June Boyle met us at a restaurant on the outskirts of DC. We followed her across the state line into Virginia, and there – in the incongruous setting of a snow-covered childrens’ playground - we talked about death and murder.
June is an immediately engaging woman. Elegant, but definitely businesslike. She is very human, very warm, and I took to her immediately. Understanding a little about her, and the way she works, I can appreciate utterly why she was so extraordinarily effective at her job. With the ability to be both maternal and compassionate, I can see how suspects were easily encouraged to confess to her. She would make you feel good about telling the truth, about unburdening yourself, about getting it all off your chest.
And this, very famously, is what she accomplished with seventeen year-old Lee Boyd Malvo, the accomplice in the Washington Sniper case.
For those of who are not familiar with the case, here’s a little info about it.
The Washington Sniper (aka The Beltway Sniper) attacks took place during three weeks in October 2002 in Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia. Eleven people were killed and three others critically injured in various locations throughout the Washington Metropolitan Area and along Interstate 95 in Virginia. It was widely speculated that a single sniper was using the Capital Beltway for travel, possibly in a white van or truck. It was later learned that the rampage was perpetrated by one man, John Allen Muhammad and one minor Lee Boyd Malvo, driving a blue 1990 Chevrolet Caprice sedan, and had apparently begun the month before with murders and robbery in Louisiana and Alabama, which had resulted in three deaths.
Authorities initially attributed the attacks to a lone sniper, dubbed by journalists the "Beltway Sniper," the "D.C. Sniper," the "Washington Sniper," the "Serial Sniper" or the "Tarot Card Killer."
After their capture, there was much confusion about the names of the two males. The older of the pair, born John Allen Williams (age 41 at the time of capture), had joined the Black nationalist organization the Nation of Islam some years earlier, and in October 2001 had changed his name to John Allen Muhammad. The younger male was born Lee Boyd Malvo, but also calls himself John Lee Malvo and had posed as Muhammad's son (17 years old at the time of his arrest).
The two males practiced shooting at a tree stump in the backyard of the 3300 block of South Proctor Street in Tacoma, Washington State, according to investigators, and studied the film Savior, produced by Oliver Stone.
That gives you a very brief idea of the case. And June was the homicide detective who was assigned to the investigation of the Home Depot shooting perpetrated by Muhammad and Malvo. When Malvo was arrested it was June who spent the better part of seven hours with him, gently encouraging, coaxing, persuading him to talk. She asked him what he wanted to eat. ‘Veggie burger,’ he told her. Then they had to ask him where he would get a veggie burger from. He told them. Veggie burgers were sent for, and she sat with him while he ate. Later, once again hungry, he wanted a box of raisins. June had someone fetch raisins for Malvo, and she sat there once again, Malvo eating raisins, every once in a while giving June raisins as well. She ate them, despite her intense distaste and revulsion. She never lost her cool. Finally Malvo told her the truth.
When he was tried the jury were shown photographs of some of the victims. Women with the backs of their heads blown off. Utterly innocent people assassinated while they filled their cars at gas stations. The Attorney General had already issued an authorisation for the death penalty for both Muhammad and Malvo, but then the defence attorney showed the jury photographs of Malvo as a baby. The jury didn’t give Malvo the death sentence. They gave him life.
When asked about this, the maternal, compassionate and warm image of June Boyle vanished utterly. Coldly, matter-of-factly, she said ‘He should be dead. Malvo should be dead. He should have been executed then, and he still should be executed. He was a bad seed, and still is. He was not a normal seventeen year-old teenager, and he isn’t normal now. We haven’t heard the last of Malvo, I assure you.’