McCARLEY — A carjacker fired a shot at the feet of a Carroll County man who was returning from a grocery shopping trip Saturday with his wife.
The suspect escaped in the car, and an all-points bulletin has been issued for him, Sheriff Jerry Carver said.
The couple, whom Carver declined to name, was just returning to their home on McCarley Road after shopping for groceries and filling up with gas at about 10:30 Saturday morning, the sheriff said.
The carjacker was wearing a Halloween mask similar to the one worn by the professional wrestler Sting and a camouflage shirt and khaki pants when he approached with a .30-30 rifle pointed at the man and demanded the keys to the car, the sheriff said.
“He had just gotten out of the car and given the keys to his wife. He didn’t understand what (the gunman) had said at first, and asked him to repeat it. (The gunman) then shot near his feet. He yelled at his wife to give him the keys, and she threw them across the front of the car. He took off in it and headed west toward Carrollton,” Carver said.
“We think he may have turned off through the County Road 77 cutoff. There are a bunch of different ways you can go from there.
“Two of our deputies were coming out of North Carrollton and didn’t meet him that way, so we think he must have turned off,” he said.
The stolen car is a white, 2000-model Mercury Grand Marquis with a handicapped tag, Carver said.
He said his deputies rode over every back road in the area and talked to people to see if anyone had seen anything but found nothing.
“We put out an all-points bulletin statewide for the man,” he said.
“He seemed to come out of nowhere. We don’t know how he happened to pick that area. Hopefully we will pick him up and find out what he had on his mind,” Carver said.
Besides the car theft, there were also some damaged mailboxes at Lake Traderhorn, and a pet dog was shot earlier that morning, Carver said. He said he didn’t know if there is a connection between the incidents.
