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Reward offered for arrest of I-96 shootings suspect

October 29, 2012
	<p>A Michigan State Police sketch identifies a person of interest behind a series of shootings along I-96 and M-52. Provided by the Ingham County Sheriff&#8217;s Office.</p>

A Michigan State Police sketch identifies a person of interest behind a series of shootings along I-96 and M-52. Provided by the Ingham County Sheriff’s Office.

Federal investigators now are offering a $102,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the suspect involved in 25 shootings across Ingham, Oakland, Shiawassee and Livingston counties, police announced Monday.

Ingham County Sheriff Gene Wriggelsworth said the two shootings that occurred on I-96 Saturday were the first incidents to take place on the actual highway.

The shootings began on Oct. 16, and at least 22 occurred through Oct. 18. The next two shootings took place between 11:40 a.m. and 12:20 p.m. on Oct. 27.

Police have received more than 600 tips overall, and more than 100 investigators are working on the case, according to a press release from the Ingham County Sheriff’s Office.

Although police identified two vehicles of interest — either a dark 1998 Oldsmobile Alero or a 1998 Toyota Camry — and a sketch of a suspect for the shootings from Oct. 16-18, Wriggelsworth said police do not have a vehicle description for the shootings Saturday.

Wriggelsworth also said police are unsure if the suspect is working alone, or if he was in a vehicle on the expressway or if he was standing on an overpass.

Michigan State Police were in Brighton, Mich., this morning investigating an incident in which a woman’s windshield shattered from what she thought was a bullet at the I-96 and U.S. Route 23 corridors.

But police confirmed the woman’s shattered windshield was not caused by a bullet, and the incident was not connected to a series of highway shootings that have occurred along the I-96 and M-52 highways, WLNS-TV reported.

James Madison freshman Luke Dzwonkowski was driving south along I-96 with his brother, State News design editor Drew Dzwonkowski, around 5 p.m. Saturday and drove past police searching areas around the highway, he said.

“Heading north on the other side of the road, there were no cars at all, and about every half-mile there was a cop and a dog,” Luke Dzwonkowski said. “For literally five miles of road, there were no cars on the north side.”

He said there were at least three miles of cars backed up along the north side of the highway Saturday after the shootings, and police appeared to be funneling cars off of the highway.

There was so much traffic on the highway heading north, Dzwonkowski said he thought there was a “big disaster.”
“Toward the end of the backup, people waiting there saw there (was) no end in sight; there were people driving south on the north side of the road,” he said. “It was surreal.”

Luke Dzwonkowski said he was not aware of the shootings while he was driving.

Once he was off the highway, he and his brother saw that police were investigating shootings, he said.

“It is kind of a scary idea that the guy is still out there,” Luke Dzwonkowski said, adding that he and his brother drove along I-96 when they came back to MSU.

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