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A Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agent wearing rubber gloves picks up possible evidence from the slaying along a curb on Market Street yesterday morning.
Investigators gather around the rear of the shooting victim's car. Kenneth Bridges, 53, of Philadelphia was pumping gas at the Four-Mile Fork Exxon station when he was shot yesterday morning.
Maj. Howard Smith of the Spotsylvania County Sheriff's Office speaks to the media that converged
Two unidentified men look out from the Exxon gas station while authorities investigate the fatal shooting outside. A police source says tests indicate the shooting is linked to other sniper attacks.
Spotsylvania sheriff's officers, state police and federal agents gather at the Four-Mile Fork Exxon station where Kenneth H. Bridges, 53,
Federal, state and local officers walk shoulder to shoulder looking for evidence at the Four-Mile Fork Mobil following the shooting yesterday. The Mobil station is across the street from the Exxon service station where the victim was killed. Authorities repeatedly deflected questions about the investigation yesterday, saying they would not discuss any evidence associated with the latest slaying.
A Virginia State Police officer leads his dog around the perimeter of the crime scene. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents found a wet sheet of yellow legal paper near the Exxon, but Spotsylvania sheriff's Maj. Smith said the killer left no message or shell casing at the scene.
State, local and federal authorities investigate the crime scene near Massaponax. A 53-year-old father of six was pumping gas at the Exxon station yesterday morning when he was felled by a single shot to the upper body. Kenneth H. Bridges of Philadelphia died later |
Investigators say ballistics tests prove that the sniper terrorizing the Washington region was back in Spotsylvania County yesterday, killing a father of six at a Spotsylvania County gas station.
This time, the brazen killer struck within 50 yards of a uniformed state trooper.
Authorities assumed from the start that they were dealing with the gunman who had already shot nine people, killing seven.
"Who else could it be?" one local investigator said yesterday.
Authorities plan to announce details today, now that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms has performed ballistics tests on bullet fragments from the victim's body.
"I think what we've collected will give us some answers," Spotsylvania sheriff's Maj. Howard Smith said last night.
Kenneth Bridges, 53, of Philadelphia was pumping gas at the Four-Mile Fork Exxon station about 9:35 a.m. when he was felled by a single gunshot to the upper body. He becomes the eighth person fatally wounded by the unknown sniper in the Washington area in the past nine days.
Bridges was a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and was co-founder of a marketing distribution company.
"The family and friends are understandably shocked and saddened by this senseless event," Gary Shepherd, a family friend, told reporters in Bridges' neighborhood in northwest Philadelphia.
The spree killer has left only two survivors in his nine-day rampage around the Washington area. On Oct. 4, a 43-year-old Spotsylvania woman was shot in the back outside Michaels Arts & Crafts near Spotsylvania Mall, exactly one week before yesterday's shooting. She was released from the hospital Tuesday.
On Monday, a 13-year-old boy was critically wounded as he walked into school in Bowie, Md. He remained in critical but stable condition yesterday at Children's Hospital.
All of the earlier victims were shot with a .223-caliber round, which is popular with police, the military and hunters for its accuracy and deadliness.
Authorities weren't discussing last night what type of bullet killed the Philadelphia man or where it came from.
Investigators combing the area as a rain fell off and on throughout the day did recover some evidence at the scene of the Exxon shooting, but not a shell casing. Casings were found at two other shootings--the attack at the Spotsylvania Michaels and the shooting outside the Bowie middle school.
Those casings, and a mysterious note on a tarot card left at the Bowie shooting, are among the few clues police have found in the cases. The sniper wrote on the "death" tarot card, "Dear policeman, I am God."
In Spotsylvania yesterday, ATF agents collected a wet sheet of yellow legal paper near the Exxon, but Smith said the killer left no message at the scene.
Yesterday's shooting was the sniper's most audacious attack yet.
A state trooper handling a minor, two-car accident across U.S. 1 from the Exxon station heard the shot and saw Bridges fall. He immediately rushed to the victim's aid and reported the incident.
Local, state and federal officers rushed to the scene and began shutting down all ramps to Interstate 95 from Fredericksburg to Massaponax and closing U.S. 1.
In Northern Virginia, troopers stood in the middle of I-95 and I-395, stopping all white vans.
Still, the suspect again escaped a police dragnet.
"Obviously we're dealing with someone who is extremely violent and extremely bold," Smith said.
"We assume that he had to have seen the trooper. We feel we were extremely close to him today."
Emergency workers from a nearby rescue station were tending to Bridges within minutes. But he was pronounced dead shortly after arrival at Mary Washington Hospital.
Witnesses reporting seeing two people in a white van with a ladder rack leaving the area immediately after the shooting.
"It was like it happened and the light changed," said Bruce Bingham, a mechanic at the Mobil station across the street who heard a shot and then saw a white van drive through the intersection and onto northbound I-95.
A similar vehicle description was given in at least one of the Montgomery County, Md., shootings.
Police in the area stopped dozens of vans throughout the day. Some of the stops initially appeared promising; none turned out to be.
"It's kind of like looking for a needle in a haystack," a Stafford County detective said. "Everywhere you look, there's a white van."
Smith and others have emphasized that the white van may not have been involved in the shooting and have been encouraging the public to come forth with any other information.
Still, Smith told a large media contingent at a press briefing last night, "Anyone with a white van is probably going to be stopped and questioned."
Smith repeatedly deflected questions about the investigation during news briefings yesterday, saying he would not discuss any evidence associated with the latest slaying.
Spotsylvania Sheriff Ron Knight said the spree of shootings has wearied his and other departments, but he said investigators would continue working long hours as long as need be.
He said his deputies have been working 16-hour shifts since the Michaels shooting. Even those who were supposed to be on leave will instead be on duty.
Though Spotsylvania is the only Fredericksburg-area locality to be hit by the sniper, surrounding law enforcement agencies say they're feeling the pinch as well.
Smith said the Stafford Sheriff's Office and the Fredericksburg Police Department have offered to handle calls in Spotsylvania if the load becomes too much. Both agencies say they are getting numerous reports from the public about the shootings.
Even the more rural counties are being affected. Caroline County Sheriff Homer Johnson said his office got more than 100 calls after yesterday's shooting, more than five times the normal.
Most of the calls came from people reporting white vans in the county.
"We probably heard about every white van that was in the county yesterday," Caroline sheriff's Capt. Scott Moser said. "But I'm glad people are calling. Maybe sooner or later we'll come across the right one."
One call forwarded to investigators working the sniper case came from a woman who said she was in the Michaels parking lot on Oct. 4 around the time of the shooting.
She described a "strange-looking" white man in a white van and made a drawing for police.
Tensions in the greater Washington region began rising Oct. 2 and 3, when five people were killed in Montgomery County, Md., over a 17-hour period. The night of Oct. 3, a 72-year-old man was killed on a Washington street corner.
The sniper then struck near Spotsylvania Mall Oct. 4 and outside a middle school in Bowie, Md., Monday.
On Wednesday night, he shot and killed a 53-year-old Maryland man, Dean Harold Meyers, at a Sunoco station near Manassas.
Schools in the area locked their doors and postponed football games yesterday in the wake of the shooting. Mary Washington Hospital canceled an open house scheduled for the weekend.
Adding to the fear is the realization that police were almost on top of today's shooter, but he still managed to get away.
Authorities can't say where the sniper will strike next. They know only that he's not going to stop.
"We can't catch this person fast enough," said Spotsylvania Supervisor Benjamin Pitts, who is a detective with the Fredericksburg Police Department. "Spotsylvania County will do whatever it can to provide the resources necessary to apprehend this animal. It's just a tragedy that people can't live their lives normally."
Sheriff Knight agreed:
"We're doing everything we can. Just be careful. You can't stop living because of this."
