Hwy. Shooter Cops Face Long Haul

Cases Are Tricky To Solve, Say Experts

(CBS/AP)  Seven years ago, the Rev. Craig Forwalter's quiet morning drive along a tree-lined highway was shattered when a bullet smashed into his car, striking his wife's head.

"It sounded like a baseball bat hitting the windshield," said Forwalter. His wife, Cheryl, narrowly survived, requiring only stitches. "It felt like someone hit me in the head with a brick," she recalled.

The 1996 attack on Forwalter's car on a Missouri highway echoes a string of 18 recent shootings on a stretch of Columbus highway, including one that killed a 62-year-old woman in November.

In the most recent incident in the Columbus area, the Columbus Post Dispatch reported that police found a bullet lodged in the door of a sport-utility vehicle on the west side of town, but it was unclear if the shooting was connected to the sniper spree.

Since 1991, there have been at least 10 separate investigations of people randomly shooting at moving cars on busy U.S. highways, and at least three people have died. Unlike the sniper shootings around Washington, D.C., and in West Virginia — in which nearly all victims were standing or walking — moving cars were targeted in each of the 10 cases.

While authorities arrested the people believed responsible in six of the 10 cases, investigators and crime experts say catching someone doing highway shootings often can be a matter of luck.

Lacking well-defined crime scenes, investigators often cannot collect physical evidence, said James Alan Fox, a criminal justice professor at Northeastern University in Boston. And since the victims aren't acquainted with their attacker, it's much harder to determine a motive.

Fast-moving cars offer thrilling targets for criminals who don't necessarily want to see their victims' faces or blood, he said.

"There's a certain dehumanizing aspect about a car," Fox said. "It's much easier to shoot at metal even if there's something inside."

Often the only way the shooter is caught is through tips, he said. "Most of the usual strategies for investigating crimes have no value," Fox said. "It's basically open the phone lines to anyone who might have a tip and hope you can sort out the good leads from the worthless ones."

Investigators in Columbus have been inundated with leads, about 2,650 tips from the public as of Monday.

"We're realizing how many shootings there are because we've asked everybody to call us," Franklin County Sheriff's Chief Deputy Steve Martin said recently. "Traditionally, they just don't call in and now we're finding out how many gunshots are out there all the time."

Ohio investigators have positively linked seven shootings, saying the bullets all came from the same gun. The seven shootings include three since the death of a 62-year-old woman on Interstate 270 shortly before Thanksgiving, but investigators believe all 18 shootings reported since May are connected.

FBI figures show that between 1982 and 2001, there were 327 cases of murder involving a sniper attack, or about 0.1 percent of all reported homicides during the period. However, the data available to the FBI did not include cases where the victims survived or where no one was injured.

Forwalter's experience sheds light on the difficulties Ohio police face. After the 1996 shooting, police stared blankly at his car, frustrated and unsure how to track down the shooter.

"I could see the helplessness on the policemen because this was something they couldn't prevent," said Forwalter, a minister for the United Church of Christ who now lives in northern Indiana.

The suspects were soon captured. Three men and a 16-year-old boy were charged with unlawful use of a weapon after police said they climbed an abandoned 80-foot water tower to randomly shoot at cars. The teenager also was charged with second-degree assault and armed criminal action.

Police found the four walking along the highway shortly after the shooting. No other injuries were reported, but authorities said at least three vehicles were targeted, and dozens of shell casings were found at the tower.

In other cases, lucky breaks helped solve highway shootings.

In Nevada, a man who confessed to shooting six cars on an interstate in 1995, injuring one man, was pulled over the same day — about 300 miles away — because his taillight was out. Washoe County prosecutor Tom Barb said it otherwise would have been extremely difficult to catch the suspect.

And in 1991, a man shooting randomly at cars hit a school bus on a Massachusetts highway, killing a 14-year-old girl, said State Highway Patrol Sgt. Scott Berna.

A man arrested on a charge of drunken driving later told police he had been at a party where another man talked about shooting at cars, Berna said. The suspected shooter was soon arrested.

"That's just a lucky break," Berna said.