MANASSAS, Va. — The sniper preying on the Washington area killed his seventh victim on Wednesday night, a man who was struck down outside his car at a gas station here, the police confirmed Thursday. The gunman remained at large.
“It’s a very frightening case,” said Chief Charlie Deane of Prince William County in confirming ballistic evidence that the sniper had once more needed only a single rifle shot to kill an unaware victim from afar.
In a nine-day spree of terrifying marksmanship, the sniper has slain seven people and critically wounded two, stalking his victims from 100 yards or more with a high-powered hunting or military rifle as they went about mundane daily errands.
The latest victim was identified as Dean H. Meyers, a 53-year-old civil engineer from Gaithersburg, Md., who had stopped for gas on his way home from his job here.
Meyers was shot once in the head. He crumpled to the ground by the gas pumps of the Battlefield Sunoco station just off Interstate 66, about 30 miles southwest of Washington.
“We have witnesses we think are of value,” Deane said.
This might mean relative progress in comparison to the sniper’s earlier assaults, where he eluded detection in shooting his victims from cover with no eyewitnesses coming forward. The only witness until Wednesday told the police of seeing a white cargo truck speed from one shooting scene a week ago in Montgomery County, Md.
The sniper began enlarging his range of fire after he killed his first six victims last week. They were unaware of being stalked as they pursued simple activities — mowing a lawn, cleaning a car, taking a constitutional — within a five-mile circle of the suburbs of Montgomery County and northern Washington.
On Friday, the gunman ranged 50 miles south to Fredericksburg, Va., and critically wounded a woman shopper outside her car. On Monday, he ventured eastward to Bowie, Md., took aim from 150 yards in the woods, and critically wounded a 13-year-old boy at the threshold of his school.
The shooting here, in a western suburban county that only Wednesday began relaxing its restrictions on outdoor school activities, compounded general fear and anger that the sniper seems to be treating the commuter belt as a kind of grotesque preserve for hunting innocent strangers.
The police, acting in a coordinated federal, state and local manhunt, once more pleaded for tips from the public. Thousands called in, jamming the phone lines.