By ,
Published January 14, 2015
Two Virginia teenagers have been charged with several felonies in connection with a shooting spree along Interstate 64.
Authorities believe a pair of troublemaking teens were behind a series of random shootings in an area where memories of the Washington-area sniper shootings six years ago are still fresh.
One of the suspects, Slade Allen Woodson, 19, of Afton, Va., was taken into custody Friday morning. The other has been identified only as a 16-year-old boy from Crozet, Va.
They each face 10 felony counts that include malicious wounding and maliciously shooting at an occupied vehicle.
"We've taken some mighty big steps toward the resolution of this," Flaherty said at a news conference Friday. "Everyone can, I think, rest compared to the state that we were in overnight."
Investigators said they now believe the shootings that slightly injured two drivers were part of a long night of random gunfire in which the pair also shot at a credit union and a residence.
Woodson was charged in the shootings at the home and the credit union, as well as shootings along the Interstate 64 highway. He and the other teen were charged with two felony counts of malicious wounding, one count of attempted malicious wounding, two counts of the use of a firearm in a felony and five counts of maliciously shooting at an occupied vehicle.
State and county police searched Yonder Hill Farm near Crozet in Albemarle County just before 5 a.m. Friday. Another person confronted them with a handgun and was shot by a county law enforcement officer, police said. Woodson was taken into custody, and the man was taken to a hospital. It wasn't immediately clear whether the other person was the 16-year-old.
Elaine Paley, who lives on a hill overlooking the horse and cattle farm, said she was awakened at 4:40 a.m. by a helicopter flying with spotlights shining on the farm and surrounding woods.
The highway shootings put motorists and police on edge in a region where memories of the deadly Beltway snipers six years ago still haven't faded. Ten people were killed and three wounded during the 2002 attacks in Maryland, the District of Columbia and northern Virginia.
Police said shots were fired at a Dupont Community Credit Union in Waynesboro, Va., between midnight and 2 a.m. Thursday — the same time police were getting reports of someone shooting at vehicles on I-64 between Waynesboro and Charlottesville.
Bullets struck a window and part of the bank building, as well as a van parked in the lot. No one was injured.
Surveillance video showed a light-colored 1970s AMC Gremlin with a dark horizontal stripe.
Police also got a call at 12:30 a.m. about shots fired in a Waynesboro neighborhood, and later discovered a bullet hole in a house along with a shell casing. A witness mentioned seeing a car that looked similar to the Gremlin — running models of which are extremely rare.
Police confiscated the car late Thursday. They found it unoccupied at the Greene and Albemarle county line.
Woodson was arrested on Jan. 18, 2007, and accused of stealing two pickup trucks and setting them on fire, according to news reports and court records.
Woodson, a former member of the high school's track and field team, was later convicted of two misdemeanor counts of petit larceny and given a suspended sentence.
On two MySpace pages created under his name, his occupations are listed as "mechanic, sorta" and "horse farm." He is described as "just a country boy who keeps gettin his heart broken!!! Ive got my heart broken twice in less then a year... i dunno wat to do.... keep gettin my heart broke or stop caring!!! and i dont wanna stop caring..."
No one was seriously hurt in the gunfire, which shut down a 20-mile stretch of I-64 overnight Wednesday into Thursday. Two people were treated and released at the hospital for very minor injuries.
At least six vehicles — four of them known to be occupied — were pelted by bullets along an 11-mile stretch of the freeway overnight Wednesday, beginning shortly before the first call came in about 12:10 a.m.
Flaherty said two cars, a van and a tractor-trailer traveling westbound were struck by bullets. An unoccupied parked Virginia Department of Transportation truck also was found riddled with bullet holes near an exit for I-64 along Route 250, and police received reports that gunmen had fired at a sixth vehicle.
He downplayed the characterization of the shooters as "snipers," saying they could just be pranksters and calling the spree a "random firing."
Shots were fired at three different known locations — from an overpass near the 106-mile marker, at a westbound off-ramp near the 114-mile marker and at a Virginia Department of Transportation outpost.
I-64 was shut down between 12:10 a.m. and 6 a.m. Thursday from mile marker 96 in Augusta County to mile marker 118 in Albemarle County.
FOX News' Catherine Donaldson-Evans and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
https://www.foxnews.com/story/virginia-police-arrest-teens-linked-to-random-shootings-including-interstate