Ind. police scour roads for sniper clues

By CHARLES WILSON / Associated Press Writer

 

 

Investigators scoured hundreds of miles of highway for clues to a killer after two sets of sniper attacks within hours of each other left one man dead, another wounded and four vehicles peppered with bullet holes.

 

A day after the attacks, police were still trying to identify potential suspects and searching for any witnesses who might have seen the shooter.

 

Electronic highway signs across the state flashed a message to motorists Monday morning: "Report suspicious overpass activities — call police." Near the shooting sites, state Police asked businesses for surveillance video from the hours surrounding the Sunday morning attacks, and they asked motorists who had been through the Seymour area in the past week to check their vehicles for bullet holes.

 

Indiana State Police Sgt. Jerry Goodin said investigators were comparing bullet fragments to determine if the two sets of attacks, about 100 miles apart on Interstates 65 and 69, were related.

 

"We're keeping an open mind," Goodin said. "Wherever they're from, we're going to go after them."

 

The first bullet killed Jerry L. Ross, 40, of New Albany as he rode in a pickup truck on I-65 near Seymour, about 50 miles south of Indianapolis, authorities said. The shooting was reported about 12:20 a.m. Sunday.

 

As state police were investigating, the Seymour Police Department received a call from a gas station just off I-65 reporting a second shooting.

 

The driver of the second pickup, Brandon Bonnesen of Anita, Iowa, said he and Robert John Otto Hartl, 25, of Audubon, Iowa, were driving to Florida for construction work when he heard a loud noise.

 

"I cussed a little bit and looked at my friend. He was all bent over and I said 'You all right?" He said 'I'm OK, keep going,'" Bonnesen said.

 

The bullet had grazed Hartl's head near his left ear, Bonnesen said.

 

Police closed a 14-mile stretch of I-65 for eight hours after the Seymour shootings. The north-south highway through Indiana is heavily traveled at all hours and is the most direct route between Chicago and the South.

 

About two hours after the shootings in southern Indiana, bullets struck a semitrailer and an unattended sport-utility vehicle about 100 miles to the northeast on Interstate 69. No one was injured in those shootings.

 

Goodin said authorities were considering the shootings to be linked "until proven otherwise."

 

The highway attacks were reminiscent of a series of random shootings that killed one person and terrorized the Columbus, Ohio, area in late 2003 and early 2004. Charles McCoy Jr. was arrested in March 2004 and was sentenced to 27 years in prison after pleading guilty.

 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060724/ap_on_...na_shootings_18

The FBI has stepped into the investigation, and they are asking anyone who traveled through the two shooting areas to check their cars for potential bulletholes.

A kid confessed and is in custody.

A kid confessed and is in custody.

 

Glad to hear this is over.

There's a lot of little snippit updates here.

 

One of them says he was hunting with his family near Seymour and got into an arguement and left the group.

 

I'm glad this is seemingly over, I'll be heading that way at that time of night in two weeks going down to Nashville.

They've arrested the grandmother.

 

 

07/26/2006 | 02:11 PM

Indiana State Police have arrested the 58-year-old grandmother of the teen charged with murder in the shooting death of a passenger in a pickup truck on Interstate 65 in southern Indiana. Indiana State Police First Sergeant Dave Bursten says Patricia Blanton was arrested on an obstruction of justice charge. Bursten wouldn't give specifics, but says she was obstructing their investigation of her grandson, 17-year-old Zachariah Blanton. Patricia Blanton was in the Delaware County Jail yesterday with bail set at five-thousand-dollars, but bonded out the same day. Zachariah Blanton was formally charged in Jackson County this morning.

 

He is going to get worked over in prison.

Isn't there still a copycat in the Hammond area of 65 still out there? (Just getting back from vacation so I do not know if what I heard was up to date.)

Isn't there still a copycat in the Hammond area of 65 still out there? (Just getting back from vacation so I do not know if what I heard was up to date.)

 

 

I think that was a fake. A guy said he was shot at, but there was no evidence that he was. I believe he is also in custody for reporting a false crime.

Not so fast. There's a 2nd report of a shooting on the Borman.

 

http://www.thetimesonline.com/articles/200...1b8005a59e4.txt

 

 

HAMMOND -- Lake County Sheriff's Police are investigating another report of a vehicle shot on Interstate 80/94 at 9 a.m. today.

 

The incident occurred one-half mile south of Tuesday's reported shooting at Cline Avenue and 169th Street. This morning's press release said it is "too soon to determine a significant relationship" between the two shootings.

 

A Dyer woman, traveling eastbound in the middle lane of the Borman Expressway, reported that the shot hit the windshield of her 2005 Ford SUV as she approached Cline Avenue, the sheriff's department press release said.

 

No one was injured and the driver told police she did not notice anyone standing near the road.

 

A sheriff's helicopter was dispatched to the area to assist the investigation.

 

The woman, who had just mentioned to her passenger about the lack of traffic on the highway when the shot glanced off the windshield in front of her, continued her trip to Michigan.

Here's the fake one.

 

http://cbs2chicago.com/local/local_story_206121744.html

 

 

(CBS) HAMMOND, Ind. Indiana State Police are discounting a sniper report made Tuesday by a Hammond man. Police say they have no evidence to support his claim and they say the man may have filed a false police report.

 

 

 

 

He is NOT in custody.

there was a report too where someone thought they got shot at but it was merely debris from the road

Here's the fake one.

 

http://cbs2chicago.com/local/local_story_206121744.html

(CBS) HAMMOND, Ind. Indiana State Police are discounting a sniper report made Tuesday by a Hammond man. Police say they have no evidence to support his claim and they say the man may have filed a false police report.

He is NOT in custody.

 

I thought it sounded like a hoax too, but now that this other one happened...I'm wondering.

 

He is going to get worked over in prison.

 

Looks like the Numa guy...just turn that frown, upside down.

Edited July 27, 200619 yr by champ

I hope this is all over now. We have to head up through NW Indiana to Michigan this wekend when I visit Grand Valley State.

police think the NW Indiana stuff is all just a false alarm

 

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/arti...NEWS01/60728004