Suspected California Highway Sniper Arrested

A man who claimed he got telepathic messages from passing vehicles was arrested Thursday in a series of highway shootings at cars, trucks, buses and motor homes.

Tipped off by a woman whose pickup was hit by a bullet, police arrested Christopher Shaw Scalley in suburban Sacramento, police said.

Scalley, 48, has told authorities in the past that he has received messages from radios and appliances that tell him to leave the area, and has heard voices telepathically from passing vehicles, according to court documents filed to get a search warrant of his home.

He will be charged with at least nine felony counts of malicious and willful discharge of a firearm at an occupied vehicle, Placer County Sheriff Ed Bonner said.

Since June 27, 15 sniper attacks have been reported, mostly along a 2-mile stretch of Interstate 80 between the towns of Applegate and Clipper Gap in the Sierra Nevada foothills. One man was shot in the head Aug. 5 and is recovering. The other bullets lodged in vehicles.

Deputies have evidence linking Scalley to nine of the 15 shootings, Bonner said. The break in the case came when a woman gave police the license plate number of a red pickup from which a bullet was fired, shattering a window in her truck.