REPORT: Father Helps Identify Ohio Sniper Suspect

Tuesday, March 16, 2004
(1:36 PM ET)
Reuters

A warrant for McCoy charging him with felonious assault said he is mentally unstable, armed and dangerous.

Police on March 15, 2004 identified a suspect in the two dozen random, sniper-style attacks along central Ohio highways and asked for the public's help in apprehending him. The suspect, Charles McCoy, Jr., pictured in this photograph released by police on March 15, was described as white, 28 years old, and the owner of a dark green Chevrolet Geo Metro with a black hood, the Franklin County Sheriff's Office said. Police would not say how investigators identified McCoy as a suspect, but said he should be considered "armed and dangerous."

Image Credit: Handout to Reuters -- Franklin County Sheriff's Department

COLUMBUS, Oh. -- Reuters
Police identified the suspect in a string of two dozen sniper-style shootings in central Ohio with the help of his father, who turned over a gun used in the shootings, a published report said on Tuesday.

One of two handguns belonging to the suspect, Charles McCoy, Jr., 28, matched ballistics tests done on nine bullets from the serial shootings, the Columbus Dispatch newspaper reported. The article quoted unnamed sources.

McCoy is believed to have bought another gun, Franklin County Sheriff's Department chief deputy Steve Martin said on Monday. He released a photograph and a description of the suspect and his car.

McCoy's mother described him in a missing person's report filed before he was named a suspect in the shooting as suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, the newspaper reported.

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Dan