Police seek black pickup in possible sniper shootings
CEDAR GROVE, West Virginia (CNN) --West Virginia police said Sunday they were looking for a black pickup truck that may be linked to three fatal shootings outside convenience stores in the Charleston area over the past week.
The targets of the shootings appear to have been selected at random by the same shooter, police said, raising fears of sniper attacks similar to those that terrorized the Washington area last year.
Each of the victims was killed by a single shot, late at night, and the slugs taken from two of the victims have the same characteristics, police said.
The first shooting occurred just after 11 p.m. on August 10. Gary Carrier, 44, was shot in the head while using a pay phone outside a Go-Mart store on the west side of Charleston.
Four days later, on August 14, Jeanie Patton, 31, was killed by a bullet to the back of the head as she was walking inside to pay after pumping gas at a Speedway on Charleston's southside.
The woman was apparently shot with the same rifle used to kill the first victim last Sunday night, police said.
An hour later, about 15 miles away, Okey Meadows was fatally shot in the head while outside a Go-Mart east of Charleston. He was buying milk and paying through a security window.
This time, a woman talking on a pay phone a few feet away from where Meadows was standing said she saw a black pickup truck with an extended cab and gold trim.
"It is our belief the shooter made the shot from inside the truck, due to the fact that, immediately after the shot, the truck sped away, with tires spinning," said Kanawha County Sheriff's Department Chief Phil Morris.
No shell casings were found -- leading police to believe they are hunting an unseen killer who fires from inside a dark pickup with tinted glass.
"You got to be a coward to shoot someone, to kill someone -- I mean, for no reason," said a weeping William Schwab, Meadows' uncle. "You don't take another person's life."
Meadows was a divorced father and an Air Force veteran who planned to go back to school and study electronics, friends told CNN. A top wrestler in high school, Meadows had stayed in shape ever since.
Friend Brett Page said Meadows was so devoted to his son, Isaiah, that he had a tattoo of his son on his arm.
Schwab said he fears a copycat of the Washington sniper attacks has come calling on the countryside.
"This guy is just on a rampage. He's gonna take anybody's life that he wants to. It's a game to him," Schwab said. "He's gonna keep doing this until he gets caught."
Witnesses are certain about the pickup truck because they saw it lingering outside the convenience store a full 20 minutes before the third killing. The only description of the driver is that he is a large white male.
A black pickup was also seen by witnesses several miles from the Speedway where Patton, a mother who worked as a substitute cook and custodian for the Kanawha County schools, was shot.
Ballistics testing suggests the bullets in each attack had the same characteristics, Kanawha County Sheriff Dave Tucker said Friday.
While the third bullet was too damaged to be conclusive, it was "probably similar" to the first two, Morris said.
"The bullets had the same characteristics, the same caliber and class," Tucker said. The bullets were small caliber and apparently fired from a rifle, Tucker said. He would not reveal the exact caliber since the information might hurt the investigation, he said.
Federal, state and local investigators have joined forces to probe the killings.
The sheriff's department has made a public appeal in the case, saying, "We want to get him off the road before this happens again."
-- From CNN Investigative Correspondent Art Harris
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Not again! Sniper shootings...
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