DC Sniper Denied Parole After 20 Years

Lee Boyd Malvo and John Allen Muhammad killed 10 people in 2002
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 16, 2022 7:27 AM CDT
DC Sniper Denied Parole After 20 Years
Lee Boyd Malvo.   (Virginia Department of Corrections via AP, File)

Lee Boyd Malvo won't be walking around DC anytime soon. State records show that the Virginia Parole Board last month denied parole to the 37-year-old, who is serving multiple life sentences in Virginia for his role in the sniper killings that terrorized the nation's capital in October 2002 and left 10 dead there, reports the Washington Post. Malvo was only 17 at the time of the shootings, which he carried out with his older accomplice, John Allen Muhammad. "A risk to the community" is how the parole board deemed Malvo in its Aug. 30 rejection, noting the seriousness of the crimes he'd committed and coming to the conclusion that Malvo should have to put in more time behind bars.

"Release at this time would diminish seriousness of crime," the parole board stated in its decision, per the AP. The news agency notes that Malvo and Muhammad actually started their murderous spree after leaving Washington state earlier in 2002, shooting and killing multiple people across the nation before finally landing in the DC area and killing 10 people there over three weeks in October of that year. They wounded three others. Although Malvo was convicted of capital murder in Virginia and sentenced to life in prison without parole, what the AP calls "a series of Supreme Court rulings and a change in Virginia law" regarding juvenile offenders gave Malvo the chance to apply for parole after he'd served 20 years.

Muhammad, meanwhile, was convicted in 2003 of one man's death in Prince William County and sentenced to die. He was executed in 2009. Malvo is currently incarcerated at Virginia's supermax Red Onion State Prison. The AP notes that even if he had been granted parole in Virginia, he also has a life sentence on the books in Maryland. That state's Supreme Court ruled last month that Malvo must be resentenced there. It's not clear when that's set to happen, notes WUSA. (More Lee Boyd Malvo stories.)

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