By Dean Narciso,The Columbus Dispatch
DELAWARE – Two days before he shot a College of Wooster freshman at an Interstate 71 rest stop in Delaware County, apparently at random, Shawn A. Johnson had been charged with domestic violence in Columbus for beating his mother.
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According to the Columbus Police criminal complaint in that incident, Johnson hit his mother repeatedly in the head and told her: “I’m going to kill somebody. I don’t give a (expletive),” before stealing her purse and leaving their apartment Friday night in his Toyota Camry. After police responded to that incident, an arrest warrant was issued for Johnson, 25, of the 5000 block of Owl Creek Drive in Columbus on charges of domestic violence and assault.
Valerie Rhasiatry, Johnson’s mother, had told him she was planning to move out of the apartment.
The State Highway Patrol says the shooting of 18-year-old Alexander Melchert apparently was a random act.
Just after 11: a.m. on Sunday, according to the State Highway Patrol, Johnson, of Westerville, fired several shots into a vehicle parked at the rest stop along I-71, just south of the Routes 36 and 37, striking Melchert, a first-year student at The College of Wooster who is from Neenah, Wisconsin.
Melchert was taken to OhioHealth Grant Medical Center where he underwent surgery Sunday for multiple injuries to his abdomen, authorities said. He remained in critical condition Monday.
Using vehicle descriptions from 911 callers, authorities pursued Johnson’s car north on I-71. He crashed into a guardrail on I-71 in Richland County and they found him dead from a self-inflicted gunshot inside his car.