Highway shooter sentenced

COLUMBUS, Ohio – A mentally ill man pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and 10 other charges Tuesday in a series of Ohio highway shootings and was sentenced to 27 years in prison.

Charles McCoy Jr., 29, had admitted firing the shots over five months in 2003 and 2004 but pleaded innocent by reason of insanity to murder and 23 other counts. His death penalty trial ended in a mistrial.

McCoy cried as he began to read a statement apologizing to victims, and his attorney took over reading it.

“I was ashamed by my disease and I didn’t want to admit I was mentally ill,” the statement read. “I never knew or thought that by not taking my medicine, I would be able to do these things.”

McCoy, of Columbus, told psychiatrists that he threw wood and bags of concrete mix off highway overpasses and shot at cars to quiet voices in his head that called him a “wimp.”

Psychiatrists for both sides agreed that McCoy had severe delusions that TV programs and commercials were speaking directly to him and mocking him. Toward the end of the shootings, he believed firing from overpasses would make news coverage of Michael Jackson stop.

The only person hit by a bullet, Gail Knisley, 62, was killed Nov. 25, 2003, while a friend was driving her to a doctor’s appointment. Her death alerted authorities to earlier linked shootings. As buildings and more vehicles were struck, some frightened commuters changed their routes to avoid the area of Interstate 270 where Knisley died. About 77,000 vehicles daily travel the outerbelt encircling Columbus.