Us authorities have seized a white box truck in which a shell casing was found, a possible lead in the 17-day hunt for a sniper terrorizing Washington.
Police were alerted to the truck yesterday evening by an unidentified rental car agency near Dulles International Airport in suburban Virginia, a police spokeswoman said.
She said it was too soon to say whether the truck or the casing had anything to do with the sniper killings of nine people and wounding of two others in the Washington this month.
But police have said a white box truck was seen at several of the crime scenes in Montgomery County on October 2nd, when the shootings began.
The shell casing was being examined, she said, and findings could be available within several hours. A police task force news conference was scheduled for this afternoon.
The last killing was Monday, and the five-day break in shootings is the longest so far in the case. No suspects have been arrested yet, but yesterday police arrested a man accused of lying about what he saw at the scene of the last attack, at a parking lot outside a home improvement store in Falls Church, Virginia, west of Washington.
Mr Matthew Dowdy, 37, reported seeing a gunman with an assault rifle escaping in a beige van after shooting from only 30 yards away, police said.
A county police chief said Mr Dowdy may have been seeking a share of the $500,000 reward.