Suspect held in Interstate 80 sniping incidents

Scott Sonner

Tuesday, Jan. 5, 1999 | 10:49 a.m.

RENO, Nev. -- A "goofball" who said he opened fire on motorists traveling along busy Interstate-80 west of Reno so he could rob them after they crashed was arrested following a routine traffic stop in Las Vegas, investigators said.

"The motive of the crime as reported to our office was to shoot people in their cars, have them crash, then run to the crash site and rob them," Washoe County Sheriff Richard Kirkland said today.

"He was frustrated because people would drive on a ways. We're not talking about a rocket ship commander," he said at a news conference.

The man, identified as Christopher Merritt, 20, of Mankato, Minn., was arrested Monday night by a Nevada Highway Patrol trooper and a Las Vegas Metro Police officer working a joint drug interdiction. He was pulled over for having a burned out taillight and a check showed the truck had been stolen from Fairfax, Mo., Kirkland said.

Merritt was being returned to Reno to face felony counts of attempted murder, firing into a vehicle, battery with a deadly weapon and assault with a deadly weapon.

The sheriff said no link had been established between Monday's shootings and the Dec. 27 discovery of 33 estray horses east of Reno, but nothing was being ruled out.

"You've got a goofball shooting at people and an equally goofball shooting at horses so obviously it would lead you to ask if there is some connection there. We don't know."

The horses were shot to death with a high-powered rifle near Lockwood, Nev., about 5 miles east of the Reno-Sparks area, some within a mile of Interstate 80.

The shots fired at traffic on Monday were on the opposite side of town, as Interstate 80 leaves Reno on its way over the Sierra.

Officers had been concentrating their sniper search on an area around the Mogul exit about 7 miles east of the California border.

Kirkland said the arresting officers in Las Vegas found a rifle and a shotgun in the truck and the man made statements that connected him to Monday morning's shootings in which one man was shot in the chest and four vehicles were hit. The highway was closed for five hours.

The man who was shot in the chest was able to drive to a fire station a few miles away. At least two other people were injured by flying glass.

"The window kind of exploded. I heard a loud pop, glass shattered in my face," said Carl Ruggiero, a Reno dentist. "I thought I got hit by a rock from a truck."

In two cases, bullets traveled "right through the center of the windshield between the seats," Towery said.

Children at three area schools were kept indoors and afternoon kindergarten was canceled at one elementary.