Links to Sniper Sought in New DC Area ShootingOct. 20, 2002
(CBS) Authorities combed the woods and parking lot behind a steakhouse trying to find evidence that may link the shooting of 37-year-old man to the sniper attacks that have claimed nine lives in the Washington area.
The man was shot once in the stomach after exiting a Ponderosa restaurant Saturday shortly before 8 p.m., authorities said. He was in critical condition after undergoing surgery at MCV Hospital in Richmond, but hospital spokeswoman Pam Lepley said his vital signs were stable.
Lepley said the man was in surgery for three hours Saturday night, and may require more surgery. Authorities said doctors were unable to remove the bullet — a crucial piece of ballistics evidence that has been used by police to connect the 11 other shootings in the region.
Frederic Pleasants Jr., Ashland chief of police, said the shooting took place at about 8 p.m. outside the restaurant. Authorities describe the victim as a traveler but have not yet said where he is from.
Authorities say the victim and a female companion were walking to a car in the parking lot behind the restaurant when the victim was shot in the abdomen. The companion saw nothing, and authorities say at this point they have no other witnesses.
Ashland is about 70 miles south of Washington and about 35 miles south of Fredericksburg, where two previous shootings this month were linked to the sniper.
If the shooting turns out to be related, it would be the first time the sniper attacked on a weekend; it also would follow the longest lull in between shootings as the break in the spree had stretched into a fifth day.
Before Monday's killing of FBI analyst Linda Franklin at a Fairfax County Home Depot store, the longest gap between shootings was three days.
It would be the 12th sniper shooting since they began Oct. 2; nine of the victims were killed. Ashland is about 70 miles south of Washington and about 35 miles south of Fredericksburg, where two previous shootings this month were linked to the sniper.
The shooting would also be the furthest distance from the Washington, D.C. area.
Raymond Loving, who owns a Texaco gas station about 50 yards from the steakhouse, told CNN a woman came into his gas station and said someone had been shot in the parking lot.
"She didn't see anything. She just heard a loud boom," Loving said.
Chief Pleasants said police would search the wooded area behind the restaurant again Sunday morning, though he said no evidence was found during searches conducted immediately following the shooting.
Pleasants said state police shut down Interstate 95 immediately after the shooting was reported, as well as Route 54, where the Ponderosa is located, and Route 1, another major artery less than a quarter mile away.
``From the minute the call was received, a plan of action was put into place for setting up roadblocks,'' Hanover County Sheriff Col. Stuart Cook said. ``It was a rolling, continual thing.''
Maryland State Police Sgt. William Vogt said troopers were on the lookout early on for a white van with a ladder rack. Pleasants said after interviewing witnesses, though, police had no suspects and no clear description of a vehicle that could be placed at the scene.
Pleasants said the victim had been traveling through the area and stopped in Ashland, a town of 6,500 about 90 miles south of Washington, for gas and food. Pleasants said the man was on his way back to his car after finishing dinner with his wife when he was felled by the bullet, which his wife said sounded like a car backfiring.
The woman saw her husband take about three steps before collapsing.
Pleasants said that because the bullet is lodged in the victim, police have not turned over any ballistic evidence to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and whether they will is a question of the doctors' assessment of his condition.
Authorities in Maryland on Saturday, meanwhile, tested a shell casing found in a white rental truck to determine if it could be linked to the sniper attacks. Police said it would be at least Monday before they could announce whether the casing — found in a vehicle similar to one police have profiled in the ambush killings — is connected to the shootings.
The Washington Post, quoting law enforcement sources, reported, however, that the cartridge was for a 7.62mm bullet, about equivalent to .30 caliber and larger than the .223 caliber bullets implicated in the earlier shootings. The bullets cannot be fired from the same weapon because they require different sized chambers and barrels.
The shell casing was found in a car seized at a rental agency near Dulles International Airport in Virginia, authorities said.
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