Snipers Evidence on Muhammad and Malvo

The teenager accused of participating in the sniper attacks that terrorized the Washington region has told investigators that he pulled the trigger in several of the shootings, three law enforcement sources said yesterday.

During an interrogation that lasted about seven hours, John Lee Malvo provided details about several of the slayings that authorities have linked to him and John Allen Muhammad, including killings in Fairfax and Prince William counties and the District, the sources said.

One law enforcement source said Malvo said he fired the shot that killed FBI analyst Linda Franklin at the Home Depot store in the Seven Corners neighborhood of Fairfax County, for which he has been charged with capital murder.

In the interviews after he was transferred to Fairfax County on Thursday, Malvo, 17, told investigators that the shootings were well planned and involved scouting missions. Sources said that Malvo described himself and his partner as behaving like soldiers: Using two-way radios, one would be a lookout and communicate with the other.

If conditions, such as traffic, were not right, they would not shoot, Malvo told investigators. They deliberately hopped from jurisdiction to jurisdiction to create confusion, and they watched the news coverage of their crimes, the sources said.

Malvo was talkative, smiling, even bragging in response to indirect questions from investigators, sources said, but he was adamant in refusing to talk about Muhammad or to even mention his name, using "we" a lot. Muhammad, 41, deflected police efforts to interrogate him in Prince William County, maintaining his silence for hours and even refusing to give up his name to a booking clerk.

The law enforcement sources spoke only on condition that they not be identified. They would not provide further details of the Malvo interrogation and would not identify the other shootings that Malvo allegedly described.

Michael S. Arif, who has been appointed to head Malvo's defense team, has said he will work to suppress any statements Malvo made during his interrogation by federal and local investigators.

"If in fact those are the statements Mr. Malvo made, there will be a motion to suppress those statements, as certain as the sun rises in the east," Arif said. He said he met with Malvo for 2 1/2 hours yesterday but declined further comment.

Malvo's appointed guardian, Todd G. Petit, said he went to police headquarters at 6 p.m. Thursday and asked that questioning be halted. Petit, speaking in an interview Friday, said a police commander agreed to pass on his request and then ordered him to leave the building.

Peter D. Greenspun, appointed to represent Muhammad, said yesterday he also is concerned about Malvo's questioning.

"All of this was . . . orchestrated so that they would get them to Virginia late in the afternoon when they couldn't get to court," Greenspun said. "When little Johnny gets pulled out of school and the police question him about something, everybody is outraged . . . but they forget about that when it's Mr. Malvo."

Because Muhammad and Malvo were transferred from federal custody to local custody in Virginia, and the federal charges against them were dropped, local police had a chance to question them legally. If either invoked his right to an attorney, police would have been required to stop.

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