WAYNESBORO -- A grand jury yesterday returned six additional felony indictments against the man charged with sniper shootings on and along Interstate 64.

Slade Allen Woodson, 19, is one of two suspects in several gunfire incidents in Waynesboro soon after a string of shootings in Albemarle County west of Charlottesville that began early March 27.

Charles P. Ajemian, Waynesboro's commonwealth's attorney, opted to forgo a preliminary hearing scheduled for yesterday and instead took the charges straight to the grand jury. The result was a six-count direct indictment, which brings to 21 the number of felonies Woodson faces stemming from the shootings in Waynesboro and Albemarle.

Woodson and 16-year-old Brandon Dawson were each charged with 15 felonies in Albemarle, including accusations that they shot at motorists, state property and at houses along I-64 in the western part of the county. Dawson pleaded guilty to eight counts and is scheduled to be sentenced this month for five charges of shooting into occupied vehicles.

Dawson was recently charged with four additional felonies stemming from the Waynesboro shootings.

The grand jury yesterday indicted Woodson on two counts of shooting into an occupied building, three counts of maliciously shooting from an automobile and one count of felony destruction of property, Ajemian said.

Woodson is scheduled to appear in Waynesboro Circuit Court on June 24, Ajemian said, and is being held in the Middle River Regional Jail in Augusta County.

The shootings closed I-64 for hours and spread concern throughout the region 5½ years after the Washington-region sniper shootings. The probe broke open when police obtained images of a 1974 AMC Gremlin that Woodson drove taken at the DuPont Community Credit Union in Waynesboro's west end, one of the scenes of the shootings in the city.

A 29-hour manhunt ended the next day when police tracked the car, then the suspected shooters to a Crozet-area horse farm in Albemarle where Dawson lived.
Contact staff writer Calvin R. Trice at (540) 932-3674 or ctrice@timesdispatch.com.