INDEPENDENCE, Mo. — Day two of a manhunt for an armed suspect was not very active Thursday in Independence.
Authorities say the suspect at center of the search, caught on camera trying to shoot a jogger in the head, may have died from unexplained injuries in a sprawling wooded area.
That spot is just on the border of the Blue Springs city limits off U.S. Highway 40 and Little Blue Parkway.
Authorities said the suspect entered the area covered in blood which was very likely from an injury. He may have bedded down deep in the thick woods. So dense that even police dogs haven’t been able to track him down yet.
But the situation actually started about a 10 minute drive away in a quiet neighborhood.
East 42nd Terrace in Independence is a winding road where the neighbors all know each other. Hence, the disgust at a random shooting targeting a woman.
“You try to mind your own business and you still get [expletive] on,” Carol Stuart, a neighbor in the area of where the attack happened, said.
The video starts with a jogger entering the frame. She is closely followed by a man who draws a handgun and fires point-blank at the woman who miraculously is not hit.
The video then shows the jogger falling to the ground and rolling around as the suspect runs away.
A neighbor then exits his home across the street.
Stuart’s husband Donald was in the house when he heard the shooting.
“But you know, she wasn’t bleeding no where. She said ‘I better call the cops.’ I said ‘Yeah,'” Donald said.
“He didn’t say nothing. He’s not much of a talker anyways,” Carol said of her husband.
The next time the suspect was seen it was in the area of the 4900 block of South Arrowhead Drive.
Officer Jack Taylor with Independence police said the suspect entered one of these businesses covered in blood and asked for water.
Taylor said the suspect had stolen a car from a home he burglarized not far from the site of the attempted shooting.
“That car was located. It also had blood in it. Officers immediately started looking for this person,” Taylor said.
“Officers are working through the woods right now trying to locate him. He is armed,” he said.
That’s concerning for people living in the neighborhood where the shooting happened. Still amazed that their neighbor survived an apparently random murder attempt.
Knowing the suspect hasn’t been found yet, Carol said it doesn’t make her feel safe.
“You don’t know where he’s at. Or where he’s hiding,” she said.