Shooting toll rises to 14; car, house hit

The house shooting expands the investigation area east by two miles.
COLUMBUS (AP) -- Two more shootings have occurred along an interstate highway since a woman was killed on the freeway last month, bringing the number of cases under investigation to 14, authorities said Friday.
A car and a house were hit in the latest shootings, Franklin County sheriff's Chief Deputy Steve Martin said. No one was injured.
"Investigators now know the person or persons has consciously decided to continue with the same activity which unfortunately resulted in the death of [Gail] Knisley," Martin said.
On Sunday morning, a woman heard a thud as she drove on Interstate 270 and noticed a bullet hole when she got home, Martin said. She notified police Tuesday.
In the other shooting, Emma Fader found a bullet hole in the front of her one-bedroom house about a quarter-mile from the highway and a bullet on her living room floor, an Obetz police report said. Fader, 56, made the discovery Monday afternoon after a weekend away, she said.
The bullet splintered solid oak paneling about a foot above a parakeet's cage and about four feet from the couch where her son Donald Fitch sleeps.
Fader and Fitch joked with reporters at their home Friday about how they weren't moving their furniture or changing their routine but both acknowledged the shooting has them spooked.
"I hope this is the end of it," Fitch said. "It's been nerve-racking."
While authorities haven't commented on the type of weapon used, Fitch said a police officer from suburban Obetz told him the shot must have come from a high-powered rifle.
"A 12-gauge or a handgun wouldn't have made it," Fitch said.
Authorities believe the shootings are the first since Nov. 25, when Gail Knisley, 62, was killed as she was being driven to a doctor's appointment. She was the only person hit in the shootings.
The shootings began in May but have happened mainly in the past two months, raising fears that a sniper may be stalking the area. The shootings took place near an interchange of two highways that see 77,000 vehicles a day on average.
The bullet from the house came from the same gun as four other shootings that have been definitively linked by ballistics tests, including one at a school, Martin said. Although the tests could not link the rest of the shootings, investigators believe they all are connected.
The house shooting expands the investigation area east by two miles, with the police now examining a 7-mile section of the freeway.
Investigators from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were to be at the house today to try to determine the bullet's path, Fitch said.
Juveniles reported
Authorities say they have gotten more than 1,000 tips from the public on the shootings.
In one of the shootings, an Akron couple reported that one of several juveniles on an overpass had a gun and shot a hole through a horse trailer they were towing, an Ohio State Highway Patrol report said.
Martin said investigators have not discounted the report, but there was no indication that juveniles were responsible for any of the other shootings.
A bullet from the trailer did not come from the same gun as the five connected shootings, but the report is included with the 14 because it came from the area police are investigating, Martin said.
N.G. Berrill, a psychologist who profiles killers at his New York forensic consulting firm, said he was not surprised the shootings continued after Knisley's death.
"It may be sort of an inadvertent thing that someone died," he said. "It's probably the terror that he's enjoying, but the death is not a deterrent."
Berrill said the shooter could eventually seek a dialogue with police or the media.
"He may want to verbalize his philosophy or ask the community for money," Berrill said.
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