Tests link Ohio shooting to 23 other attacks

updated 4:16 p.m. ET Feb. 15, 2004

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Ballistics testing has confirmed that a shot fired at an SUV on a busy highway was the 24th in a series of highway shootings in the Columbus area, investigators said Sunday.

The bullet recovered from the sport utility vehicle that was struck Saturday on Interstate 70 matches eight others recovered during the investigation, including the one that killed a woman in November, the Franklin County Sheriff’s office said in a news release.

The other shootings in the series are linked by other factors, including location and circumstances.

No one was injured in the most recent shooting, which took place near Pataskala, about 15 miles east of Columbus.

Witnesses to Saturday’s shooting said a man standing on a highway overpass fired a handgun, hitting a Chevy Suburban in its front right fender. The witnesses described the shooter as a clean-shaven white male in his 30s with dark hair, wearing a hat and sunglasses and driving a small black sedan.

The serial shootings began in May, though most have occurred since mid-October.

Until last month, the gunfire at vehicles and buildings was scattered along or near Interstate 270, the busy highway that circles Columbus. The four shootings before Saturday, including two on Feb. 7, had moved progressively farther toward the southwest along Interstate 71.

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