “Uh huh. …”
Walker: “And so you were going to
go through them all again until we
listened to or?
Malvo nods.
Walker: “You started in Montgomery County, and it’s Montgomery
County where you ended?”
Malvo: “We had a strategy from the
beginning.”
Walker: “Where? what? “
Malvo: “You keep your enemy fortified.”
Walker: “OK.”
Malvo: “You stretch them out and
make them weak. …”
Walker: “How long were you going
to shoot, kill people?”
Malvo: “The detectives could have
stopped us at six.”
Walker: “They could have stopped it
at six.”
Malvo: “They chose not to.”
Walker: “How could they have
stopped it?”
Malvo: “Heed to the demands.”
Walker: “Heed to the demands and
that was for the money, right, and
you were going to continue shooting until they heeded to the demands.”