National

(NEW YORK) — As the nation continues to grapple with mass shootings in New York and California this past weekend, a new analysis by ABC News and ABC’s owned stations shows a startling rise in gun violence along interstate highways across the country over the last few years.

The analysis, which examined nearly 3,000 shootings that occurred on or near U.S. interstates from January 2018 through March 2022, found that interstate highway shootings across the country spiked alongside the overall surge in gun violence over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, with New Orleans, Chicago and Memphis seeing some of the biggest spikes.

Interstate highway shootings rose from 540 incidents in 2019 to 846 incidents in 2021 — in increase of 57% — according to the data, which was collected by the Gun Violence Archive, an independent research group.

In just the first three months of this year, at least 149 shooting incidents occurred along or near interstate highways, the data shows.

In all, the incidents resulted in 680 people killed and more than 1,600 people injured over the last four years and three months, according to the data.

The full report by ABC News Chief Justice Correspondent Pierre Thomas, “Highway Gunplay: An ABC News Investigation,” will stream on ABC News Live Prime with Linsey Davis, Wednesday at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m.

The data collected by the Gun Violence Archive helps shed light on some of the nation’s most dangerous stretches of highway out of the more than 47,000 miles of interstates across the country.

According to the data, I-10 in the New Orleans area has been the single most violent stretch of interstate in terms of gun incidents between 2019 and 2021. It’s followed by I-94 in the Chicago area, I-240 in the Memphis area, I-35 in the Austin area and I-70 in the St. Louis area.

Courtney Bradford, a young man who was about to be married, was shot and killed late last year while riding as a passenger in a car on I-240 in Memphis. He and his fiancé had just bought a new home to share with their 5-year-old daughter.

“I’ve called him by mistake. It’s very hard,” Bradford’s fiancé, Latoya Henley, told ABC News’ Thomas about dealing with Bradford’s death seven months ago.

The shooting that took Bradford’s life was one of 121 interstate shootings Memphis Police responded to in 2021, according to data provided by the police department.

“What’s even more unsettling is the fact that they’re so reckless,” Bradford’s mother Tonja Rounds told ABC News. “You could be aiming at one particular individual — but you’re shooting on the expressway and people are driving by, so you could shoot anybody.”

“It’s very insane,” Henley said. “I get antsy when I’m on the expressway.”

Seven months after the shooting, Henley and Rounds say police don’t appear to be any closer to determining who took Bradford’s life. The shooting occurred at night, and surveillance cameras were unable to provide any details about the car that the shots came from.

“We just keep trusting and believing that someone is going to come forward,” Rounds said.

Memphis, New Orleans, Chicago and Detroit are among the cities that have been hit hardest by the surge in highway shootings over the last few years, with the number of shootings increasing even more as the COVID-19 pandemic spread across the U.S.

Eight of the 10 stretches of interstates with the highest number of gun incidents between 2019 and 2021 are in those four cities, according to the Gun Violence Archive data. Shooting incidents on or near interstates in those cities alone killed at least 63 people and injured at least 284 others during that time, accounting for nearly 12% of all deaths and 23% of all injuries reported from interstate gun violence nationwide during those years.

I-10, which runs across the southern U.S. from Florida to California, had the highest number of interstate highway shootings during the pandemic period, including at least 79 incidents in Louisiana — many of them occurring around New Orleans.

“You’ve got what police chiefs are calling the pandemic impact on crime,” Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, told ABC News. “It cannot be underestimated.”

“Traffic stops have decreased, so now a small altercation — someone cuts someone off on the road — that can quickly escalate,” Wexler said. “And that altercation becomes a shooting, becomes a homicide.”

During the pandemic years, between 2020 and 2021, the Gun Violence Archive data showed at least 121 interstate shootings in the Chicago area, averaging out to one incident every six days. The group found 73 incidents in the New Orleans area, 58 incidents in the Detroit area, 57 incidents in the Memphis are and 38 incidents in the St. Louis area.

The spike in highway shootings during the pandemic mirrors a surge in overall gun violence.

According to data released this month by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, gun homicides increased 35% across the country during the pandemic, to the highest level in 25 years.

Firearm murders increased most markedly among youths and young adults, with the number of victims age 10-24 rising by 40%. People of color experienced the highest increase, as the number of Black male shooting victims age 10-24 years — already 21 times higher than the number of white male victims of the same age — increased even further in 2020.

An analysis of data provided by the Houston Police Department by ABC13 showed that homicides along the city’s highways and streets doubled during the pandemic, driving a surge in the overall number of homicides in the city during the two pandemic years. Among those killed in Houston road rage incidents was 17-year-old David Castro, who was fatally shot last summer on I-10 while leaving an Astros baseball game, and Tyler Mitchell, who died earlier this month after being shot along the same interstate just before his 22nd birthday.

In California, the Gun Violence Archive identified more than 200 interstate highway shootings between January 2018 and March of 2022, with many of them occurring on I-5, I-80 and I-580. And additional shootings occurred on Southern California freeways that aren’t part of the interstate system; last year, the California Highway Patrol reported at least 80 incidents of cars being shot at while traveling on SoCal freeways in just the one-month span between late April and late May, with the majority of them occurring along the 91 Freeway that runs from east of the 15 Freeway west toward the 605 Freeway.

Law enforcement officials say the nature of highway shootings typically makes them more difficult to track and solve that other types of shootings.

“The evidence and the crime scene is moving, sometimes 70, 80, 90 miles an hour,” said Illinois State Police Director Brendan Kelly.

As a result, said Kelly, the Illinois State Police are adding patrols and increasing searches to identify people with illegal weapons in their cars. They’ve also added new cameras along interstates to try to better track suspects.

“We will use license plate readers, we will use our air operations, we will use our patrol officers that are out there, we will use canines, we will use all the tools at our disposal to be able to pursue the people that are responsible for this violence,” Kelly said.

In the Detroit area, where the Detroit Police Department says they’ve seen an average of five freeway shootings a month over the past three years, the city has teamed up with more than three dozen other law enforcement agencies to launch “Operation Brison,” a multi-city effort to crack down on freeway shootings after two-year-old Brison Christian was killed last year when someone opened fire on his family’s vehicle on I-17 in what the police say was a case of mistaken identity.

Two alleged gang members have been charged with murder in the case.

But in Memphis, Latoya Henley is still waiting for resolution to her fiancé’s murder.

“We don’t know what happened at all,” Henley told ABC News. “We don’t know who’s involved.”

“I don’t want anyone to ever feel what I feel,” she said. “I pray a lot, ’cause the one thing I don’t want to be is angry. Because that’s what I was at first — I was angry. I was confused. And I was in disbelief. And you know, some days, I’m still in disbelief.”

ABC News’ Jack Date, Luke Barr and Alexandra Myers contributed to this report, along with Ross Weidner of WLS in Chicago, Courtney Carpenter of KTRK in Houston and Lindsey Feingold of KGO in San Francisco.

Watch “Highway Gunplay: An ABC News Investigation” on ABC News Live Prime with Linsey Davis, Wednesday at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m.

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(NEW YORK) — NASA’s Mars lander, called Insight, is slowly losing power because its two solar panels are covered in dust and it will need to mostly shut down by the end of May.
NASA is being forced to end its Mars lander mission early because of dust.Officials announced Tuesday the InSight spacecraft is slowly losing power because its two solar panels are covered in dust.Morever, the dust levels in the atmosphere are only increasing and sunlight is decreasing as Mars enters winter, which is speeding up the loss of power.

Power levels will likely die out in July — effectively ending operations — and, by the end of the year, project leaders expect InSight will be “inoperative.”

“People can obviously relate to, in their own homes, they have to dust because dust settles,” Chuck Scott, InSight’s project manager, told ABC News. “It’s the same sort of thing with these solar panels. We have dust in the Mars atmosphere that gets kicked up because of the local weather … storms where you get the dust kicked up because you have lot of wind.”

“Since Mars’s atmosphere is thinner, it goes up into the upper atmosphere and it can get distributed more widely than it would on Earth and it’ll deposit back down on whatever’s below including our spacecraft and the solar panels,” he added.

InSight is currently generating about one-tenth of the power it was when it landed on Mars in November 2018.

When the spacecraft first landed, the solar panels were producing 5,000 watt-hour for each Martian day, enough to power an electric oven for an hour and 40 minutes, NASA said. Currently, the panels are producing 500 watt-hour per Martian day, only enough to power an electric oven for 10 minutes.

Project leaders had expected the gradual dust buildup on the solar panels, but had hoped passing whirlwinds on Mars might have cleaned some of it off, but none have so far.

“Two rovers we sent back in 2003, they both experienced what we would call ‘natural cleaning’ or ‘dust cleaning events,'” Scott said. “Those winds went over the vehicles and cleared a lot fo the dust off the solar panels of those vehicles. We were were kind of hoping this would occur with a stationary lander.”

Due to the lower power, the team will put InSight’s robotic arm in a resting position known as “retirement pose” later this month. Then, by the end of the summer, the lander’s seismometer will only be turned on at certain times, such as night when winds are not as high.

Because energy is being preserved for the seismometer, NASA said non-seismic instruments “will rarely be turned on” starting next month.

InSight has detected more than 1,300 quakes since its landing, the most recent of which occurred on May 4. The data gathered from the marsquakes have helped scientists understand the composition of Mars’s deep interior, including the planet’s crust, mantle and core.

NASA said the lander had completed its primary goals during its first two years on Mars and was currently on an extended mission.

“There wasn’t really anything known about the interior of Mars,” Scott said. “Why that’s important is NASA had been looking at how our own planets formed in the Solar System. especially the rocky ones like Venus, Earth, Mars and even our own Moon.”

This is not the first time NASA has ended a Mars lander due to dust.

Opportunity, a robotic rover, landed on the planet in 2004 and was in operation until June 2018, when a global dust storm completely covered its solar panels, which ended communications with project leaders.

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(CHICAGO) — The mother of a Chicago student faces child endangerment charges after the student brought a loaded gun to school in a backpack and the weapon accidentally discharged, police said.

The incident occurred at Walt Disney Magnet School on the city’s North Side shortly before 10 a.m. Tuesday, according to the Chicago Police Department.

“The weapon accidentally discharged in the backpack while inside a classroom, with a bullet striking the ground and ricocheting, resulting in a classmate being grazed in the abdomen,” the department said in a statement.

The classmate was taken to a local hospital in “good condition,” the department said. Information on the ages of the students involved was not given.

Following the incident, Tatanina Kelly, 28, was charged with three misdemeanor counts of child endangerment, police said.

Kelly appeared in court Wednesday, where a judge set bond at $10,000, Chicago ABC station WLS reported.

Her attorney, Rodger Clarke, argued that Kelly had no criminal record and that this was a “one-time incident, not soon to be repeated,” according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

Walt Disney Magnet School has students in preschool through eighth grade.

In a letter obtained by WLS that was sent to parents on Tuesday, the school’s principal, Paul Riskus, addressed the incident.

“This morning during school hours, a gun was accidentally discharged on school grounds,” he wrote. “The gun discharged in a backpack and hit the floor, causing some damage and releasing debris.”

Riskus said no one was “seriously injured” and that school staff secured the gun and contacted police and and the Chicago Public Schools’ Office of Safety and Security. Police confiscated the weapon.

“We are working closely with the CPS Office of Safety and Security to make a safety plan moving forward,” he wrote. “Please know that we are taking this situation extremely seriously, and CPD is investigating this incident.”

Worried family members of students who attend the school rushed to the campus in the wake of Tuesday’s incident.

“All I heard was there was a gun and I came flying,” Jennifer Uribe, whose daughter texted her about the incident, told WLS. “I wasn’t going to text her because if she had to hide, I didn’t want her doing that. So I said, ‘Stop texting me’ and I came here.”

Edwina Watkins, whose 12-year-old grandson attends the school, told WLS she was shocked.

“It is shocking for one, for a little kid to have a gun, something that should be hard for an adult to have at a school,” Watkins said.

Victor Garcia, whose son is in pre-K, told WLS he was “freaking out.”

“Gun shootings going all over the country,” he said. “This is crazy.”

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(NEW YORK) — New York Gov. Kathy Hochul unveiled proposals Wednesday afternoon to strengthen the state’s gun laws and close “loopholes” in the wake of the deadly Buffalo mass shooting over the weekend.

The announcement was planned before the weekend shooting, and was delayed by President Joe Biden’s Tuesday visit to Buffalo, Hochul’s hometown.

However, the issue takes on increased urgency as her administration reviews how the 18-year-old suspect, Payton Gendron, legally purchased his weapons and then made modifications that are illegal in New York, already home to some of the nation’s strictest gun laws.

Gendron was able to buy a Bushmaster XM-15 rifle in part because he was never subjected to New York’s red flag law, which would have prevented the store from selling him a weapon. He had undergone a mental health evaluation in June 2021, after New York State Police responded to his high school to investigate a report that the then-17-year-old Gendron made reference to murder-suicide in a paper he submitted as part of a class.

Broome County, New York, District Attorney Michael Korchak said during a news conference Wednesday that Gendron was participating in an online class when he “made some disturbing comments about murder and suicide,” which prompted the teacher to follow up to “get clarification.”

“[Gendron] indicated he was just joking and said L-O-L,” Korchak said. He said the teacher still reported the incident to the police.

Because Gendron was not on campus at the time, state police went to his home to interview him, where he again “indicated that this was a joke,” according to Korchak.

State police then took Gendron to Binghamton General Hospital for a psychiatric evaluation, Korchak said, adding that Gendron stayed at the hospital overnight but was ultimately cleared.

“This defendant had been interviewed by a mental health professional and professional who deemed him to be not dangerous or not at risk,” Korchak said. “[Gendron] was released to the custody of his parents and returned home. He was actually cleared and went back to school and participated in his high school graduation.”

Korchak defended the school and state police, saying a review of the incident found it was handled “appropriately.” Neither police nor his school applied for a court petition that would have resulted in a red flag.

“The unfortunate thing is the New York State Police, school officials and mental health professionals, they don’t have a crystal ball,” Korchak said. “They can’t read into the future. They can only evaluate the subject on the information that they had at that time.”

On Wednesday, Hochul sought to take the guesswork out of what should be reported as red flag behavior. She said she is requiring state police to file an “extreme risk” order of protection when they encounter someone they believe poses a risk to himself or others.

Because no red flag warning was issued against Gendron, he was able to legally purchased the Bushmaster at a gun store in Endicott, New York, which authorities said he modified with an extended magazine that is illegal to own in New York. Investigators said he purchased the magazine at a Pennsylvania gun store 10 minutes from his home in Conklin.

Hochul also formally requested New York State Attorney General Letitia James investigate “the online resources that were used to amplify the acts and intentions of Payton Gendron,” according to a letter from the governor obtained by ABC News.

“The investigation should be directed at those platforms that may have been used to stream, promote or plan the event including, but not limited to Twitch (owned by Amazon) 4chan, 8chan and Discord,” the letter said.

The shooting was partly livestreamed on Twitch. The suspect allegedly posted chronological details of the attack online using Discord, according to law enforcement sources. He also posted on 4chan and 8chan, the sources said.

“Think about all the people who saw the livestream,” Hochul said. “The virus spreads and they find others to share their worldview, radicalizing others.”

The investigation by James could result in a civil lawsuit or a criminal prosecution.

“The terror attack in Buffalo has once again revealed the depths and danger of the online forums that spread and promote hate,” James said. “The fact that an individual can post detailed plans to commit such an act of hate without consequence, and then stream it for the world to see is bone-chilling and unfathomable.”

The attorney general’s office is sending a letter to the social media companies instructing them to retain relevant documents.

“We extend our deepest sympathies to the victims and their families,” a Discord spokesperson said in a statement to ABC News. “Hate and violence have no place on Discord. We are doing everything we can to assist law enforcement in the investigation.”

Hochul also announced the creation of a new domestic terrorism unit within the state Department of Homeland Security, meant to establish best practices to confront the intersection of guns and racially motivated threats.

Even before the mass shooting in Buffalo, there was a focus on guns in the state. Illegal gun possession statistics were up last month in the state and country’s largest city, New York City. New York police made 146 more arrests for illegal guns in April 2022 versus April 2021, a 65% increase, according to the NYPD. Shooting incidents, however, did drop 29% in April 2022 versus April 2021.

Proposals already under discussion in the state Capitol include requiring local law enforcement to report recovered weapons to a federal database in a timely manner, and allowing the state to conduct its own background checks.

New requirements could also be put in place for gun dealers, beefing up training for staff and record keeping.

Gendron is expected to make his next court appearance on Thursday.

Meanwhile, loved ones of those killed in the attack were preparing for the first funeral on Friday.

Civil rights leader the Rev. Al Sharpton is expected to speak at the funeral of Hayward Patterson, 67, a church deacon. Sharpton’s National Action Network has agreed to cover the funeral costs of all 10 victims killed.

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(TOMS RIVER, N.J.) — One person is dead and another has been rescued after two siblings became trapped under sand while digging at a Jersey Shore beach Tuesday afternoon, authorities said.

Police and emergency medical services responded to a barrier island beach in Toms River, New Jersey, shortly after 4 p.m. Tuesday “for reports of juveniles trapped in the sand as it collapsed around them while digging,” the Toms River Police Department said on Facebook.

First responders were able to rescue a 17-year-old girl, who was treated at the scene, but her brother, 18, died, police said.

The victim was identified by police as Levi Caverly of Maine.

The teen was visiting the region from out of town with his family, police said.

His father described Caverly as a “tech nut” who loved to program, played the drums in a young adult worship band and was involved in his church’s worship team.

“Levi was himself. He was odd. He was quirky. He was not real concerned with what others thought,” his father, Todd Caverly, said in a statement.

Police urged people not to respond to the area while the rescue was in progress.

Live footage from the scene Tuesday evening showed more than a dozen first responders near the shoreline. Emergency crews from several neighboring towns aided in the rescue effort.

Rescue workers were working to recover the body from the collapse, police said following the incident.

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(MINNEAPOLIS) — Thomas Lane, one of the former Minneapolis police officers involved in George Floyd’s killing, has pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter, according to the Minnesota attorney general.

State Attorney General Keith Ellison said the plea agreement reached with Lane represents an “important step toward healing the wounds of the Floyd family, our community, and the nation.”

Lane, 38, had been scheduled to go to trial next month in state court along with his former Minneapolis police colleagues J. Alexander Kueng and Tou Thao.

All three defendants were convicted in February by a federal jury on charges of violating George Floyd’s civil rights by failing to intervene or provide medical aid as their senior officer, Derek Chauvin, kneeled on the back of the handcuffed 46-year-old Black man’s neck for more than nine minutes in the May 25, 2020, incident.

Chauvin was convicted in state court last year of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. He was sentenced to more than 22 years in prison.

Chauvin also pleaded guilty to federal charges of violating Floyd’s civil rights and is awaiting sentencing after a judge accepted his plea earlier this month.

“Today, my thoughts are once again with the victims, George Floyd and his family,” Ellison said in a statement Wednesday announcing Lane’s plea. “Nothing will bring Floyd back. He should still be with us today.”

Ellison said he was “pleased” that Lane has accepted responsibility for his role in Floyd’s death.

“While accountability is not justice, this is a significant moment in this case and a necessary resolution on our continued journey to justice,” Ellison said.

There was no word on whether similar plea agreements are under consideration by Kueng and Thao, who are still scheduled to go on trial in state court on June 13.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

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(NEW YORK) — New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is expected to unveil proposals Wednesday afternoon to strengthen the state’s gun laws and close “loopholes” in the wake of the deadly Buffalo shooting over the weekend.

The announcement was planned before the weekend shooting, and was delayed by President Joe Biden’s Tuesday visit to Buffalo, Hochul’s hometown.

However, the issue takes on increased urgency as her administration reviews how the 18-year-old suspect, Payton Gendron, legally purchased his weapons and then made modifications that are illegal in New York, already home to some of the nation’s strictest gun laws.

Even before the mass shooting in Buffalo, there was a focus on guns in the state. Illegal gun possession statistics were up last month in the state and country’s largest city, New York City. New York police made 146 more arrests for illegal guns in April 2022 versus April 2021, a 65% increase, according to the NYPD. Shooting incidents, however, did drop 29% in April 2022 versus April 2021.

Proposals already under discussion in the state Capitol include requiring local law enforcement to report recovered weapons to a federal database in a timely manner, and allowing the state to conduct its own background checks.

New requirements could also be put in place for gun dealers, beefing up training for staff and record keeping.

The administration is also looking into the use, or lack thereof, of the state’s red flag laws, which could have identified the Buffalo suspect and kept him from purchasing the gun used to shoot 13 people, killing 10. The prohibition can remove guns from the home of a person identified to be at high risk and keep the person from buying guns for a year.

The suspect was not red-flagged following threats to carry out a shooting at his graduation last June, and he later admitted in a cache of documents that he intentionally avoided the prohibition by downplaying last year’s incident. Following a police investigation, no charges were filed against Gendron, who received a mental health evaluation and counseling after the incident.

Gendron is expected to make his next court appearance on Thursday.

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(NEW YORK) — The mother of a teen who went missing in 2009 while on spring break is speaking out after authorities announced an arrest in the case.

“I never thought we would get to this place and we’re finally here,” Dawn Pleckan, Drexel’s mother, told ABC News in an exclusive interview. “And now I can get Brittanee back and lay to rest.”

In 2009, Drexel vanished while on a spring break trip to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. On Monday, authorities announced at a news conference that Raymond Moody, 62, was arrested and charged with her murder after her remains were found in a wooded area in Georgetown County, South Carolina, last week.

“In the last week, we’ve confirmed that Brittanee lost her life in a tragic way, at the hands of a horrible criminal who was walking our streets,” said FBI special agent in charge Susan Ferensic.

For 13 years, Brittanee’s parents, Pleckan and Chad Drexel, have searched for her.

Pleckan said her daughter wanted to go on the trip but she remembered telling her no because of a lack of parental supervision. Pleckan said she also had a bad hunch.

“She asked me if she could go and I told her no,” Pleckan recalled. “And she asked me why. I said, because I don’t know the kids you’re going with. I don’t — there’s no parental supervision and something’s going to happen.”

Brittanee ended up leaving for the spring break trip to Myrtle Beach on April 22, 2009, despite her mother’s wishes. Three days later, the teen was seen for the last time on a hotel surveillance camera. She was leaving a friend’s room at the Blue Water Resort to walk back to the hotel where she was staying, about a mile-and-a-half walk down the busy Myrtle Beach strip, ABC Rochester station WHAM-TV reported.

She was about halfway to her destination when she disappeared, investigators said, based on surveillance footage from cameras on 11th Avenue and Ocean Boulevard.

Her remains were found less than 3 miles from a motel where Moody had been living at the time of Drexel’s disappearance, Georgetown County Sheriff Carter Weaver said. Authorities allege that Moody buried her body. Authorities did not answer reporters’ questions on how Drexel’s remains were found.

Moody is being held without bond at the Georgetown County jail and is expected to be charged with rape, murder and kidnapping — in addition to a charge of obstruction of justice that he was initially brought in for, said Jimmy Richardson, solicitor for Horry and Georgetown Counties.

In 2012, he had been identified as a person of interest in the disappearance but there was not enough evidence to name him as a suspect, officials said.

Investigators believe Drexel was held against her will and killed.

Pleckan and Chad Drexel have asked for privacy and thanked investigators and volunteers for their work over the past decade.

“This is truly a mother’s worst nightmare,” Pleckan said. “I am mourning my beautiful daughter Brittanee as I have been for 13 years. But today, it’s bittersweet. We are much closer to the closure in the piece that we have been desperately hoping for.”

On Monday, which would have been Brittanee’s 30th birthday according to WHAM, Pleckan said she hopes justice will be served.

“One thing … we’re going to look forward to is to get justice for Brittanee,” she said. “I want people to know out there that Brittanee’s legacy is going to live on.”

Pleckan added, “She had her whole life ahead of her. And this monster took it away from her. I’m glad [Moody] is behind bars so that he can’t hurt anyone else’s child.”

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(JACKSONVILLE BEACH, Fla.) — It’s been three months since her husband was murdered, but Kirsten Bridegan has very few answers as to what happened that night.

Jared Bridegan, 33, was shot and killed on Feb. 16 in Jacksonville Beach, Florida, when he stopped his car while driving home after dropping off his 9-year-old twins with his ex-wife.

Kirsten Bridegan believes he stopped the car when he saw a tire in the middle of the road and, rather than drive around, he got out to investigate. Their 2-year-old daughter, Bexley, was in the back seat.

“Jared’s the kind of guy who would stop and move it so others wouldn’t worry about it,” she told ABC News.

The former Microsoft senior manager and father of four was shot, possibly three or four times, Kirsten Bridegan said, in what she described as a targeted attack on Sanctuary Boulevard.

“I don’t buy into the theory that it was random,” she said. “Somebody knew his route. They thought maybe he would be alone … They didn’t fully realize there might be a child.”

“I believe he was the target. Some coward trapped him and took him out and that’s not OK,” she said.

Since Jared Bridegan’s murder in February, First Coast Crime Stoppers has doubled its initial reward to $50,000 for any tips that lead to an arrest, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has offered $5,000 for information that leads to an arrest and conviction.

Police are investigating a vehicle of interest believed to be a dark-colored, likely blue, Ford F-150 truck dated between 2004 and 2008 in connection to Jared Bridegan’s murder. They are also asking if residents know anything about a damaged tire, which they say might be related to the case.

Sgt. Tonya Tator of the Jacksonville Beach Police Department told ABC News the attack “appears to be targeted.”

The department is working on the case and pursuing leads, as well as waiting for results from forensic testing, Tator said.

In the wake of her best friend’s murder, Kirsten Bridegan said, some days are better than others.

She described her husband as a creative, fun and loving father who would do anything for his four kids — his twins, Abby and Liam, Bexley and the couple’s eight-month-old daughter, London, who was home with Kirsten at the time of the murder.

“He loved being a dad. He genuinely did,” she told ABC News. “He would spend hours setting up some activity that he thought would be awesome.”

From baking competitions and obstacle courses, to laser tag and their tradition of making toothpick boats to float outside in the rain, “he really went above and beyond to make memories and bond with his kids,” she said.

Now, he won’t get to see his four children grow up; he won’t see London crawl and eventually walk, and he won’t see any of his kids get married, Kirsten Bridegan said.

While nothing will make up for what someone did to her husband, she hopes “they will be remorseful and apologize, and that might mean something to his kids as they grow up,” Kirsten Bridegan said. “I’m fighting hard for Jared and all four of his children so they will have answers and justice, and know why someone took their father away so young.”

“I think it’s a start to find the person or persons behind this and have them pay some earthly justice for what they did,” she added.

Now, she is asking the public for help by asking for people to keep an eye our for the truck and to share her husband’s story.

“The more we know, the more eyes we have, that’s what we need help with. It’s been three months, they could have disappeared,” she said. “The further we get this spread, the better.”

Kirsten Bridegan has created Instagram and TikTok accounts to spread the word about her husband’s murder and to help collect tips.

Anyone with information can contact First Coast Crime Stoppers at 1-866-845-TIPS (8477) or visit the FCCS website, and they can also call the Jacksonville Beach Police Department at 904-270-1667.

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(NEW YORK) — Wildlife officers are investigating a reported mountain lion attack in northern California that left a woman’s dog fighting for its life after it attempted to defend its owner.

The incident took place Monday afternoon near Big Bar, where the woman took her Belgian malinois for a walk on a trail near a picnic area, according to wildlife officers.

The reported attack unfolded when the mountain lion swiped at the woman’s left shoulder, wounding her and causing her to scream. The dog then returned and came to her defense against the animal, wildlife officers said.

“The mountain lion bit the dog’s head and would not let go,” California Department of Fish and Wildlife law enforcement division Capt. Patrick Foy said in a statement. “The woman attempted to throw rocks, tug and pull them apart. [She] even attempted to gouge the eyes out of the lion, to no avail.”

Seeking help, the woman ran back to the road where she left her vehicle and flagged down a passerby for assistance, wildlife officers said. Spraying the mountain lion in the face with pepper spray did not stop the attack, they added.

The animal then proceeded to drag the woman’s dog off to a different location, wildlife officers said. The woman and passerby were finally able to release the dog from the mountain lion’s grip by repeatedly hitting it with a PVC pipe they found in the area.

Wildlife officials collected samples at the scene for analysis, which are being processed at a lab.

“Initial evidence from the investigation is strong enough to allow wildlife officers to treat the investigation as a legitimate attack,” Foy said.

The woman drove herself to receive medical treatment for non-life threatening injuries, including bite wounds, scratches and abrasions. The dog’s condition has been described as “guarded” and it remains unknown if she will survive, wildlife officials said.

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