Police seek ballistic link to interstate shooting

By The Daily Progress Staff

Published: March 28, 2008

A 19-year-old Afton man arrested near Crozet has been charged with two Thursday morning shootings in Waynesboro and is suspected in a spate of gunfire on Interstate 64 that wounded two people and struck five vehicles.
Virginia State Police Col. Steven Flaherty said police arrested Slade A. Woodson, 19, shortly after 5 a.m. at the Yonder Hill Farm residence. When the Albemarle County Police Tactical Squad entered the house to make the arrest and search, it was met by a person with a handgun, Flaherty said. The man was shot and airlifted to the University of Virginia Medical Center, where he was being treated even as Flaherty spoke.
“He’s been charged in connection with the Waynesboro incidents and he is a suspect in the Interstate 64 incidents,” Flaherty said at a news conference.
He said additional charges against Woodson could follow after ballistics tests are performed on the shell casings found at different locations. Woodson was linked to the shootings by his orange 1974 AMC Gremlin, the same vehicle spotted in the bank surveillance in Waynesboro.
Authorities found the vehicle abandoned on U.S. 29 north of Charlottesville, near the Greene County line. They have collected evidence from the car and are comparing that with evidence collected from shooting sites Thursday.
Woodson has been charged with two felony counts: one of destruction of property and another of shooting into an occupied vehicle.
Authorities said they continue to investigate and still believe more than one person was involved in the interstate shootings, though they declined to name a second suspect.