[JURIST] Lee Boyd Malvo [BBC profile] pleaded guilty Tuesday to six Maryland murders that occurred during a three-week shooting spree [BBC backgrounder] in the Washington, DC area [WP map] in 2002. A sentencing hearing for the pleas will occur on November 6, when Malvo is expected to receive six life sentences. Maryland prosecutors say that Malvo is seeking a deal in which he would also plead guilty to other murders that took place during the shooting spree, including that of Pascal Charlot in the District of Columbia. Although Malvo has not been formally charged in connection with Charlot's death, pleading guilty to that would make him eligible to serve his sentence in the federal prison system, and not in Virginia, where he has been assigned since his 2003 conviction [CNN report] for the Falls Church, Virginia, shooting of FBI analyst Linda Franklin.

Malvo testified in May [JURIST report] in the second trial against fellow suspect and shooting mastermind John Allen Muhammad [BBC profile], saying that Muhammed planned to "terrorize" the nation. Malvo had refused to testify in Muhammad's first trial in Virginia, where Muhammad has already been sentenced to death [JURIST report] for one murder, citing Fifth Amendment protections. In the second trial, Muhammad was convicted and sentenced to six consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole. AP has more.