| Submit your comments on this article |
| Home Front: WoT |
| Malvo changes story; reveals more plans |
| 2006-05-24 |
| Malvo disavowed his earlier statements, saying he and Muhammad had planned that he would accept responsibility for the shootings if they were caught. As the younger of the two, he said, he would be less likely to be sentenced to death. Malvo, 21, who has agreed to plead guilty to six counts of first-degree murder in the six Montgomery killings, said he fired the weapon in the slaying of Montgomery County bus driver Conrad Johnson and the shootings of 13-year-old Iran Brown and Jeffrey Hopper, now 42, two of the victims who survived. All other shots were fired by Muhammad, Malvo testified. [...] Muhammad introduced Malvo to the Nation of Islam and spoke to him about race and socioeconomic disparities. "The white man is the devil," Malvo said, summing up Muhammad's thinking. [...] The Sept. 11, 2001, attacks had a considerable impact on Muhammad. "He said bloodshed begets bloodshed," Malvo said, summarizing Muhammad's reaction. "It's a process. America began this. Osama bin Laden didn't develop in a vacuum." During summer 2002, Malvo said, Muhammad told him about the two-pronged scheme he had designed to terrorize the nation's capital. Phase one was the month of random shootings. The next stage, which was intended to heighten the terror, involved setting explosive devices -- which Muhammad told Malvo he had learned to use in the military -- to kill massive numbers of children in the Baltimore area, Malvo testified. [...] Muhammad believed Montgomery County was the ideal place to unleash the terror, Malvo testified, because it was affluent and predominantly white. [...] Muhammad also planned to kill a police officer and later detonate a bomb during the well-attended funeral, Malvo said. Unable to meet his goal of six slayings a day, Muhammad grew restless toward the end of October, Malvo testified. |
| Posted by:growler |