Washington sniper 'legally insane'

Lee Boyd Malvo was legally insane during last year’s sniper spree because of intense indoctrination by sniper mastermind John Allen Muhammad, a defence psychiatrist testified at Malvo’s trial in Chesapeake, Virginia.

“Lee was unable to distinguish between right and wrong and was unable to resist the impulse” to commit the killings, said Neil Blumberg, who examined Malvo 20 times in jail. “From day one, I thought he met the legal criteria for insanity.”

Psychiatrist Diane Schetky, who twice interviewed Malvo, also testified that Malvo was unable to tell right from wrong – the legal standard for insanity in Virginia.

Defence mental health experts have said Malvo, 18, was taught by Muhammad that right and wrong are artificial concepts and that the winner in a war determines who is right and who is wrong.

Muhammad likened the sniper attacks to a war against the United States government, which he said oppressed blacks. Muhammad and Malvo are black.

In his initial report, Blumberg said Malvo, who was 17 at the time of the shootings, was “severely impaired” in his ability to tell right from wrong.

The prosecution claims that Malvo knew right from wrong during a killing eight months before the sniper spree, which left 10 dead in and around Washington, DC, in October 2002. Malvo has confessed to killing Keenya Cook in Tacoma, Washington, on February 16, 2002.

Malvo’s lawyers are presenting an insanity defence to capital murder charges in the death of FBI analyst Linda Franklin, who was shot on October 14, 2002, outside a store.

Schetky diagnosed Malvo with a dissociative disorder, a mental illness that she said distorted Malvo’s perception of reality, a result of indoctrination by Muhammad.

Blumberg said Malvo still had the disorder, citing as evidence the defendant’s constant doodling during a trial in which he could be sentenced to die.

Schetky testified that Malvo “displayed a pathological loyalty to Muhammad” during his confession in which he took responsibility for being the triggerman in all the DC-area shootings.

Malvo has since told psychiatrists that Muhammad was the triggerman in nearly all the shootings. A jury convicted Muhammad last month and recommended he be put to death.