Abstract
In October 2002 Washington DC witnessed a series of sniper attacks that killed ten people and injured four more. Victims were targeted as they went about their day-to-day lives. Petrol forecourts, shopping centres and car parks were just some of the locations where the snipers selected their victims, took their aim and left a scene of murder. In a country just a year past 9/11 the Washington Snipers – 41 year-old John Allen Muhammad and 17 year-old Lee Boyd Malvo – reaped terror across the Washington Beltway. Their senseless and random, yet quite deliberate two week spree, terrified the region and elicited national concern.
This book provides an account of one of the perpetrators – Lee Boyd Malvo. The lead author of this book is Carmeta Albarus, a mitigation social worker (a function that is deemed to be essential by the American Bar Association in the defence of those on trial for capital crimes). Albarus undertook the task of assisting Lee Boyd Malvo’s defence team in investigating Malvo’s life and circumstances. Overall, her research and evidence sought to mitigate against the death sentence that the 17 year-old faced. Malvo was ultimately sentenced to six consecutive life sentences rather than the death penalty.
The orientation of the book is evident from the outset. It is not a forensic investigation or clinical assessment – it does not seek to be. It is a narrative; an account of Albarus’s investigation of Malvo assisted by cultural commonality. Evidence is not weighed, balanced or its verification discussed but the narrative is presented in meticulous detail. Also made clear from the outset is the hypothesized explanation for Malvo’s actions. Albertus purports that Malvo’s ‘identity and fate had been merged with John Allun Muhammed as he searched for a hero dad who would rescue him from his earlier years of abuse, abandonment and neglect’. As a result of abandonment by his father and an often abusive, inconsistent and volatile relationship with his mother – who left Malvo repeatedly in the care of family and friends as she searched for employment outside of his native Jamaica – Albertus provides a detailed account of Malvo’s early years. This detachment from his biological parents and his resultant need for guidance and support is suggested to have predisposed Malvo to ‘Reactive Attachment Disorder’ and a tendency to be susceptible to continued ‘dysfunctional’ attachments and indiscriminate sociability with relative strangers. John Allun Muhammed provided a seemingly suitable alternative caregiver in whom Malvo gained security, nurture and support and who in turn manipulated Malvo to his own murderous ends.
However, there is no reflection as to Malvo’s individual responsibility, emotional intelligence, let alone moral reasoning or his own interpretation of events beyond the external events that shaped his early years. Reference is continually made to Malvo’s intelligence, his progress and excellence at school, substantiated by reports from his many teachers. He is evidently an intelligent young man. The final chapter’s discussion around mental illness may have perhaps benefited from being combined into the main body of the book as its insights and discussion are useful.
I would also have liked to have seen more reference and insight into Muhammed’s behaviour. Whilst it was not possible for Abertus to interview Muhammed directly, there was a wealth of information available that would have assisted the reader in forming a better understanding of Muhammed’s influence. Malvo’s early behaviour upon arrest, his devotion and seeming brainwashing beg plenty more questions. But this piece of the jigsaw, to me, is left unanswered.
However, Albertus did not set out to provide an objective analysis of Lee Boyd Malvo. If you accept this premise, the book provides an insightful account of Malvo and Albertus’s role in his defence. Whether it provides entirely persuasive mitigation is less certain. There are many unanswered questions and gaps in the material that need further exploration. That said, it provides an intriguing read and offers salutary lessons regarding child development and violence prevention.