Washington sniper reported details of new shootings

Convicted US sniper Lee Boyd Malvo told authorities that he and John Allen Muhammad were responsible for four additional shootings that had not been publicly linked to them before, according to a published report.

The Washington Post, quoting a person familiar with the case, today reported that the shootings occurred before the three-week sniper spree in October 2002 in which 13 people were shot, 10 fatally, in the Washington area.

Muhammad and Malvo already had been linked to earlier shootings in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Washington state, and they were suspected in the March 2002 fatal shooting of a golfer in Tucson, Arizona.

The four most-recently linked victims were also shot in 2002: a man killed in Los Angeles during a robbery in February or March; a 76-year-old man who survived a shooting May 18 at a golf course in Clearwater, Florida; a man shot dead while doing gardening in Denton, Texas, on May 27; and a 54-year-old man who survived being shot August 1 during a robbery outside a shopping centre near Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the newspaper said.

The Post said a second person confirmed authorities had received information implicating Malvo and Muhammad in the four shootings.

Law enforcement officials interviewed Malvo to prepare for his testimony at Muhammad’s trial last month in Maryland. Muhammad, already on death row in Virginia, was sentenced to six life terms in Maryland. Malvo is serving life in prison.

Malvo’s lawyers, William Brennan and Timothy Sullivan, would not comment on information their client gave to law enforcement officials in recent months.

“We are fully aware of the universe of Mr Malvo’s potential criminal problems,” they said in a statement to The Post. “We have received several inquiries from other jurisdictions concerning possible investigations.”