Police Make a Plea in Sniper Case

Montgomery County Police Chief Charles Moose made a cryptic plea Sunday night, asking for a person who left a message at an Ashland, Virginia crime scene to call police. The request followed a shooting there on Saturday night that left one man critically injured. Authorities are investigating possible links between that incident and the work of a sniper who has claimed 9 lives in the Washington, D.C. area.

The 37-year-old victim of Saturday's shooting was fighting for his life on Sunday night. His wife says that she and her husband were walking across a parking lot after having dinner when a shot rang out. Though she initially thought it was a car backfiring, she realized it was a gunshot when her husband collapsed. He had been hit in the abdomen.

Police believe the shooter fired from a wooded area behind the restaurant and parking lot, but there was little information to be found on who was responsible. Police once again blocked off major highways in the area, hoping to catch the shooter as he or she fled, but authorities were unable to round up any suspects.

The victim underwent three hours of surgery following the shooting and was back in surgery on Monday night. Doctors were unable to recover bullet fragments in the first operation, which could be used by forensics investigators to determine the kind of gun that fired them.

Col. Stuart Cook, the sheriff of Hanover County, Virginia, said authorities are acting as if the shooting is connected with the others. If the attack is indeed linked to the sniper, it would be the shooter's first attack since last Monday and the first on a weekend.