Family of highway shootings victim hopes for a swift trial in Ohio

WASHINGTON COURT HOUSE, Ohio -- After his grandmother was killed in a string of highway shootings in Ohio, 7-year-old Max Knisley worried that the gunman could be lurking around any corner.

Now that suspect Charles McCoy Jr.'s trial is underway, the Knisley family is hoping for a swift end to a case that terrorized drivers around central Ohio between October 2003 and February 2004.

"We don't want to put them back through the whole ordeal again," Brent Knisley said of his children, Max and 11-year-old Loren.

McCoy, 29, has pleaded innocent by reason of insanity to aggravated murder and assault in 12 shootings -- including the fatal shooting of 62-year-old Gail Knisley. He could face the death penalty if convicted of aggravated murder.

Brent Knisley, 44, said he and his brother plan to trade off attending the trial and manning the family's collision repair shop in Washington Court House, about 40 miles southwest of Columbus.

Gail Knisley was being driven by a friend to a doctor's appointment when a bullet pierced the driver's door and killed her in November 2003.

The family still feels the effects.

"There's still a point where every single day you think, 'This is what Mom would say,' or 'This is what Mom would've done,"' Knisley said.

Just after the shooting, Loren Knisley's teacher gave her an index card with one green side and one red side to put on the blackboard. If the red side was showing, students knew not to talk about the death. Loren turned up the green side if she was willing to discuss what happened.

One of McCoy's lawyers said the suspect's family was nervous about the start of the trial.

"I think there's a great deal of anxiety and concern and trepidation," attorney Michael Miller said. He added that McCoy's parents likely will be absent from the courtroom because they cannot have contact with their son since they are to testify.

McCoy's father declined to be interviewed. No one answered the door at the home where McCoy lived with his mother.

The jury will try to decide which is the more credible of two psychological evaluations. One said McCoy did not know the difference between right and wrong at the time of the shootings, and another said he did despite having paranoid schizophrenia.

After Gail Knisley's death, people from Washington Court House waited in a two-hour line to pay their respects to a woman who had lived in town nearly her whole life. Friends offered prayers and cooked dinner for her sons and husband, Ronny.

"It's a close-knit community and we know the people well," said Lt. Robert Crabtree of the Fayette County Sheriff's Department. "In Columbus there's a shooting every day. It doesn't happen around here."

The case that once filled the front page of the town's newspaper nearly every day is hardly mentioned anymore at Our Place diner, where residents gather to discuss the latest news and gossip over plates of pancakes.