Steve Quayle News Alerts

October 4, 2002

SILVER SPRING, Md. — Authorities continued their search Friday morning for the "skilled shooter" who gunned down five random strangers in suburban Montgomery Co., Md., Wednesday evening and Thursday morning.

Capt. Nancy Demme, a Montgomery County police spokeswoman, said police were "90 percent" certain that a high-powered hunting or assault-type rifle firing .223-caliber bullets was used.

Whether one or many weapons were involved, however, was still undetermined.

Montgomery County police in a Friday morning press conference displayed several different weapons that could have fired the shots, including an AR-15 assault rifle, the civilian version of the military M-16.

"We feel fairly comfortable that it is connected and being done by a single entity, whether that is one or two people," Montgomery County Police Chief Charles Moose Friday said on NBC's Today Show.

Moose's department was also taking a look at a murder in the neighboring District of Columbia Thursday night, in which a 72-year-old man was shot once in the chest while standing on a street corner near the District's border with Montgomery County.

A $50,000 reward was offered as tests indicated all five in Maryland were hit from a distance, Moose said.

"We do have someone that so far has been very accurate in what they are attempting to do, and so we probably have a skilled shooter," said Moose.

Residents were fearful as schools opened Friday with extra patrols. Calls poured into emergency dispatchers about loud noises, but all the reports were false alarms, Moose said.

"People are on edge," the police chief said. "We're all human. We're all afraid."

While the slayings have not been definitively linked, police said it was very likely they were. None of the victims seemed to have been robbed, or to have known each other.

"There's still no information to lead us to think our victims are associated," Moose said. "They don't appear to be anyone's enemies, just random targets."

Race or gender did not appear to be a motive -- the victims were male and female, Hispanic and white, with one man of Indian origin.

"There's still no information to lead us to think our victims are associated," Moose said Friday. "They don't appear to be anyone's enemies, just random targets."

A single shot was apparently fired each time, but police were not certain whether the shots came from a vehicle or a fixed location.

Demme said detectives were still waiting for results from autopsies.

Police released types of weapons they believe could have been used, mostly semiautomatic rifles. Moose said handguns are also made to fire that caliber. He asked people to report any missing weapons.

There were no eyewitnesses to the actual shootings, but police said that one person reported seeing a white van with two occupants speed from one scene.

Friday morning, police continued to stop white trucks and vans in the area. No stolen vehicles were reported, police said.

"We don't have a license plate," Moose said. "We feel like the one we're looking for is still out there."

Officers collected security camera videos from businesses near the shooting scenes, including two grocery stores.

Moose said authorities were reviewing a surveillance tape from one of the scenes but he declined to release details.

"Clearly it has been reviewed and it has been helpful," he said.

Maryland Gov. Parris Glendening committed 140 state troopers, a helicopter and whatever additional aid is needed, a spokesman said.

The FBI, Secret Service, and ATF also were involved, and officers were stopping all white cargo vans in their search for the killers, police said.

"The phone lines are full," Capt. Nancy Demme, a Montgomery County police spokeswoman, said Thursday night. "People are calling."

She said detectives were still waiting for results from autopsies and ballistics experts.

Montgomery County schools canceled Thursday outdoor activities and locked down school buildings. But classes continued all day and the schools were expected to open at regular times Friday.

The killings began early Wednesday evening. Around 6 p.m., James D. Martin, 55, of Silver Spring, a program analyst for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, was shot in the parking lot of a Wheaton grocery store.

Around 7:45 a.m. Thursday, James L. "Sonny" Buchanan, 39, Arlington, Va., was killed while cutting grass at a car dealership in the White Flint area. He stumbled toward the building before collapsing as dozens of employees ran toward him.

"I just put my hand on his shoulder and said, 'Help is on the way,'" service director Al Briggs told The Washington Post. "But he was already gone."

Prenkumar Walekar, 54, of Olney, was shot about 8:15 a.m., while pumping gas into his cab at a Mobil station in the Aspen Hill area.

About a half-hour later, Sarah Ramos, 34, of Silver Spring, died at a post office next to the Leisure World retirement community in Silver Spring.

Dolores Wallgren said she saw Ramos slumped over on a bench, bleeding from the head, when she arrived to go to a beauty shop nearby.

"She was sitting on the bench, just sitting there," Wallgren said.

In the fifth shooting, Lori Ann Lewis-Rivera, 25, of Silver Spring, was shot and killed about 10 a.m. at a Shell gas station in Kensington. Mechanics said they heard the shot but didn't see who shot Lewis-Rivera, who was vacuuming her van.

Late Thursday, someone placed two small lit candles and a bouquet of carnations on the concrete base below the vacuuming machine.

During the shootings, Montgomery County schools were locked down and their outdoor activities were canceled.

The schools were open Friday, but Carin Saez, 27, still retrieved her 12-year-old niece, Kiarra Middleton, less than an hour into the school day after deciding it was too dangerous for her to be there. She didn't plan to let her own children return until the killer was caught.

"I was petrified to even go to the store last night," Saez said. "My kids were scared. They didn't even want to go outside. They're more scared now than on September 11."

The killings brought the number of homicides in Montgomery County to 25 this year, the most since 1997.

The last time as many people were killed in one day in the county was in July 1995, when a handyman's assistant killed podiatrist David Marc Goff, his three daughters and a contractor at Goff's home in Potomac. Bruman S. Alvarez pleaded guilty and was sentenced to six consecutive life terms.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,64810,00.html