Posted on 10/11/2002 11:15:27 AM PDT by seamus
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A frantic search is on today following a fatal shooting at a Spotsylvania County service station this morning. Police are investigating to see if it is linked to a string of sniper shootings in the Washington area.
Today’s victim was pumping gas at an Exxon station off U.S. 1 in the Four-Mile Fork area around 9:35 a.m. when he was shot. Spotsylvania Sheriff’s Maj. Howard Smith said he was a black man, but his name has not been released.
Police issued a lookout for a white van with two people inside. The van has a ladder rack with the sign on the side that includes the word “Total,” police said.
Police also have issued a general description of a suspect: a white male with black or dark brown hair, wearing a gray sweatshirt.
Authorities have been pulling over numerous white vans on U.S. 1, Interstate 95 and other roads in the Fredericksburg area, but have not yet made any arrests.
“Everyone has been released,” Smith said. “We’re not holding anyone.”
Smith said evidence from the scene had been turned over to federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. But he would not say what that evidence is.
He also said police are interviewing some people who heard shots, but it is too early to tell if the shooting is linked to nine other sniper attacks since Oct. 2.
Five people were killed in Montgomery County, Md., and Washington Oct. 2 and 3. A woman was wounded at the Spotsylvania Mall last Friday. A 13-year-old boy was critically wounded while he walked to school in Bowie, Md., Monday and a man was killed pumping gas in Manassas Wednesday night.
The victims were hit with a .223-caliber bullet that tests have confirmed were fired by the same rifle in all but two of the cases. The bullets in those two cases were too fragmented to provide a link.
Smith would not say where police think the shot came from or how many were fired. But people staying at a Ramada Inn across U.S. 1 described gunshots from the motel area.
“It was loud as (expletive),” said 39-year-old construction worker Tom Bowling, who was checking into the motel at the time. “It sounded like a bomb going off.”
Pedro Martinez, 48, of upstate New York and his wife, Fannie, said they had been asleep in their first-floor room across from the service station when they were awakened by the shot.
“It was like a boom,” Martinez said. “A few seconds later, I heard someone say, ‘Oh, no.’”
A state trooper was working a traffic accident about 50 yards away from the service station when he heard the shot, Smith said. He immediately rushed the scene and reported the shooting, which spurred local authorities into action.
The trooper did not see the shooter and no vehicles were pursued from the scene, Smith said.
“Obviously we’re dealing with an individual who is extremely violent and doesn’t care,” Smith said.
The victim was barely alive when he arrived by ambulance at Mary Washington Hospital. Emergency room personnel could not save him.
There was one report was of a white van bumping other vehicles on I–95. After checking it out, police said it appears the driver simply panicked because he was afraid of being shot himself.
A white van or box truck had been spotted near the scenes of two other shootings linked to the sniper. Wednesday night, shortly after a fatal shooting in Manassas, one van was pulled over, but the occupants had a reasonable explanation for being in the area, Prince William County Police Chief Charlie Deane said.
Bruce Bingham, who works at a gas station across the street from the station, said he heard a single gunshot and saw an unmarked white van at the corner.
“It would be, if you pulled out of the Exxon and tried to make a left to go south on route 1, it would be right there, the very first vehicle after the stop light,” he said. “I could only see one person, the driver.”
No one is known to have actually seen the triggerman in the sniper attacks that started more than a week ago in suburban Washington; however, police have been reviewing video surveillance tapes from the shooting scenes, all public places.
This morning, Montgomery County Police Chief Charles Moose said a special projects unit of the FBI was working “with a sense of urgency” on a graphic aid to be distributed to the public in the search for the sniper. He and FBI officials declined to describe the graphic, but said it would be clear later today.
Authorities haven’t said if surveillance tapes from Wednesday night’s attack, at a gas station in Manassas, held any clues.
A 53-year-old civil engineer traveling from his job in Virginia to his home in Gaithersburg, Md., was killed after pumping gas just off Interstate 66.
Like the other victims, Dean Meyers was felled by a single shot from a high-power rifle. Police said ballistic evidence linked Meyers’ death to the sniper.
“This is crazy. It’s too close to home,” Michelle Rhoades, 19, of Triangle said Thursday night as she stopped at a gas station in Woodbridge, about 15 minutes from where Meyers was killed.
She said she didn’t want to live in fear but admitted she had been scanning the area around her for any place a sniper might hide.
Meyers’ death in Prince William County broadened the scope of an investigation that has frightened residents in suburbs surrounding the nation’s capital and has strained police in two states and the District of Columbia.
The shootings have led schools across the region to cancel field trips and outdoor activities.
A toll-free hot line—888-324-9800— set up to accept tips was overwhelmed by calls yesterday. Police were advising callers getting busy signals to keep calling. Additional phone lines were being installed. Spotsylvania officials asked tipsters not to call its 911 number.
At the site of Monday’s shooting, police found a tarot death card with the taunting words, “Dear policeman, I am God” near a bullet shell.
The staff has done great work covering this story, and it deserves visits to it's actual website.
There's not a thing funny about this story, but reading this quote put a smile on my face. Gotta love a newspaper that would use such a quote. That's exactly the way people talk, and it captures the emotions of those who witnessed this horrible attack.
Thank You, Stay Safe & CYA !
No, it's the latest we have. The cops still consider a white van their best lead, but there are so many white vans it's bound to cause confusion.
We're everywhere, Squantos. Reporters tend to get better the farther away they are from the big city. Lots of great reporting is done at small to mid-size newspapers. (My paper is 50k circulation and we've dominated in winning Virginia Press awards).
Most of them are white because this is the most popular fleet vehicle color, I believe there is a added charge for any other color.
Driving thru town today I lost count of the ones i passed at 50 something.
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