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Widow of man killed by snipers at Four-Mile Fork Exxon gives thanks for support from the region
Jocelyn Bridges (right) lost her husband, Ken, in the sniper attacks 10 years ago this month at a Spotsylvania gas station. She and family in Philadelphia say the kindness of the Fredericksburg community helped them greatly.Michael Perez for the THE FREE LANCE-STAR View More Images from this story Visit the Photo Place |
By PAMELA GOULD
Entrepreneur Ken Bridges was 45 minutes from his Philadelphia home on Oct. 10, 2002, when he got a call that a businessman he'd hoped to meet with in Virginia had just arrived in the country.
He turned around and headed south again--back through the region being terrorized by the D.C.-area snipers.
The next morning as he returned north on Interstate 95, he called his wife on his cellphone to say the meeting had gone well and he'd be home in time to take their daughter to the orthodontist.
"Babe, I've got to go. I've got to make a stop," Bridges told his wife about 9:20 a.m. before exiting I-95 at Massaponax in Spotsylvania County.
Jocelyn Bridges hung up and washed the dishes for the eight-member household. Then, she flipped on the TV to CNN.
Immediately, she saw there had been another sniper shooting and knew traffic would be a problem.
Police had begun initiating dragnets after each shooting, blocking access to the interstate and other escape routes, hoping to snare the perpetrators who in the first week of October had terrified people from Montgomery County, Md., to Fredericksburg.
By the time Bridges was taking his business trip, the snipers had shot nine people, killing all but two.
The lethal shooting spree started in Wheaton, Md., at 6 p.m. Oct. 2., and within 28 hours, six people had been killed in Maryland and D.C. During the next six days, the snipers would zigzag between Virginia and Maryland, including an Oct. 4 shooting outside Spotsylvania Mall.
Jocelyn and Ken Bridges were aware of the mounting death toll as he prepared for what was to be a quick business trip. They had discussed precautions like taking alternate routes.
So on Oct. 11, when Jocelyn Bridges saw CNN's report, she instantly called her husband to try to steer him away from the traffic.
She got no answer.
When she looked back at the television, she knew why.
She saw his car. Recognized the license plate.
His silver Buick sedan sat beside a gas pump, encircled by police tape with the nozzle still in the tank at an Exxon in view of I-95.
Hours before police called, Jocelyn Bridges knew her husband of 20 years had been killed.
'EACH ONE TEACH ONE'
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OCT. 2, 2002, 6 p.m.--Fatal shooting of James Martin, 55, outside a Wheaton, Md., supermarket.
OCT. 3, 2002, 7:41 a.m.--Fatal shooting of James L. "Sonny" Buchanan, 39, as he pushed a lawnmower in Rockville, Md. OCT. 3, 2002, 8:12 a.m.--Fatal shooting of Premkumar A. Walekar, 54, at an Aspen Hill, Md., gas station. OCT. 3, 2002, 8:37 a.m.--Fatal shooting of Sarah Ramos, 34, outside a Silver Spring, Md. retirement center. OCT. 3, 2002, 9:58 a.m.--Fatal shooting of Lori Lewis-Rivera, 25, outside a Kensington, Md., gas station. OCT. 3, 2002, 9:15 p.m.--Fatal shooting of Pascal Charlot, 72, while crossing Georgia Avenue in Northwest Washington. OCT. 4, 2002--Shooting of Caroline Seawell, 43, a Spotsylvania County mother of two, in the parking lot of a Michaels craft store outside Spotsylvania Mall. OCT. 7, 2002--Shooting of Iran Brown, 13, as he arrived at Tasker Middle School in Bowie, Md. OCT. 9, 2002--Fatal shooting of Dean Harold Meyers, 53, outside a Manassas-area gas station. OCT. 11, 2002--Fatal shooting of Philadelphia businessman Kenneth Bridges, 53, outside the Four-Mile Fork Exxon in Spotsylvania. OCT. 14, 2002--Fatal shooting of FBI analyst Linda Franklin, 47, outside a Falls Church-area Home Depot. OCT. 19, 2002--Shooting of Jeffrey Hopper, 37, outside a Ponderosa restaurant in Ashland in Hanover County. OCT. 22, 2002--Fatal shooting of bus driver Conrad Johnson, 35, in Silver Spring, Md. OCT. 24, 2002, 3:19 a.m.--John Allen Muhammad, 41, and Lee Boyd Malvo, 17, arrested at a rest stop near Myersville, Md. NOV. 17, 2003--John Allen Muhammad convicted of capital murder in death of Dean Harold Meyers in Prince William County. Four months later, he was sentenced to die. DEC. 23, 2003--A jury gives Malvo his first life sentence without parole for capital murder for the shooting death of Linda Franklin in Fairfax County. He is serving multiple life sentences in Virginia's Red Onion maximum security prison. NOV. 10, 2009--Muhammad is executed in Virginia. |