Mother of Lee Malvo: 'Save His Life'

K I N G S T O N, Jamaica, Nov. 10 -- Una James cradles her cell phone, a faint smile crosses her face as she dials her voicemail. She holds the phone to her ear and her eyes light up.

"Hello mom, this is Lee," says the soft voice on the other end. "Wanted to call. Love you. Take care. Try to contact you again." The message was left in August.

A listener would have no sense that the meek voice belongs to a man accused of one of the most chilling crimes in recent memory. It is the voice of Lee Boyd Malvo, Una James' 18-year-old son. She too finds it hard to reconcile her memories of a gentle boy with the allegation that he is a cold-blooded killer.

James' son stands on trial accused of being one of the "Washington Snipers", one of two men who terrorized the Washington D.C., area a year ago in a month-long killing spree that left 10 people dead and six injured.

James has talked to her son just twice since he was arrested a year ago. She was devastated when she missed the call from him in August, but now she's thankful she has even this tenuous connection to a son she knows she may never see again: if convicted in the trial that begins today, he could face the death penalty.

She knows there is a mountain of evidence that makes her son's conviction seem all but certain. She agreed to a rare interview with ABCNEWS in her hometown of Kingston, Jamaica, because she says people don't know what happened to her son.

"He has a price to pay," she says, "but all I'm begging, save his life."

Not long after Lee Malvo was born in this gritty, crime-riddled Jamaican capital his father abandoned him. James says she tried to support her son by working as a seamstress.

"He was always a mannered child," remembers James, "even to adults or other kids around."

But a neighbor in the Kingston suburb of Portmore remembers a less-than-perfect home life for young Malvo who lived across the lane with his mother and stepfather.