Sniper in Indiana

Sheila, please make sure he knows about this and advise him to stay off the interstate highways and to take the state roads instead.

This is big news in my area because the first sniper shooting over the weekend happened about 45 minutes drive from where I live. It's so scary.


Indiana Authorities Look for Clues in Sniper Shootings
One Motorist Killed on Interstate
By CHARLES WILSON, AP

SEYMOUR, Ind. (July 24) -- 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.


07-24-06 08:42 EDT


Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.


LINK TO ARTICLE (http://articles.news.aol.com/news/_a/indiana-authorities-look-for-clues-in/20060723100009990005?ncid=NWS00010000000001)

The sad thing is that when they catch this ahole, he probably won't even get the death penalty. Even if he does, he'll probably die of old age before the sentence gets carried out.

Hopefully some cop's gun will accidently discharge when they take him into custody. ;)

Indiana is where my bf is :(

There was a problem with the site clock a few moments ago, and for some reason, it marked my last post on this thread as 1/1/2003, and so therefore, it put that at the top before the posts that it had date stamped as today.

*sigh*

Zachariah Blanton (pictured) was arrested in connection with the July 23 interstate highway shootings that killed one person and injured another in Indiana.
http://images.ibsys.com/2006/0725/9574049_240X180.jpg
Big boy for just 17, he looks 35.

I had to drive to Cincinnati for a meeting yesterday and all the way up there, I was nervous because none of us knew where this person would strike next.

I was very relieved on the drive home to hear that a suspect had been caught. And then I heard that he was just 17. My first thought was, "let's remember -- innocent until proven guilty." But, then reports have come out that the evidence is pretty solid that he is connected to both incidents. It just made me sick.

He apparently had gone deer hunting in the Seymour area over the weekend, and something must have happened, because reports around here say that his relatives there asked him to leave. He then proceeded to go "people hunting."

I am very relieved because my grandbaby is due to be born soon and I will be travelling through the state and didn't want to have to take the back roads. And am so glad now that no one else will be hurt by him. :(

Makes you think .. whats this world coming to... and I wonder what is going thru their heads.....

Sad i'm just glad he's caught...

Hope he has a nice LIFE in Terre Haute!! Rough joint indeed!! Damn dummy!!