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By R.H. Melton
Washington Post Staff Writer
October 11, 12:15 p.m.

A man has been shot and killed at an Exxon gas station near Fredericksburg, Virginia, Gov. Mark Warner confirmed this morning.

The shooting, which occurred shortly after 9 a.m., was near Massaponox along the Route 1 corridor. Warner said he was informed of the shooting by Col. W. Gerald Massengill, superintendent of the Virginia State Police Col. W. Gerald Massengill.

It was too early to say if it was related to the string of sniper shootings that have terrorized the Washington area for the past 10 days.

Police have mounted a massive search this morning for a white Chevy Astro van with ladder racks, according to Lucy Caldwell, Virginia State police spokeswoman. Interstate 95 from Fredericksburg to the Washington area has slowed to a crawl. Police have closed off three lanes of northbound I-95, allowing only one lane of traffic to get by, giving officers a chance to examine every car heading north. Police spotters were perched on overpasses radioing ahead to alert officers on the street of suspicious vehicles.

Shortly after 10 a.m. police were out in force on Route 1 as far north as Alexandria, pulling over any white vans heading northbound.

In addition, the HOV lanes of 395 have been closed and officers are posted at every exit in an attempt to intercept any white vans or other suspicious vehicles that might be heading north. On a stretch of 395 between Shirlington and King Street, Alexandria and state police have pulled over four white vans, some with ladder racks and some without. One van that seemed to be attracting a lot of attention this morning was a white Astro with yellow ladders strapped to its roof that was pulled over just north of Seminary Road.

Speaking at an impromptu news conference in downtown Richmond, Warner said: "Let me assure you that all the public resources of the state are being put to work on this, and we will find this shooter."

"We simply need to, obviously, all be on guard," Warner said. "The randomness of these kinds of acts makes us all concerned.

The governor also urged Virginians to "not simply retreat from all daily life activities."

"But we need to watch out," Warner added.

Today's shooting comes 36 hours after Harold Dean Meyers was killed at a Sunoco station in Manassas. Yesterday, police officials confirmed that ballistics tests matched fragments from the Meyers shoot shooting to the .223-caliber bullet fragments removed from the bodies of several previous victims.

Like the two shootings before it, the Prince William attack occurred next to a major highway, allowing the killer to come and go quickly, a shift from the seven earlier shooting incidents.

However, investigators said they did not find a tarot card or any other communication from the killer as they did at Monday's shooting site, at a Bowie middle school. They also did not find a shell casing, as was the case in Bowie.

Confirmation that the sniper had struck for the second time in Virginia and the first time in Washington's more immediate Virginia suburbs widened the circle of fear that has caused many residents to go about their most mundane activities with caution.

Prince William Police Chief Charlie T. Deane said: "Everyone has been keeping their fingers crossed that this would be resolved before the next one. And we certainly hope that there won't be a next one."

The shooting at a Sunoco station on Sudley Road, just off an Interstate 66 entrance ramp, was the ninth instance in which a person was struck by a single shot fired from a distance.

Washington Post staff writers Josh White, Mike Semel and Scott Vance contributed to this report.

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