New tape has Malvo describing shootings

CHESAPEAKE, Va. -- In a chilling audiotape played for the jury yesterday, a soft-spoken Lee Boyd Malvo told police he pulled the trigger in all of the sniper attacks that terrified the Washington area last fall.

"I intended to kill them all," said Malvo, who was 17 at the time of the recording.

In nearby Virginia Beach, a jury heard more evidence yesterday on whether John Allen Muhammad should get the death penalty for masterminding the attacks. Muhammad was convicted Monday in the murder of Dean Harold Meyers, who was killed as he filled his tank at a gas station.

Prosecutors said yesterday that a map in a laptop computer found in Muhammad's car indicates that the former US Army veteran was planning more killings. The map appears to show more than two dozen locations, stretching south to Raleigh, N.C., with markings such as "good spot" and "good stop." An icon for Norfolk, near where the trial is being held, was labeled "good eastern move, many ways out."

Another map also listed three elementary schools in Prince George's County, Md., the same county where 13-year-old Iran Brown was wounded outside a middle school during the sniper spree.

Malvo, now 18, is on trial on charges of murdering FBI analyst Linda Franklin, who was cut down by a bullet outside a Home Depot store. He could get the death penalty if convicted. Ten people died and three were wounded during the three-week series of sniper shootings in Washington, Maryland, and Virginia.

The tape with the Malvo confession was played publicly for the first time yesterday. A little more than an hour of the recording was played for jurors, who were given transcripts because the sound was poor and Malvo's voice was soft. Several times, Malvo's interrogator, Samuel Walker, a detective with the Prince William County Police Department, is heard asking Malvo to speak up.

When the officer asked Malvo whether he squeezed the trigger in all the shootings, Malvo first responded, "Basically, yeah."

Asked to clarify, Malvo said, "In all of them."

Walker focused on the Meyers slaying, eliciting through a series of questions information that Malvo shot Meyers in the head because Meyers was standing sideways. "His body twisted this way, so I couldn't get a body shot," Malvo said. Walker testified yesterday that he questioned Malvo on Nov. 7, 2002, two weeks after Malvo and Muhammad were arrested, and that he "marveled at how intelligent he was."