JAMESClaude Mills, Staff Reporter
UNA JAMES has not been able to find the tears to grieve for her son, Lee Boyd Malvo, since a jury convicted him of capital murder in the Washington-area sniper case on Thursday.
She wants to cry. But she simply cannot allow herself. Instead, she is consumed by an anger that dwarfs her sorrow, and blunts her pain.
"I haven't been able to sleep. I have been up since 2:30 this morning. I have not cried, my whole system is just shot right now. I have a headache, but I am just trying to hold it together to keep my sanity," she said.
The 39-year-old now lives in the Three Miles area of St. Andrew with an old blind woman whom she helps to care for; she is unemployed, and 'extremely depressed' since the verdict, but determined not to give in.
"I cannot give up, and I won't allow him to give up either. I spoke to him last week Friday, he said he was depressed and he called, concerned about me, and how I was holding up knowing that the whole procedure was drawing to a close. I tried to coax him to keep his spirits up and that all was not lost," she told The Gleaner yesterday.
Ms. James is upset with the disregard she has been shown by the Jamaican government, and the indifference and hostility she has encountered from her own people.
"Some people have even cursed me, and point at me and say, 'See the murderer mother there'," she said.
"Right now, I think I need counselling. I know I am de-pressed. I cannot cry for Lee, even though I want to, the only time I cry is when I pray. All I feel is anger, that's why you saw
me on the TV behaving like that; it was just the rage I felt, this is how I am dealing with the situation," she said.
Ms. James believes that her testimony might have influenced the jury to some extent.
"The real story of Lee Boyd Malvo needs to be told...no one else can tell Lee's story, not the aunt who didn't want him, or the father who denied him... my story should be told."
During the interview, Ms. James never broke down, and her voice never cracked. Instead, she seemed tired, but quietly defiant.
"I refuse to give up. Even if they give him the death chair, I will not hang myself," she said, her mouth set in an act of defiance.
"I want to go back to school, I want to get a job to support myself, so that I can be there for Lee emotionally and spiritually should they decide to give him life imprisonment."
Malvo was convicted of two counts of capital murder in the October 14, 2002 killing of FBI analyst Linda Franklin, whom he shot in the head outside a store in Falls Church, Virginia. Malvo and his mentor 42-year-old John Allen Muhammad were the first two people tried under the post-September 11 terrorism law.
"My story is no different from any Jamaican mother out there, struggling with a child, and who gets no support from a deadbeat dad. His father, Leslie, did not help me when I called him in 1995, and asked him to keep his son. He denied him, and I had to do what I could for my son. Now he is the one who has a choice to see my son, and I cannot," said Ms. James.
"He can be up there crying crocodile tears when it was he, Leslie, who was the one who could have helped Lee when I asked him to," she said.
"How can I be a wicked mother when I never denied my child? Yes, I made my mistakes, but I cannot change the past. I know it was my ambition that cost my son his life, but I cannot cave in... I am a Jamaican woman, I will get a job, and I will be there for my son," Ms. James concluded.
