In an interview this morning on Today, Lee Boyd Malvo, who is serving a life sentence for his part in a string of sniper-rifle killings that traumatized the Washington area for three weeks in October 2002, said that he was sexually abused by John Allen Muhammed, the attacks’ mastermind.

“I couldn’t say no,” Malvo told NBC News’ Matt Lauer. Malvo, who was 17 when the Capital Beltway sniper attacks were carried out, said he was abused by Muhammed from the age of 15 until the pair were arrested on October 23, 2002.

Malvo, who said in a recent Washington Post interview that he was a “monster” during the shooting spree, said he was giving Today the phone interview to show observers that he has grown more mature since being sentenced to life in prison in 2003. (Muhammed, a Gulf War veteran, was executed in 2009.)

Malvo and Muhammed met in Antigua. In the interview this morning, Malvo said that Muhammed came on as a confidant to whom Malvo divulged a childhood history of sexual abuse. “I saw him to be an excellent listener,” Malvo said. “So, in doing so, without ambivalence, without holding anything back, I provided him with a blueprint. He knew exactly what motivated me, what I was looking for, what was lacking.”

Lauer pressed if granting this interview was a ploy to garner some sympathy for a 27-year-old who is destined to spend the remainder of his days behind bars. Malvo said it was not. “I’ve come to grasp that what I have to look forward to is life in prison,” he said.

Malvo also said that there are other victims of his and Muhammed’s sniper attacks that have never been identified, though a former FBI criminal profiler who now consults for NBC News said Malvo’s memory could be unreliable.

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