The One Eyed Wonder
The One Eyed Wonder
The man came out of surgery around midnight after about three hours of surgery and was in critical condition, said hospital spokeswoman Pam Lepley. She said his injuries were still life threatening and wouldn’t speculate on whether he would recover.
Police told NBC News that the victim was struck in the abdomen with a single bullet, as were the confirmed victims of the capital sniper. Hanover County Sheriff Stuart Cook told reporters that that the man was traveling through the area with his wife, who was not injured.
Cook said investigators had very little to go on so far. Not witnesses reported seeing the shooter, police said.
“The best evidence we have right now from the few witnesses we have — they believe the shot came from a wooded tree line” behind the restaurant and other adjacent businesses, Ashland Police Chief Frederic Pleasants said.
Ashland is about 90 miles south of Washington and about 35 miles south of Fredericksburg, where two previous shootings this month were linked to the sniper.
UNCLEAR IF LINKED TO OTHER CASES
A police statement said several witnesses reported hearing a single shot from woods behind the restaurant, which is in Ashland, near Richmond. But while the shooting could be characterized as the work of a sniper and police responded in force, they stressed that for now, they had no specific reason to believe the shooter was the same gunman who has killed nine people and wounded two others in Washington and its suburbs since Oct. 2.
Likewise, although roadblocks were set up along major roads heading north to Washington and police searched for a white van with a ladder rack, they said they were doing so as part of a planned procedure developed in light of the sniper shootings, not because a white van had been sighted at the scene, as in some of the previous shootings.