Sniper Says Rampage Was ‘Practice Run’

A 20-year-old film buff who admitted to a shooting rampage on Interstate 80 in which one man was shot and five vehicles were hit outside Reno, Nev., said that the sniper attack was intended to be a “practice run” for a cross-country murder spree. “The original purpose was just to maim, injure and kill people, because I wanted to, I guess,” Christopher Lee Merritt said in a prison interview. The former astronomy and philosophy student at a college in Mankato, Minn., was being held without bail in Reno on eight counts of attempted murder. He was arrested in Las Vegas about 12 hours after allegedly shooting one man in the chest and hitting five other vehicles on the outskirts of Reno, forcing the interstate to close for five hours. Also, sheriff’s deputies armed with search warrants raided Reno’s three TV stations and its newspaper for copies of interviews with Merritt.