2 dead in apparent road rage shooting on Oklahoma highway

A man is in police custody after two people were killed on a Western Oklahoma highway early Thursday in a shooting rampage that stretched across 50 miles and four counties and stemmed from an apparent road rage incident, officials said.

The first of numerous calls to police was received by dispatchers around 11:53 p.m. local time Wednesday. Jeremy Doss Hardy, 36, was reported driving fast and erratically in a GMC pickup on I-40 in Canadian County. Hardy was firing at other vehicles on the road, Custer County Sherriff Bruce Peoples told ABC News today.

Emergency responders were sent to Hydro, Oklahoma, where 45-year-old Jeffrey Kent Powell and his wife were inside a car that was run off the road, ABC affiliate KOCO in Oklahoma City reported. Powell died at the scene, police said.

A woman driver, 63-year-old Billie Jean West, was pronounced dead at a Weatherford hospital after being shot by Hardy, according to KOCO.

Several tractor-trailers were shot at, but no additional people were hit, according to KOCO.

Authorities do not believe anyone was specifically targeted in the shooting.

Highway patrol pursued Hardy after spotting him near the town of Clinton, and he pulled over and surrendered at 12:39 p.m. He was arrested for DUI and is currently in a Custer County jail. Hardy’s police interview has been put on hold pending the investigation of road rage, Peoples said.

Authorities were still receiving phone calls as of 8 a.m. local time from people whose vehicles were hit by gunfire during the shooting spree, KOCO reported.

Calls to the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation were not immediately returned.