The 2003 West Virginia sniper attacks were a series of sniper-style shootings that took place over the course of several days in August 2003, leaving three people dead in the U.S. state of West Virginia. The shootings were reminiscent of the Beltway sniper attacks that took place in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, DC in the fall of 2002. In July 2012, Shawn Lester, who had been indicted for all three murders in 2011, pleaded guilty to the second degree murder of one of the victims. The charges with respect to the other two murders were dropped as part of a plea bargain. He was sentenced to 40 years in prison.
Contents
Victims
Investigation
The victims in the West Virginia sniper shootings were killed by a single bullet from long distances as they stopped at shops or gas stations. All three victims were killed late at night by the same kind of small-caliber rifle, although police have not determined if all three were murdered with the same weapon. Ballistic tests show that a .22-caliber rifle was used to kill the second and third victims. The first bullet could not be completely checked due to damage, but appeared to have similar characteristics to the other two bullets.
Police said that they were looking for a dark-colored full-size pickup truck. Eyewitnesses believed that the driver was a large white male, but couldn't identify the suspect further due to the darkness. A man was eventually arrested who matched this profile and who had implied to witnesses that he was the sniper, but no charges related to the shootings were ever brought against him.
The police considered the possibility that the shootings were drug-related. The second two victims had drug connections, but the police were not aware of any drug connections for the first victim.
About five months earlier, while exiting a local Kroger supermarket, Randy Burgess was shot twice in the chest sniper-style and died the next day. Although no hard evidence connected this murder with the three that would follow, law enforcement did not dismiss the possibility.
In October 2003, a joint task force investigating the shootings announced a $50,000 reward for information leading to the killer. This reward would later be increased to $100,000.
A key witness who had identified a local area resident, Shawn Lester, as the shooter shortly after the murder was ignored by the Kanawha County Sheriff's Department, even though he had passed a polygraph test. At some time before the three successive murders, the witness's younger brother had stolen an automobile engine belonging to Lester that had a large quantity of methamphetamine hidden inside. Lester later confided in the witness that "he had taken something important to me, so I'll take something important to him. Keep an eye on the news". Jeannie Patton was the longtime girlfriend of the witness's younger brother.
When law enforcement failed to act on his information, the witness agreed to be a guest (anonymously) on a local Public-access television program named "West Virginia's Most Wanted", hosted by Andrew Palmer. The show aired in January 2007, and Palmer presented a theory that a gang called the Charleston Five carried out the shootings. He suggested that two victims were chosen randomly to throw suspicion off the gang for killing its intended target, Jeanie Patton.
Four years later (on March 31, 2011), Shawn Lester was arrested and charged with the murder of Jeannie Patton. The property of a woman believed to have sheltered Lester and his gang was excavated to search for the pickup truck used in at least two of the murders and for bodies of possible further victims.
Conviction
Lester was finally indicted for all three murders in August 2011. At the outset of his trial a year later, he pleaded guilty to the second-degree murder of Jeannie Patton. However, the murder charges with respect to Gary Carrier Jr. and Okey Meadows Jr. were dropped as part of the plea bargain. Lester was sentenced to 40 years in prison. Later, an additional 6 years were added to the sentence after he pleaded guilty to firearms possession charges.