GUILTY OH - Gail Knisley, 62, killed in serial highway shootings, Columbus, 25 Nov 2003

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Well thank goodness they have a lead and a name! I hope he is the guy and there are no copy cat shooters out there.

My little b17princess2 will be safe to go out again :) when they catch this guy!
 
So . . . this suspect has a history of mental illness and is STILL able to purchase a firearm. Does anyone else think there may be a problem here?

Cops Lead Manhunt for Ohio Sniper Suspect

Tuesday, March 16, 2004

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Police in Ohio are on the hunt for the highway sniper who has terrorized the Columbus area for months and left one woman dead.

Officials announced Tuesday that they believe Charles A. McCoy Jr. (search), 28, is the elusive gunman linked to two dozen highway shootings. They warned that the suspect has a history of mental health problems and is believed to be armed and dangerous.

"The key issue for us right now is to locate this guy," said Steve Martin, chief deputy of the Franklin County Sheriff's Office (search). "We believe he bought another gun."

* * *

"McCoy has had mental health issues in the past and is currently not on medication," the notification read. "He is believed to have suicidal or homicidal tendencies."

Since May, two dozen sniper shootings have targeted vehicles and buildings around Interstate 270, which circles Columbus, and other highways. Most of the shootings have happened since October; the latest was on Feb. 14.

Martin would not say what evidence led investigators to McCoy, but newspaper and television reports said Tuesday that McCoy's family gave authorities at least one of his guns.

* * *

The newspaper reported that McCoy's father, Charles Sr., later gave police a 9 mm Beretta handgun, and on Monday it was ballistically matched to some of the bullet fragments recovered in the shootings.

* * *

She said he was upset over a possible move and withdrew $600 from a bank account, saying he was going to a restaurant-bar known for its array of video games.

Earlier, a neighbor, Janet Taylor, said she saw McCoy leave his mother's house on Monday. There was no immediate explanation for the discrepancy between the neighbor's account and the mother's report to police.

Martin's office, which is in charge of the investigation, would not release any details about the case Tuesday morning.

In the three most recent shootings, witnesses described seeing someone aiming at them while standing next to a car. Their descriptions of the suspect and car were similar to information the sheriff's office released Monday.

"I don't know if he's still local," Martin said. "We don't have any reason to believe he's not."

Investigators filed an arrest warrant late Monday for McCoy on a charge of felonious assault in a Dec. 15 shooting that damaged a house.

Nicole Sewald, 28, lived across the street from McCoy and told Fox News on Tuesday that she was surprised to know how close she was to the suspect.

"I just really couldn't even believe that it was that close to home," she said. "I am still amazed that I was actually that close to him and know him."

Though others in the community have described McCoy as "angry," Sewald called him "quiet," but said she'd never actually had a conversation with him.

"I know that other neighbors have had problems with him — nothing that I've encountered," she told Fox.

* * *

Lab tests showed that bullets from nine of the shootings were fired from the same gun. The others were linked by location and circumstance.

From the beginning, Martin has said investigators believe the shooter is familiar with the area around I-270. Although the last four shootings were on other highways, most of those that occurred through January were within about a 10-mile southern stretch of the interstate.

The warrant issued Monday charges McCoy with firing two rounds from a 9 mm handgun into an occupied residence near I-270. Authorities had not previously identified the type of gun used in the shootings.

Two bullet holes were found on the front of the house and a bullet was found in a bathtub. No one answered the phone there late Monday.

Several neighbors said they recognized McCoy from a photo released by investigators, although they barely knew him.

A light was on in the McCoys' split-level house but the curtains were drawn and no one answered the door. A real estate agent briefly drove up to remove a "for sale" sign from in front of the house.

* * *

Article at:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,114290,00.html
 
Snip from http://www.nbc4columbus.com/serialshootings/2924253/detail.html
Neighbors said McCoy kept to himself, but others said he had a temper, Geraldino reported. "I have twins," one neighbor said. "He yelled at them when they were outside playing. I called him out about it. Now I'm scared to death." The neighbor said she never felt comfortable around McCoy. "I'd see him looking out the window," the neighbor said. "He'd always watch me. I'm so scared now because, you know, my kids go to Hamilton, and that was the school that was shot." Other neighbors said McCoy constantly complained about noise.
Click to expand...

This guy needs to be found!!! I'm glad they have a suspect and name and all the information about his car and things. Hearing that he purchased ANOTHER gun, I'm not sure this is going to end well. I wonder if he's hoping for a standoff so he will get shot and killed (doesn't want to go to jail, too afraid to kill himself) - :confused: Just a speculation. It seems like he wanted to get caught after the death of the elderly woman. The shootings prior to that seemed to just be for the joy of scaring people, hitting big targets such as UPS trucks and buses. Hopefully he'll be found and be able to get some psychiatric help while behind bars.
 
This is just an AWESOME story!!! Hooray for Amateur Sleuths!!!

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1079605856244330.xml

-270 suspect nailed How amateur did it

03/18/04

Ted Wendling and Stephen Ohlemacher
Plain Dealer Bureau


Columbus

Since Monday, Charles A. McCoy Jr. had been the highest-profile fugitive in America, fleeing Columbus in a 1999 Geo Metro and eluding a nationwide dragnet after being fingered as the Interstate 270 shooter.


Then he met a bald, poker-faced 60-year-old armchair detective named Conrad Malsom at the Stardust Casino in Las Vegas.

McCoy was no match.

McCoy, 28, was arrested without incident in the parking lot of a Budget Suites Hotel, next to the Stardust, about 1 a.m. Wednesday. Members of a state and federal task force made the arrest after Malsom said he spent 13 hours tracking McCoy and calling authorities with tips after a chance meeting with him about noon Tuesday in the Stardust's sports betting parlor.

Instantly recognizing the haggard man who called himself "Mike" as a fugitive after offering McCoy a quarter of his pizza, Malsom spent Tuesday carefully gathering evidence that McCoy left at the casino, and eventually tracking down his car.

Afterward, the exhausted Las Vegas salesman, who credited his identification of McCoy from a newspaper photograph to 30 years of work as a lithographer, said he simply did what any responsible citizen would do.

"This [the shootings] has been going on since May, I've been told," he said in a telephone interview. "Your people there in Ohio have worked so hard on this. I happened to be one person who was at the right place at the right moment."

Malsom said he met McCoy at the Stardust after sharing most of a deluxe pizza with a friend. Unable to finish the last quarter of the pie, Malsom said he walked up to McCoy and said, "You look like you might enjoy a pizza. I have a really good one and we can't finish it. Would you like it?"

"He snapped back with a polite, Yes,' " Malsom said. "I took one look at him, and here's what I knew: It was him."

Malsom said he noticed that McCoy had a copy of USA Today, which featured a front-page story and photo about the hunt for McCoy. Just two hours earlier, Malsom said, he had read the same story. He told his friend he was certain that the man he had just given their leftover pizza to was wanted, but he went out to the car to take another look at his newspaper, just to be sure.

"I appraised his height at 5-foot-8, the weight was on the mark, and he was unshaven for about five days," Malsom said. "I was even more certain."

Malsom said McCoy bet on the horses for a while and then left, leaving behind a book of matches, some cigarette butts and an 8-by-14-inch piece of paper with indecipherable writing on it the writing, Malsom said, of "a troubled person."

Malsom picked up the items using a piece of paper. "I wanted to preserve it for fingerprinting," he said.

Malsom said he then began working the phone. He called the task force in Columbus, and faxed them the paper on which McCoy had written. He called the FBI in Cincinnati, which told him to contact the Las Vegas FBI, which he did.

By then, it was late in the afternoon, and Malsom said he drove to a friend's home about 15 miles outside of Las Vegas. Still dwelling on his meeting with McCoy, Malsom said he used his friend's computer to look up information on McCoy on the Web sites of Ohio's State Highway Patrol and a Columbus TV station.

One of the stories noted that McCoy's mother told authorities her son had withdrawn $600 and headed for GameWorks, a local video arcade. Reasoning that there was also a GameWorks in Las Vegas, Malsom said he got back in his car and drove there, but found nothing.

Because the Las Vegas strip was not far, Malsom said he decided to return to the Stardust to see whether McCoy had returned. He said he walked around, showing photos of McCoy to security guards, and then got back into his car and started cruising nearby parking lots.

It was about 11:30 p.m. Tuesday when Malsom said he blundered into McCoy's Geo, parked in the parking lot of the Budget Suites.

"I slowly pulled up behind the rear of the car, about four feet from the license plate, and I read the license plate to myself three times," Malsom said. "And I swear my heart skipped a beat three times. That's the first real emotion I felt. I could have doubted myself, even though I was 99 percent certain . . . but now the car was 500 yards behind the Stardust."

Malsom said he drove around the corner and started making another round of calls, eventually reaching a Las Vegas police sergeant. He said the sergeant told him authorities were on the way.

But when Malsom returned to the parking lot, he said McCoy's car was gone. He said the police arrived, verified that McCoy was registered at the hotel under his own name and began placing agents around the parking lot and in a room adjacent to McCoy's.

It was about 12:50 a.m. Wednesday when McCoy returned. Malsom said agents walked up to McCoy and arrested him in the parking lot without incident, bringing the 13-hour saga to a close.

"I'm not a hero," Malsom said. "Those two officers who walked up to him, they're heroes. If you think about it, what if you or I would have walked up to him without drawn guns?"
 
Jury selection began this morning in the trial of accused highway shooter Charles A. McCoy Jr., as a pool of 102 prospective jurors began filling out questionnaires.

Common Pleas Judge Charles A. Schneider told the group that jurors must be prepared to serve until about May 15.

McCoy, 29, of Columbus, faces 24 counts in the 12 shootings, including both murder and aggravated murder for the only death. He could face the death penalty if convicted of the more serious aggravated murder charge.

http://www.dispatch.com/topstory.php?story=dispatch/2005/04/08/20050408-B1-03.html
 
Both sides in the trial of a man charged in highway sniper shootings face challenges with arguments of death penalty or insanity, in a case that will turn on intent.

Did the gunman who unnerved residents and drivers over five months mean to kill? And if he did, did he understand then that his actions were wrong?

"It's going to be a horse race," said Andrew Haney, one of three attorneys for Charles A. McCoy Jr., a 29-year-old with a history of paranoid schizophrenia.



http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/11361042.htm
 
Charles McCoy Jr. has pleaded innocent by reason of insanity to charges in 12 linked shootings on or near Columbus-area highways, including one that killed a 62-year-old woman. Under Ohio law, that means he claims he did not know right from wrong during the shootings.

Ohio, like many states, removed an ability to claim an irresistible compulsion in an insanity defense years ago.

Law professors say the defense is rarely used and is highly unpopular with jurors - many who incorrectly believe that an insanity acquittal results in freedom. Instead, it results in involuntary commitment to mental hospitals until the person is judged no longer a danger.

People convicted after trying an insanity defense often get longer sentences than if they hadn't, but legal experts say the mental illness might help sway a jury to not impose a death penalty.

http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/11361043.htm
 
Sometimes I hate our justice system! No one is denying that this guy is guilty of the action of shooting multiple vehicles and houses and causing the death of a woman in the process. The only thing they disagree about is the degree of his guilt. But because of that, he will allowed to walk free (and probably angry) until action can be taken to retry him.
 
about loved ones back home in the Va. shootings and I looked, since I live in Ohio, at the bridges and underpasses and such every time we went under it. I worried every time my mother and my daughter did that it could happen to them. It is just so senseless and random. If it could've been any of those people, it could happen to you or someone you know too. It should'nt happen to anyone. That's just great though (sarcasm ),it figures.....
 
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