Killer goes back to old haunt for latest strike

A blue and white commuter bus with its hazard-warning lights still flashing marked the scene yesterday of what police were treating as the latest deadly strike by the Washington area sniper.

Conrad Johnson, 35, who drove for the Montgomery County's Ride On service, had been preparing to start work just before 6am when he was felled by a single shot.

While there was no ballistic evidence available to confirm it was the work of the sniper, police said they were treating it as such until they learnt otherwise. "We remain concerned about the safety of all the people in our region," Charles Moose, the county's police chief, said.

Mr Moose pointedly refused to offer a message to the gunman. The officer had used previous press briefings to continue a somewhat cryptic dialogue, urging the sniper on Monday to get back in touch because police had been unable to hear him properly ­ apparently during one of two telephone calls he made to a sniper hotline.

It was reported yesterday that during one of those calls he repeated the comment he had previously scrawled on a tarot card left at the scene of an earlier shooting, saying: "I am God."

Yesterday, officers searched a small, wooded park no more than 50 yards from the scene of the killing. The search suggested the gunman had been hiding in the woods and had a clear shot at Mr Johnson standing on the steps of his idling bus.

"You would have to know this area to know about that park and that the buses park here," said Debra Johnson, 44, a postal worker who was on duty at the nearby Aspen Hill depot when the gunman struck. "He timed it perfectly."

Kim Roberts, a carpenter who had served with the US military, said he had heard the shot as he was getting ready for work. "It wasn't a pop like a handgun. If it was a gun, it was a high-powered weapon," he said.