Police investigate shootings at vehicles
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Police examine the vehicle in which Gail Knisley was sitting when she was shot to death.
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COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- A bullet tore through the door of a car as it traveled down a freeway, killing a woman who was on her way to a doctor's appointment.
Authorities are investigating whether the shooting was related to reports of eight other shots fired at vehicles on or near the same stretch of highway.
Franklin County Chief Sheriff's Deputy Steve Martin said authorities planned to compare bullets from the shootings, the first reported in May and the others all in the past 61/2 weeks just south of Columbus.
Gail Knisley, 62, was killed Tuesday morning when a bullet ripped through the driver's door on Interstate 270. Hours later, a pickup truck was hit on a highway that intersects I-270 nearby, deputies said.
The shootings are not being investigated as a sniper case, Martin said Wednesday.
"We're not referring to this as a sniper case because we don't see that this is in the same vein as what any of the other cases have been," Martin said. He would not elaborate on how the shootings differ.
Police do not have sufficient information to say the shootings are related, Martin said.
"Our hopes are they nail whoever's doing this," said Knisley's son, Brent Knisley, 43. "I'm still kind of numb from this thing. This only happens in Washington, D.C. and big communities."
The sheriff's department formed a task force Wednesday to investigate the shootings, Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O'Brien said.
The shootings happened in the same general area, but the reports were filed by different law-enforcement agencies and had not all been coordinated until Tuesday, Martin said. Martin would not speculate on the type of weapon used.
Knisley was the only person to be hit in any of the shootings.
"What was that? What was that?" she said before slumping forward, according to the recording of the 911 call by her friend Mary Cox, 63, who was driving.
Sheriff Jim Karnes said he doubted the bullet was fired from another vehicle.
"The trajectory is wrong. It's too low and was straight across. Maybe it was someone target practicing. We don't know," Karnes said.
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