I-70 gunman facing numerous charges for targeting motorists
Posted 3/4/15
By Tim Schmidt Record Managing Editor All Cierra Palmer was doing was making a quick drive to Wentzville to take some gas money to her fiancé. It wound up being a life-altering trip, one that nearly …
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I-70 gunman facing numerous charges for targeting motorists
Posted
By Tim SchmidtRecord Managing EditorAll Cierra Palmer was doing was making a quick drive to Wentzville to take some gas money to her fiancé.It wound up being a life-altering trip, one that nearly killed her.Palmer, of Hawk Point, was one of two victims during a random shooting rampage along Interstate 70 last Wednesday, March 25.Palmer had the more serious injuries of the two, having been shot in the left shoulder blade. She sustained a collapsed lung, spent two days in a drug-induced coma and has bullet fragments next to her aorta and her spine, according to her fiancé Jerad Smith. She remains hospitalized at Mercy Hospital St. Louis though her condition appears to be improving.“We are all positive,” Smith toldThe Record. “We never expected to lose her. She is a fighter.”Police said a Kansas City, Kan., man, identified as Reginald D. Adams, randomly shot at motorists along I-70 during a multi-county chase that began west of Warrenton and ended in St. Ann, near Lambert-St. Louis International Airport. He shot one motorist and six vehicles during the Warren County portion of the rampage.Palmer was shot near Wentzville Parkway in St. Charles County. A small child and female passenger riding in the vehicle were not injured. After Palmer was shot, she told the female passenger she could not breath. Fortunately an off-duty paramedic, Lincoln County Ambulance District Administrator Ray Antonacci, was near the scene of the shooting and responded. He helped keep Palmer’s airway open prior to her being airlifted to the hospital.“She (Palmer) saved the baby’s life and he (Antonacci) saved her,” Smith said.Last Thursday, Warren County Prosecuting Attorney Kelly King charged Adams, 22, with 12 felonies, including six counts for first-degree assault, five counts for unlawful use of a weapon and one count for discharging a weapon from a motor-vehicle.Adams also was charged in St. Louis County with nine felonies, including assault of a law enforcement officer. Charges are pending in St. Charles County.Authorities said Adams pulled up alongside other eastbound motorists and fired shots through his passenger window.The St. Ann police chief said Adams told authorities that he “snapped” over a relationship with a girlfriend. Adams later said he was “tired of life and he was tired of being a victim of everything.”The first shooting victim was a male driver struck by a bullet in his right arm and chest around the eastbound 190-mile marker, three miles west of Warrenton. The victim, identified as Matt Endsley of Decatur, Ill., has since been released from the hospital.“It was random target selection,” Warren County Sheriff Kevin Harrison said. “He would speed up, slow down and aim the gun through the passenger window. It was obvious on bullet placement he was targeting the driver.”Adams was taken into custody in St. Ann after he jumped out of his vehicle and fired shots toward several officers who were chasing him. Officers returned fire and arrested the man. Neither Adams nor officers were shot.The Associated Press contributed to this story.
