Police searching link to sniper shootings

BALTIMORE -- Authorities are investigating whether the suspects in the Washington-area sniper attacks may have shot and wounded two people a month earlier in the town where the ex-wife of one suspect lives.\nIn one of the shootings, Paul LaRuffa was shot six times at close range after closing his restaurant on Sept. 5. Prince George's County police Capt. Andy Ellis said Sunday that the department is looking into whether the shooting in the town of Clinton is related to the sniper case.\nIn the other shooting, a liquor store clerk was shot and robbed as he locked the Clinton store where he works on Sept. 15, said police Cpl. Diane Richardson.\nClinton, southeast of Baltimore, is the home of John Allen Muhammad's ex-wife Mildred.\nA Sony laptop computer was stolen from LaRuffa, along with more than $3,000 in receipts. A Sony laptop was found in Muhammad's car when he and John Lee Malvo were arrested Oct. 24 at a rest stop.\nLaRuffa, 55, said Sunday he wanted to know if the laptop was his.\n"I wish somebody would tell me 'yes, it's yours, no, it's not yours,' and that's what's frustrating about it," LaRuffa said.\nHe said he was shot with a .22-caliber weapon. Muhammad and Malvo have also been charged in a Montgomery, Ala., liquor store shooting. A .22-caliber handgun was found near the spot where a clerk was killed and another person was wounded.\n"I don't know if it's linked," LaRuffa said. "Yes, there are coincidences. I don't know."\nIn the Sept. 15 shooting, an attacker fired several shots from a small-caliber gun, striking the unidentified victim once in the abdomen, Richardson said. The man then fled with the man's wallet. The victim has recovered.\nRichardson said the task force was investigating the Sept. 15 case because of the proximity to the earlier restaurant shooting and because Clinton is the home of Muhammad's ex-wife. She did not know if ballistic evidence linked the incident to any of the other crimes.\nMuhammad, 41, and Malvo, 17, also face state and federal counts in the shootings in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C, that left 10 people dead.\nThose shootings involved a single gunshot fired from a .223-caliber Bushmaster rifle.\nThe suspects also have been charged in the shooting of a woman in Louisiana.\nOn Friday, Montgomery County police linked a Sept. 14 shooting in front of a beer and wine store in Silver Spring to the sniper suspects. The store clerk, 22-year-old Rupinder Oberoi, survived.\nA court hearing was scheduled Monday to determine whether Malvo should be detained on federal juvenile charges related to the sniper attacks.\nLast week, a federal judge refused to allow open access to the hearing, saying public interest in the shootings does not outweigh Malvo's right to be shielded from scrutiny as a juvenile.