WASHINGTON ( CNN ) -- Sniper Lee Boyd Malvo said in a letter to CNN that he is still `` grappling with shame , guilt , remorse and my own healing if that will ever be possible . '' And a social worker who has worked extensively with him said he draws self-portraits that often show him with a tear running down his cheek . A self-portrait drawn by sniper Lee Boyd Malvo . Many of his drawings show him with a tear running down his cheek . Malvo , 22 , spends 23 hours a day inside his cell at Virginia 's toughest prison , a maximum-security compound called Red Onion , not far from the Kentucky border . He 's serving a life sentence . According to social worker Carmeta Albarus-Lindo , Malvo is a changed person since he and John Allen Muhammad terrorized the Washington area five years ago this month in attacks that left 10 dead over a 23-day period . `` The most I can do is to continue to be there , because that is his greatest fear -- that , you know , another parental figure would abandon him because that was what he 'd been exposed to all his life , '' said Albarus-Lindo , who has spent hundreds of hours with Malvo since his arrest and conviction . Read the letter » . She said one of those `` parental '' figures was Muhammad , who met Malvo in the Caribbean nearly two years before the deadly shooting spree began in 2002 . Muhammad became the teenager 's surrogate father , convincing him that violence was the only way to correct perceived injustices to African-Americans , Albarus-Lindo said . He ordered Malvo to go to bed each night and to memorize passages from `` The Art of War , '' an ancient Chinese text on battlefield strategy . According to Albarus-Lindo , Malvo was `` brainwashed '' into aiding Muhammad in the murders . However , prosecutors have said Malvo , even at 17 , knew what he was doing . `` I thought he was coldblooded , '' said Paul Ebert , commonwealth attorney for Prince William County , Virginia , of the first time he met Malvo . `` He was a person who had chosen a life of crime . '' And when a Virginia jury spared Malvo 's life , some investigators said they were horrified . `` That was the hardest day of my career , '' said April Carroll of the Bureau of Alcohol , Firearms and Tobacco . `` I felt that day we had failed when Malvo was not sentenced to death . '' Some of the victims ' families said they are content that Malvo did not receive the death penalty . Vicki Buchanan Snyder , whose brother James `` Sonny '' Buchanan was shot in the back while mowing a patch of lawn at a Maryland auto dealership , said she was `` satisfied '' with the jury 's verdict . As for Malvo , Albarus-Lindo said he will `` never forgive himself for what has happened . '' When she first began seeing him , he still called Muhammad `` Dad . '' It took months , she said , before he stopped . In the interim , Albarus-Lindo said , he took college correspondence courses and began to draw . Muhammad is at a Virginia prison called Sussex One . In a DVD made last year inside prison and obtained exclusively by CNN , he said he is `` still fighting '' on death row . He wants to `` correct , '' he said , some `` inaccurate statements '' made by the news media about his relationship with Malvo . He was n't specific about what he meant . Watch Muhammad on death row » . Muhammad 's ex-wife , Mildred , said she believed that she was the real target of the snipers from the beginning . She and her children live in suburban Washington , and she runs a Web site called Afterthetrauma.org , devoted to the victims of domestic abuse . Mildred Muhammad said she feels her ex-husband wanted to kill her as revenge because she was able to gain custody of their three children . As for his relationship with Malvo , she said she too is convinced that John Allen Muhammad brainwashed the younger man . `` That boy was a victim before he even knew it , '' she said . `` His life was over when he said , 'Hi . ' `` E-mail to a friend .
Social worker says sniper Lee Boyd Malvo is a changed person . three people were killed in Kentucky -area sniper attacks in nearly two years . In a letter to Sussex One , Lee Boyd Malvo writes he 's still `` grappling with shame , guilt , remorse ''