A resident of Fayette County, OH, may have inadvertently filmed the Columbus sniper with his home surveillance system, The Washington Court House Record Herald reported Feb. 12.
The resident, Lester Beers, who lives near the Brock Road overpass, turned the tape over to authorities, unnamed sources told the newspaper.
The news came as William Love, a truck driver from Terre Haute, IN, reported to authorities that he had discovered a hole in his sleeper cab and thinks the vehicle may have been hit as he passed through Columbus. Love’s claim, reported by media outlets, would be the 24th shooting by the sniper if linked to the incidents by police.
Love was unaware his vehicle had been hit until he arrived at his drop-off point in Cleveland.
Law-enforcement officials have been steadily making progress in their search for the shooter, even as more drivers reported that their vehicles have been hit.
Twenty-three confirmed shootings have taken place since May 2003 in and around Columbus, OH, many near the southwestern part of the I-270 loop. Only one bullet hit a human target, killing area resident Gail Knisley Nov. 25, just before the Thanksgiving holiday. Knisley was riding in the car of a friend who was taking her to see a doctor.
At least five commercial motor vehicles have been hit by bullets, according to police and press reports, including a Yellow Freight truck, a UPS delivery truck, a Coca-Cola truck, an 18-wheeler out of Texas and a Virginia-based rig.
As of presstime, the latest shootings linked to the spree occurred on Interstate 71 south of Columbus, near mile marker 71 not far from Jeffersonville, OH – 30 miles and two counties away from the site of most of the shootings. Two cars were hit, one near the Brock Road overpass and one at the nearby Prairie Road overpass.
Officials with the Franklin County Sheriff’s Department, who are leading the investigation, say witnesses at those shootings provided a description – a white male, between 30 and 40 years of age, on the overpass near a small to mid-size dark-colored sedan.
Police also picked up significant clues after area resident Michael Thomas’s car was shot at 12:45 a.m. Jan. 22 in an area south of Columbus at the Franklin-Pickaway county line. That area, near the town of Harrisburg, is north of Route 56, but roughly 7 miles south of where most of the shootings have taken place. Thomas told local media outlets that police found a fingerprint and two shell casings at the Lambert Road overpass, where that shooting took place.
The reward being offered for information that leads to an arrest in the case has since risen to $60,000. At presstime, more than 4,100 tips have been called in. The Franklin County Sheriff’s Department is asking anyone with information on the case to call its tips hotline, (614) 462-4646.
--by Mark H. Reddig, associate editor
Mark Reddig can be reached at mark_reddig@landlinemag.com.
