 | | | | | | | | | | |  |  | | | | Top Stories: W.Va. Police Release Sketch of Shootings Suspect">Archive of stories pre April 2007 | | | | | | | 
Archive of stories pre April 2007 | News submitted by: MIB
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (Reuters) - Authorities hunting a possible serial sniper in West Virginia released the sketch of a suspect seen in a pickup truck near convenience stores where two people were gunned down last week, police said on Friday.
The sketch depicts a white man with dark hair and a goatee, and was based on accounts from witnesses at gas station convenience stores outside Charleston where Jeanie Patton, 31, and Okey Meadows, 26, were killed on Aug. 14
Investigators hope the sketch will prompt phone calls from members of the public who can identify the man.
The killings, in which each victim was shot once at night in the head or neck, have evoked comparisons with last year's Washington sniper shootings that left 10 people dead and three wounded before two men were arrested.
Federal agents involved in the Washington sniper case have joined a West Virginia emergency law enforcement task force.
Release of the sketch followed ballistic test results that linked the Patton and Meadows shootings to a third victim, 44-year-old Gary Carrier, who was killed at a convenience store in the city of Charleston on Aug. 10.
Each of the three was killed at night by a single bullet from a .22 caliber rifle, said police, who have spent days searching for a white man seen driving a dark pickup truck.
"We've got information back that does positively link all three bullets together to the same weapon," Charleston Police Chief Jerry Pauley said at a news conference late on Thursday before the sketch was released.
"This leads us in a direction the task force can now move," he added.
Authorities have been exploring possible drug links to the Patton and Meadows cases since speaking to local residents, including a relative of one of the victims.
But Pauley said there was nothing to suggest that Carrier's murder was drug-related.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=3321764
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