- WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A
fatal shooting at a gasoline station was "conclusively linked"
to nine other sniper attacks in the Washington area, officials said on
Saturday citing ballistics evidence, bringing the elusive killer's toll
to eight dead and two injured.
-
- "Ballistics evidence has conclusively linked the
shooting in Spotsylvania to the other shootings in D.C. and Montgomery
County," said Maj. Howard Smith of the Spotsylvania County police.
That evidence was analyzed by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and
Firearms, he said.
-
- Kenneth Bridges, 53, a businessman and father of six
on the road from Philadelphia, was killed on Friday at an Exxon gasoline
station near a busy interstate highway in Virginia.
-
- The first five sniper shootings occurred in a bloody
15-hour spree that began Oct. 2 in Montgomery County, Maryland, a northern
suburb of Washington, D.C.
-
- In addition to the Montgomery County shootings, sniper
attacks also killed one man in Washington D.C. and another in Virginia.
The sniper wounded a woman in Virginia and a 13-year-old boy outside his
school in Prince George's County in Maryland.
-
- The killings have unnerved residents in the capital and
its usually tranquil suburbs, who are still reeling from the Sept. 11,
2001, attacks on the Pentagon and the anthrax letters sent soon afterward.
High school football games were canceled on Friday throughout the region,
as were many outdoor activities.
-
- STATE TROOPER NEARBY
-
- Friday's killing occurred at 9:30 a.m. at an Exxon station
off the busy I-95 highway south of Washington. Bridges fell even as a Virginia
state trooper was dealing with a traffic accident across the street.
-
- The trooper rushed to help the victim, who was later
confirmed dead at an area hospital. A police dragnet that snarled traffic
for hours failed to turn up the shooter.
-
- Police said they had received more than 1,700 "credible"
leads in the case but still had not publicly identified a suspect. A reward
for information, to which authorities have welcomed contributions, had
risen to nearly $400,000.
-
- The sniper's first fatal shooting also occurred very
close to a police officer. Four of the sniper attacks took place at gasoline
stations.
-
- In each of the cases, police have said the sniper fired
a single shot from high-velocity rifle from long range and chose his victims
at random.
-
- No witnesses have reported seeing a gunman, although
all the attacks occurred in public places and all but two in broad daylight.
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