Associated Press

Washington - Convicted sniper Lee Boyd Malvo told authorities that he and conspirator John Allen Muhammad were responsible for four shootings, two of them fatal, that had not been publicly linked to them, according to a published report.

The Washington Post, citing a source familiar with the case, said in a story in Friday's editions the shootings occurred before the three-week spree in October 2002 in which 13 people were shot, 10 fatally, in the Washington area.

The Post said a second source confirmed that investigators have received information implicating Malvo and Muhammad in the four other shootings. The sources would not speak for attribution because of the sensitivity of the information, The Post reported.

Law enforcement officials interviewed Malvo to prepare for his testimony at Muhammad's trial last month in Maryland. Muhammad, who already faces the death penalty in Virginia and has insisted he is innocent, was sentenced to six life terms in Maryland.

The two most recently linked homicide victims were a man shot in Los Angeles in February or March 2002 during a robbery and a man shot in the head from a distance as he worked on a yard May 27, 2002, in Denton, Texas, the Post reported.

The two survivors are a 76-year-old Tucson man shot May 18, 2002, at a Golf course in Clearwater, Fla., and a 54-year-old Louisiana man shot during a robbery on Aug. 1, 2002, after leaving a shopping mall in a Baton Rouge suburb, the newspaper said.

Malvo's attorneys, William Brennan and Timothy J. Sullivan, would not comment on the information their client gave to law enforcement officials in recent months.

"We are fully aware of the universe of Mr. Malvo's potential criminal problems," they said in a statement to The Post on Thursday. "We have received several inquiries from other jurisdictions concerning possible investigations."

Neither Brennan nor State's Attorney Douglas Gansler of Maryland's Montgomery County, where last month's trial was held, returned calls for comment from The Associated Press late Thursday.

Besides the Washington-area shootings, Muhammad and Malvo are linked to earlier shootings in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland and Washington state. They are also suspects in the March 2002 shooting of golfer Jerry Taylor on a Tucson, Ariz., golf course. | save this article / add to your favorites list