[chris]

A man who once faced the death penalty for a string of sniper-style shootings that terrorized the greater Columbus area offered a tearful apology to the family of his victim before agreeing to serve 27 years in prison Tuesday.

"I'm sorry to the Knisley family for the loss I caused them," highway shooter Charles McCoy said, addressing relatives of 62-year-old Gail Knisley, who was struck by a bullet from McCoy's gun as she drove with her friend, Mary Cox, on Nov. 25, 2003.

"I'm also sorry to Mrs. Cox. When they played the 911 tape, I felt the pain you suffered," McCoy said to Cox, who sat sobbing in the audience.

In a plea agreement reached with Franklin County prosecutors, McCoy dropped his insanity defense and pleaded guilty to 11 felony counts, including involuntary manslaughter for Knisley's death, less than a month away from his scheduled retrial for the shooting spree that spanned five months.

The Ohio highway sniper attacks were a series of 24 sniper attacks along Interstate 270 and other nearby highways in the central part of the U.S. state of Ohio (mostly around Columbus) against traffic and homes. The shootings began in May 2003 and continued for several months. One person was killed (62-year-old Gail Knisley, killed on November 25, 2003), and the shootings caused widespread fear.

The suspect, Charles A. McCoy, Jr., was arrested in Las Vegas on March 17, 2004. McCoy, who had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in 1996, stood trial in 2005.

The first trial with death penalty charges resulted in a hung jury on May 9, 2005, most likely due to McCoy's severe mental illness. Rather than face a retrial, McCoy accepted a plea arrangement where he avoided the death sentence. He was sentenced to 27 years in prison on August 9, 2005.

[kellyhound]

paranoid schizophrenia.
crazy, crazy fucker.

[alphawolf15]

that woulda pissed me off having the 911 lady repeat everything i said

he shoulda just gotten the death penalty

[dotaku]

"you are? it is? they have? its gonna get worse? tomorrow? live?" damn good thing these operators have been trained in psychology

[BLACKOUTx4500x]

LOL he probably hung up because she kept parroting what he said, you could tell she was just trying to stall him to get a trace on the call, at least they caught the bastard!

[BadgeNo857]

She has to keep him on the phone, they check for things like accents, speech patterns, threats like " they're gonna see tomorrow live" and all that good stuff. Still she'd have pissed me off too

[Pigeon]

His voice is so put on I would have thought it was fake and laughed.

[ewankerr]

he's fucking ugly.

[sniper4119]

God Damn, he was not a SNIPER!!! He was a GUNMAN!! A sniper is a person who went to a real nation's sniper school, not a nutjob

[froggy123]

and who ant a nut job, i now the voices in my head are wrong but some things thay say sound good :)