In Ohio, a Fear That Hits Home

"I've changed my travel patterns," she admits. "I don't drive 270 every day. If I see someone walking on the freeway and they don't have a gas can, I think about that. What if he pulls a gun?"

"We travel country roads a lot," says Therese. "We have friends who live in Circleville, on 270, and London and Mount Sterling. I won't travel those roads because if I was the only one at that time on that road, and something happened, would there be anyone to help me?"

Madeline, 10, is fingering a video, twirling it in her hands: "How the Grinch Stole Christmas."

"I was okay during hunting season," Therese says, "because the areas where he was at are known hunting spots."

Therese Chilton's three children are squeezed together on a couch:

"Now when I get on the bus," says Michael, "I watch out the window. I don't want to get shot."

"Mom told us to be aware of our surroundings," says Christina.

"I was scared," Madeline says. "I don't want to die."

"Nobody," says Michael, "wants to die."

Shooting Back?

On Nov. 17, a bullet struck a UPS truck. Police traced the bullet to the shooter's gun without releasing information on exactly where the shooting took place.

"He's a crazy guy. Got some mental problems. He's mad at authority," Brian Baucum, 38, a driver for the Central Beverage Group, was saying the other morning, sitting in the driver's seat of his truck near City Hall in Grove City.

The state of Ohio has passed a law that goes into effect in April granting citizens the right to carry weapons. Baucum figures the law just might serve to bring the shooter down. "Somebody's gonna hurt him. With them passing the concealed-weapons law, someone will shoot him. If I saw him, I'd run him off the road."

Baucum travels the shooter's terrain daily. "I go basically 270, down 71 South, take the Orient exit. Then I'm down there on Brown Road, where he shot at a house. I'm a big target," he said, referring to his long truck. "He's got a lot to shoot at."

Home to a Bullet Hole

Donald Fitch is a 38-year-old vet with a big tiger tattoo on his chest. "U.S. Army, 82nd Airborne," he says. He's reclining in a chair in his small home here in Obetz, a cigarette dangling from his lips. He's got a canary that is whistling in its cage. And he's got a bullet hole in his living room.