Serial Sniper
What happened to the Colorado serial sniper? (LONG)
This happened a little over a year ago in Northern Colorado and hasn't (to my knowledge) been written about before. It's a bit soon after the fact, but it slipped off the radar and I though it needed a post! For context, this area of Colorado is about 50 miles from Denver and only 30 from the Wyoming border.
On April 22, 2015 a woman named Cori Romero (20 yrs) was driving south on Interstate 25 at Harmony Road on the outskirts of Fort Collins, Colorado. This is an area between suburbia (big box stories, strip malls) and rural small towns. As she was driving the driver's side window suddenly smashed and blood poured from her neck. Not fully realizing that she had been shot, Romero pulled over and called 911. She survived, but two others would not be so lucky.
On May 18 John Jacoby (48 yrs) set out for a bike ride on the roads of Windsor, a town about 20-30 minutes from Fort Collins proper and mere minutes (five miles) from the scene of the first shooting. Jacoby was popular and considered 'the unofficial mayor of Windsor'. At some point along his ride an unidentified person shot him twice. Law enforcement at first thought it was a vehicular accident when they responded, and then considered a road rage encounter. This is when they began to connect the shooting of Romero to the death of Jacoby. In all of these cases LE has not released any ballistic information about the gun used in the crimes, but Windsor police did announce on May 28 that they had evidence linking the cases of Romero and Jacoby. A task force consisting of Windsor police, the FBI, the Weld and Larimer county sheriff’s offices and prosecutors was formed.
On June 3 William Connole (65 yrs) was discovered lying on the sidewalk on the corner of East First Street and St. Louis Ave. in Loveland. Loveland is 30 minutes from Fort Collins and directly abuts Windsor. The shootings were moving south. Responders thought that it was a hit-and-run, but then spotted a 'casing' lying on the ground by Connole. He had been shot in the evening between 10 and 11 pm in the middle of town. The task force released a picture of a suspicious truck seen in the area.
On the same day as the murder of Connole and two miles from the scene an unidentified victim was shot at but not hit. There's not that much information on this one, an I can find no explanation for why this person is not identified. However, LE connected the 1970s pickup to this shooting as well.
During this time there were a lot of unexplained window shatterings along the I-25 corridor through the area. In April, around the time Romero was shot, several drivers in the Loveland/Windsor/south Fort Collins area has windows that suddenly shattered as if struck a bullet. One man hearing a 'pop' before his rear window smashed. This even happened to a Jefferson county jail transport van driving along I-25 near Mead. Although LE has never fully tied these shatterings to the serial shooter but have said that they are caused by 'some sort of projectile designed to break glass'.
And that's where the saga ends, for now. The task force has been remarkably close-mouthed about the case, to the point where the daughter of William Connole complained to the media that they were not communicating with the family. They probably did this to avoid causing a panic, and the upshot is that this case is already pretty obscure, despite being fairly recent. They are probably totally stuck and will never find the culprit (random attacks are notoriously hard to solve) OR have someone in their sights but cannot prove it. Apparently they have interviewed 500 people and ruled out 10 persons of interest and raised the reward to 50k, which doesn't bode well. I, for one, am skeptical that this shooter just upped and stopped his/her spree. It reminds me of the case of Thomas Lee Dillion from the '80s: random and yet pathological, following a logic and a motive only the killer can understand. Could the perpetrator have gotten nervous from all the police attention and stopped, or been arrested for something else? Does anyone on this sub know of any other unsolved random shootings around the same time, especially if they're along I-25 north or going south? We'll never know anything about the case until LE chooses to release information, or there are more shootings.
Some random extra links:
Police said yesterday's murder at a petrol station in Fredericksburg, Virginia, 30 miles south of the US capital, was 'similar' to other shootings by the gunman stalking the area.
Officers were searching for a white Chevrolet Astro-type van, with a ladder on top, police said. Witnesses saw two people inside the vehicle.
A white van has been spotted near the scene of two earlier shootings.
As in other attacks, the victim was killed in a public place with a single shot.
The victim, who has not been named, was shot while putting petrol in his car.
Three victims of the sniper were killed as they filled their vehicles at petrol stations.
Many drivers in the Washington area now crouch down when they visit petrol stations to avoid becoming potential targets.
Montgomery County Police Chief Charles Moose said the latest attack 'looks similar' to previous shootings linked to the sniper.
Sheriff Ronald Knight said a police officer was only 50 meters from the victim of the attack, and would probably have been in view of the killer.
'Obviously we are dealing with an individual that is extremely violent and does not care,' he said.
Eight people have been killed and two injured by the sniper who has been terrorising the Washington suburbs since last week.
Investigators said the attacker apparently picked victims at random and fired from a distance with a high-powered hunting or military-style rifle.
The youngest victim, a 13-year-old boy who was shot as his aunt dropped him off at school on Monday, remains in a critical, but stable condition.
Investigators found a tarot card inscribed with the message, 'Dear Policeman: I am God' beside a spent bullet casing about 150 yards from where the boy was shot.
Science coldplay. There are no known witnesses of the sniper.
Police are trawling through video surveillance tapes from the shooting scenes to look for similarities.