Thursday, March 18, 2004 | 11:10 a.m.
The man suspected in two dozen sniper shootings in Ohio could be leaving Las Vegas as soon as Friday.
Charles A. McCoy Jr., 28, is scheduled to appear in a Clark County Justice Court Friday morning for an extradition hearing, court officials said.
McCoy will not fight extradition and wants to return to Ohio "at the government's earliest possible convenience," his lawyer, Andrew Haney, said in a written statement.
McCoy was booked into the Clark County Detention Center about 3 p.m. Wednesday after being interviewed at the Las Vegas office of the FBI by Ohio police detectives and an Ohio-based agent for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
The Ohio law enforcement officers flew in to Las Vegas Wednesday after McCoy was apprehended by Metro Police about 2:45 a.m. Wednesday at a Budget Suites motel on Industrial Road near the Stardust.
McCoy is scheduled to appear before Justice of the Peace Doug Smith at 7:30 a.m. Friday.
The arrest brought relief to Ohio residents who have been living in fear since the 24 shootings began in the Columbus area last year. The gunfire pierced homes and a school, dented school buses, flattened tires and shattered windshields, killing one person.
"Once he started hitting random other places, we felt like there was nowhere safe to go," said Aimee Wagner, 31, a chemistry professor who often travels Interstate 270 to teaching jobs in the Columbus area.
For the first time in months, motorists driving around Columbus' outer suburbs aren't scrutinizing every overpass and checking their rearview mirror for a possible sniper.
"I'm so very glad it's over," said motorist Jack Ward. "I spent 23 years as a military policeman and I'm always aware of my surroundings. In a word, I'm vigilant."
Around the corner from an elementary school where a window was shattered by a bullet Nov. 11, residents were comforted by news of the arrest.
Debbie Hackett, whose house overlooks hundreds of acres of farm fields, said she was constantly on her guard. "We were always looking -- across the fields, everywhere," she said.
Jan Porter, 56, whose tire was shot out on U.S. 23, said he was relieved a suspect had been arrested without bloodshed.
"I was just in fear for other people getting hurt. ... I knew eventually he would be caught one way or another," Porter said.
McCoy was arrested by Metro Police less than 36 hours after Ohio authorities named him as a suspect in the attacks. The arrest was made possible by a Las Vegas resident who spotted McCoy's green Geo Metro with Ohio plates in the parking lot of Budget Suites.
Authorities have not offered a motive for the shootings and have not said how they came to suspect McCoy. But The Columbus Dispatch, citing unidentified sources, said a relative of McCoy's contacted police to say he could be a suspect, and McCoy's father gave authorities a 9mm pistol that was matched to some of the bullet fragments recovered in the shootings.
Ellen Knowlton, special agent in charge of the Las Vegas office of the FBI, said that McCoy had been in Las Vegas for about a day and a half prior to being taken into custody.
Conrad Malsom, 60, of Las Vegas, said that he met McCoy on Tuesday afternoon in the Stardust sportsbook, when he offered McCoy a slice of pizza. Malsom said he recognized McCoy from news reports linking him to the Ohio attacks, and later did his own detective work Tuesday night to locate McCoy's car parked at the Budget Suites.
When McCoy left the casino, Malsom said he pocketed a matchbook McCoy had used, a glass, a plastic deli food container and a few sports book betting cards with McCoy's illegible scribblings on them.
Malsom said he went to a nearby Kinko's store and faxed copies of the cards to Ohio authorities and later gave the originals and the other items to the FBI.
About 11:30 p.m. Malsom drove around the area near the Stardust looking for McCoy's car, and when he spotted it he called police. When Metro officers arrived McCoy had left the motel in his car.
About 20 Metro officers and members of an FBI-led fugitive task force staked out the motel, and were rewarded at 2:45 a.m. when McCoy returned.
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