Ohio Highway Shooter Pleads Guilty

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

Charles A. McCoy Jr., 29, had admitted firing the shots over five months in 2003 and 2004 but had pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to murder and 23 other counts. His first trial ended in a mistrial in May.

McCoy cried as he began to read a statement apologizing to victims, and his lawyer had to finish 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 shootings. As buildings and more vehicles were struck, some frightened commuters changed their routes to avoid the area of Interstate 270 where Knisley had been shot.

Knisley’s son, Brent, told McCoy during the sentencing phase: “We hate what you did to my mother and to all of us. I could stand here for hours listing all the things you did to my father, my wife, my brother, all of her friends and especially my two children, but you couldn’t possibly understand because you didn’t know her.”

McCoy’s first trial, which ended with the jury unable to decide whether he was insane, centered on whether McCoy’s delusions kept him from knowing that the shootings were wrong.

The prosecution’s psychiatrist said McCoy showed he knew his actions were wrong by the steps he took to avoid capture, such as moving the shootings to other counties when publicity focused on I-270.

McCoy was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia at age 21 after his parents found him looking for cameras in the walls of their home. McCoy’s parents said they hoped their son could get treatment in prison.

“I would like to apologize to the community,” said his mother, Ardith McCoy. “This was not our son who did this. Our son was a very sweet, mild-mannered person.”