CHICAGO -- A man police described as mentally unstable randomly struck up conversations about honeybees and plywood with complete strangers before opening fire, wounding two people in Illinois and Indiana and killing a 45-year-old man whose body remains inside a boarded-up home in Will County.
The gunman was last seen heading north toward Gary, Ind., in a pickup truck.
The first shooting occurred around 10:30 a.m. Tuesday when a heavyset man drove up to a fire-damaged house in Will County.
Will County Sheriff Paul Kaupus said the man drove past the home twice, first asking if they were selling anything like paneling or plywood from the home, which was being worked on by a three-man crew from Rich Construction, an Indiana company that specializes in rebuilding burnt-out buildings.
He then returned to the home, talked briefly with the three men and opened fire, Kaupus said. "He engaged our victim in a conversation about bees, honeybees, and as soon as the guy started walking away, he shot him," said sheriff's spokesman Pat Barry.
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The shooter then walked into the home and opened fire on a second worker, seriously wounding him, Barry said. A third worker managed to escape by running into a cornfield after the shooter fired at him, Barry said.
The 45-year-old was killed by a shot to the head. Another man, 19, who police found outside the home, was shot in the head and stomach. A third man, 19, escaped unharmed.
That man was shown photos of possible suspects but did not identify anyone as the shooter, Kaupus said.
About 40 minutes later, a farmer in Lowell, Ind. was wounded by a man fitting the shooter's description, officials said.
Peter Dahl, 64, was riding in his pickup truck when a man pulled up next to him in a Chevy Cheyenne pickup and started to talk about keeping honeybees and asked if he knew anyone who had property, Kaupus said.
Dahl wrote a "bogus" name, address and phone number and handed it to the man, who then pulled out a gun and shot him three times, Kaupus said. Police found a bullet lodged in the door of Dahl's home, but no shell casings, he said.
Dahl, 64, was shot in the arm and the shoulder and was recovering at a hospital, Chief Marco Kuyacich of the Lake County sheriff's department.
Dahl is a prominent farmer and was probably busy Tuesday with the fall harvest, said neighbor, friend and fellow farmer Wayne Wietbrock.
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The emergency vehicles pouring into the rural area and the county sheriff's helicopter circling overhead were completely out of place in the quiet community, he said.
"This is unheard of," Wietbrock said. "Why do you want to just shoot somebody? It's not like it was a robbery or anything."
Two schools in Lowell were placed on lockdown after the shooting, Kuyacich said, and officers have issued alerts to schools throughout Lake County.
The suspect was described as in his 40s, about 5 feet 8 inches tall and disheveled-looking. Barry said he was wearing a light green windbreaker, a light-colored shirt, light jeans, brown shoes and possibly a baseball cap.
A Lake County sheriff's official said the man was last seen traveling north toward Gary in a white or light gray Ford F-150 truck or an older model light blue Chevy pickup truck.
"Nobody seems to know who this guy is," Barry said. "It looks like the suspect is probably very, very unstable."
