Lawyers Want Confession Tossed

MANASSAS, Va. — Sniper suspect Lee Boyd Malvo twice asked for his attorneys before confessing to multiple murders, according to lawyers who want the confession tossed out.

The attorneys filed a motion Friday seeking to suppress the confession Malvo that made during six hours of questioning by police on Nov. 7.

Meanwhile, suspect John Allen Muhammad’s attorney told a judge Friday that his client may have been exposed to nerve or chemical agents during his military service in the Persian Gulf War.

Malvo, 18, and Muhammad, 42, have been linked to 20 shootings last year, including 13 deaths, in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C.

Malvo is charged with capital murder in the Oct. 14 shooting of FBI analyst Linda Franklin, 47, outside a Home Depot store in Fairfax. He faces trial Nov. 10.

His motion says that before he confessed, he twice asked Fairfax County homicide Det. June Boyle to see his attorneys. Boyle said yes but added “that police wanted to get some information about him. He said OK,” the motion says.

Lawyers Michael Arif and Craig Cooley argued that Malvo should have been given access to counsel and that the confession should be ruled invalid.

“The police lied by telling Mr. Malvo that he would see his attorneys before proceeding to ignore his request,” the lawyers wrote.

Prosecutors must respond to the motion by April 21.