Police in three US states hunt lethal sniper

By ANDREW GUMBEL in WASHINGTON

Police across three states were searching yesterday for a 33-year-old white supremacist from North Carolina who they believe may be linked to the series of random killings in the Washington area.

Robert Gene Baker III is believed to be armed with a handgun and a high-powered rifle and should be considered extremely dangerous, said a bulletin from the North Carolina office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

The bureau said he was in a white GMC truck with Maryland plates and heading south from Washington towards North Carolina.

That description fitted with clues picked up by police in Montgomery County, Maryland, where five of the seven shootings took place, and in the District of Columbia.

One of the very few witnesses to emerge so far said he saw two men in a white truck speeding away from one of the crime scenes.

Charles Moose, the police chief in Montgomery County, said he was working on the assumption that there was a driver and a marksman.

Ballistics evidence has shown that the perpetrators used high-intensity bullets of the sort used by hunters and soldiers.

Baker was described as a drug-user affiliated with various militia and white supremacist groups.

Police have mounted a manhunt across the eastern seaboard but without much hard evidence to go on.

Six people have been killed and one other badly injured since Thursday, in what police describe as almost ghost-like sniper attacks.

The perpetrators appear to have chosen their targets without discrimination, picking on people as they went about their daily business.

The latest attack, on Saturday, took place outside a crafts store in Fredericksburg, Virginia, around 80km south of Washington.

The victim was loading her car with her purchases when she was shot in the back. Her condition was not immediately made known.

Baker has not been formally named as a suspect, and the authorities have no idea who the second man might be.

Ballistics tests have linked only four of the seven shootings. The bullets from the Fredericksburg attack were still being analysed yesterday and in the two other cases the ammunition was not identifiable.

Moose said it would be "very strange" if the unidentified bullets did not match.

He said the investigation was "one of the most complex cases I've been involved with".

"It could be military, it could be a hunter, it could be someone ... who has an interest in weapons."

- INDEPENDENT