He was Thomas Lee Dillon, born on July 9, 1950 in Canton, Ohio.
He worked as a draughtsman for the Canton water department, was married, and lived an ordinary suburban life. At weekends he drove the back roads of eastern Ohio with a rifle, shooting road signs, barns and stray animals, and from 1989 he began shooting people.
Five men died between 1989 and 1992: Donald Welling, a jogger; Jamie Paxton, a bowhunter; Kevin Loring, a hunter from Massachusetts; Claude Hawkins, a fisherman; and Gary Bradley, also fishing. Each was alone outdoors in daylight or at dusk, shot from a distance by a stranger who drove away. There was no robbery, no sexual element and no connection of any kind between him and any of them.
The investigation had almost nothing to work with, since the killings were geographically spread and motiveless. It progressed after Jamie Paxton's mother published an open letter in the local newspaper addressed to her son's killer, which drew a reply from him, and after a friend told police about his habit of shooting at things from his car. The rifles were traced through gun-show purchase records.
He pleaded guilty to five counts of murder and on July 12, 1993 was sentenced to life imprisonment with no possibility of parole for 165 years. He died in prison on October 21, 2011.
The range of five to eleven in this roster covers other shootings in Ohio, Indiana and Michigan considered against him and not charged. The five are convictions, and the entry keeps that line.