A US jury has recommended convicted sniper Lee Malvo, 18, be sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Linda Franklin, one of ten random killings that terrorized the Washington, D.C., area in
the autumn of 2002.
The jury of eight women and four men convicted the 18-year-old Malvo last week on two counts of capital murder for shooting FBI analyst Linda Franklin, 47, as she loaded her car outside a Virginia home improvement store on October 14, 2002.
The murder was typical of the series of shootings, which killed 10 people and injured three others. Malvo's accomplice, John Muhammad, 42, was sentenced to death last month for another of the killings.
Defence lawyer Craig Cooley quoted the words of popular Christmas carol "Silent Night" in closing arguments yesterday to tell jurors that "redeeming grace" would come to Malvo despite the gravity of his crimes.
His hand on Malvo's shoulder, Cooley urged the jury to punish Malvo severely with a life prison term but to spare the life of "this child," who he said had been led terribly astray by the man he trusted as a father figure, Muhammad.
Prosecutor Robert Horan argued the cold-blooded killing, part of a plan to extort $10 million from the government in exchange for an end to the "body bags," was clearly depraved and vile and that justice demanded the death sentence.
Malvo was 17 when he and Muhammad, a Gulf War veteran, roamed the Washington region in an old car with a hole bored in the trunk for shooting random human targets.