'Random' shooter remains at large

AFTON — Hit by a shotgun blast to the back as she and a friend watched the sun set off the Blue Ridge Parkway, a teenage Palmyra woman turned and raced toward the man with the weapon.

“She took flight toward the guy and picked a scrap with him,” Augusta County Sheriff Randy Fisher said Tuesday.

Bloody and screaming, the woman then ran toward a passing Chevrolet Silverado, pleading with a couple for help, the sheriff said. Her friend, a 27-year-old Charlottesville disc jockey with muscular dystrophy, lay badly wounded more than 100 feet down a mountainside.

The shooter fled and remains at large.

Those details emerged hours after shotgun fire pierced the Monday evening calm at Rock Point Overlook, roughly 10 miles from the northern entrance of the Parkway. No others were hurt. Authorities declined to identify the victims.

Mike Friend, general manager at Charlottesville radio station WNRN, identified the wounded man as disc jockey Tim Davis.

Sheriff’s deputies, state police and federal agents combed the region Tuesday seeking the shooter, whom authorities described as a white man of medium build with long, gray hair and who they said fled in what might have been a red Ford Taurus.

Authorities did not identify a suspect and said there is no apparent connection between the shooter and the victims. “There’s no indication that our victims knew the shooter whatsoever,” Fisher said.

The shooter pulled behind the pair, aimed a shotgun through the driver’s-side window and fired, hitting both in the back as they sat at the overlook, Fisher said.

After fighting the shooter, the woman climbed into the passing Silverado at about 7:40 p.m., the sheriff said. A short distance away, the couple and the woman met authorities and a rescue crew. Before driving away, the couple caught a glimpse of the shooter, the sheriff said.

Authorities are unaware of whether the suspect fled north or south, Fisher said.

Within an hour, more than two dozen officers from multiple agencies swarmed the area along the Parkway and around the overlook, where rescuers shined flashlights and called out over the steep cliff in attempts to locate Davis, who tumbled over after being struck by the blast.

“There was a ton of people,” Wintergreen Fire & Rescue Chief Curtis Sheets said. “I’ve worked on the Parkway for 10 years and never seen anything like that.”

Rescue crews used a basket and ropes to hoist the wounded man up the cliff face, Sheets said.

“It took everybody,” he said. “Law enforcement had to get involved.”

Rescuers transported Davis to Reeds Gap, where a helicopter waited to fly him to U.Va.

As helicopters buzzed around the Parkway, grounded county and state authorities raced along the dark road, stopping campers, backpackers and cars for inspection. Police dogs roamed along the road.

Along with county sheriff’s deputies, the FBI, the National Park Service, Virginia State Police and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms are investigating.

FBI Supervisory Special Agent M.A. Myers said his agents will assist the Sheriff’s Office as the need arises.

“Because we are the FBI we have the ability to cover leads and conduct investigations far outside the range of the national reserve there,” Myers said. “We can either scale up or scale down, based on what needs to be done.”

By late Tuesday, authorities had re-worked the crime scene at Rock Point, Fisher said. Authorities also started to re-interview the two witnesses and the wounded woman, the sheriff said.

Private investigator Bill Robbins, owner of Reliable Security & Investigations LLC in Ruckersville, said despite a potentially broad search, authorities need to scrutinize the crime scene.

“You don’t want to overlook the local stuff, simply because of the evidence you might gather,” Robbins said.

Suspects frequently leave behind personal items, DNA or blood samples if they come in contact with rocks or trees or face a struggle, he said.

Ridge District Ranger Kurt Speers of the National Park Service said the district covers 106 miles of the Parkway. While rangers are spread out in that area, Speers said responding to a call involves traveling over mountainous terrain. He also said depending on the time of the call, “you could have an immediate or delayed response.”

The scene on the Blue Ridge Parkway on Tuesday was quiet. U.S. Park Service personnel were stationed at various overlooks along the first 10 miles of the road. With little sign of what just happened, several people rode motorcycles and bikes along the road.

Fisher said deputies had received four tips by Tuesday afternoon about a red or maroon car, possibly a Ford Taurus. They eliminated two tips hours later. Fisher asked anyone who has information about the car, even if it seems trivial, to call the Sheriff’s Office.

“You could have been driving down the Parkway last night and saw a red car driving erratically and thought nothing of it,” Fisher said. “We would like to talk to those people to see what they saw. Who is this guy, and where is he?”

Staff Writers Megan E. Davis and Bob Stuart and Ted Strong of The (Charlottesville) Daily Progress contributed to this report.