Mother of Lee Malvo: 'Save His Life'

K I N G S T O N, Jamaica, Nov. 10, 2003 -- 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.

"To me he was not too happy," says Sandra Taylor whose young daughter used to play with Malvo when both were in primary school. "The relationship with the stepfather and the mother, is was not so nice, you know. They quarrel a lot."

But Taylor adds that at the time there was no sign that Malvo was a boy headed for serious trouble.

That changed in 1999 when James uprooted her son and moved him to the Caribbean island of Antigua. She says she was in pursuit of a better life. There she obtained forged papers that allowed her to enter the United States illegally. She bought them for $1,500 from John Allen Muhammad, the 42-year-old man now facing trial as her son's co-conspirator.

"I wish I never met him," James now says of Muhammad. "This man, there is something wrong. He is evil."

Malvo's defense team has said it plans to mount an insanity defense and that the teen was brainwashed by Muhammad.

James rejects reports that she abandoned her young son when she left Antigua and sneaked into the United States. She insists she left the boy with friends. But whatever really happened, within months Malvo was living with Muhammad.

He appears to have found the father figure he had long craved, the two called one another "father" and "son". Soon Malvo had converted to Islam — Muhammad had converted 10 years earlier — and then he quit school. According to James, Muhammad cast a spell on her impressionable son.

"The little problems that I have with the child over the years, the average problem of an average child. I did not have such a severe problem with this child until Muhammad was present in his life. Never."

Months later, Malvo finally did join his mother in the United States, but within weeks he ran away to join his mentor in Washington state.

Una James says she ran after her son and tried to warn police in the city of Bellingham, Wash., that her son was in danger because of Muhammad's influence.

"When I got there and told them that my son was in danger and he was with this man and I needed help. Why didn't they look into what I'm saying?"

But Bellingham police say that conversation never took place.

"It did took place," says a defiant James in her heavy Jamaican accent.

Whatever really happened, James stayed in Bellingham while her son traveled across the country with Muhammad. James says when the news of the Washington sniper filled the airwaves she was as shocked as the rest of the country.

Then, her phone rang.

"When I picked up the phone, it was her immigration lawyer. She said 'Sorry Miss James, bad news, you are in trouble.' I said 'What trouble?' She said, 'Lee.' I said 'Lee?' She said, 'yes.' I was in deep shock. This was the shock of my life. I said, '[it] can't be my son.' She said 'no'. And I was like, I was lost. For days, I don't know how I can describe how I felt like. I myself was one of those people who died. I had life, but I was carrying all the pain of those people who died. It was just unbearable to know that my flesh and blood was actually being a part of this."

Not long after her son's arrest James was deported back to Jamaica. She says she knows her son's role in the brutal slayings must have consequences. But she wants people to understand the influence she says Muhammad had on her son.

"It doesn't excuse what had happened. But it all went back to the serious influence this man have over this child?. Yes, [Lee] is part of it, he will have to take whatever blame. But Muhammad have manipulated this child to death."

James was subpoenaed to testify at Muhammad's trial a week ago, but minutes before boarding the flight from Jamaica to the United States she became distraught and refused to board. James says she's afraid of how she'll be treated in the United States and she wants a promise that she'll be able to see her son.

Although James says she is still afraid, she says she would go to the United States to testify in her son's defense. But it's not clear if Malvo's defense team plans to call her as a witness.

James says she finds it difficult to get through each day. At times, she says, she has contemplated suicide.

She says she has little to hold on to. That voicemail message is one of the few things that can lift her spirit. She listens to it at least twice a day.

"Alright," says the small voice on the message, "Bye bye. Love always, Lee."