On July 26, 1953, truck driver Lester Woodward was shot in the head and killed as he slept in his truck, parked along the Pennsylvania Turnpike near Irwin. Two days later, trucker Harry Pitts died in identical circumstances, parked near the turnpike's Donegal interchange. On July 31, John Shepperd suffered a head wound while sleeping in his truck on Route 30, east of Lisbon, Ohio, within twelve miles of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Unlike the first two victims , Shepperd managed to survive. Detectives had their pattern, now: three truckers, ambushed in their sleep, each shot with the same .32-caliber weapon. All they needed was a suspect, but when he initially confessed , investigators shrugged it off and set him free, continuing their aimless manhunt for the turnpike phantom. On October 9, police in Cleveland publicly announced that 24-year-old John Wable had been jailed on August 8, delivered to police from Uniontown on charges of felonious assault. In Uniontown, he eagerly confessed the turnpike shootings to a jailer, but authorities dismissed him as a "screwball" and returned him to the streets. Belated all-points bulletins were issued on October 10, and Wable was arrested two days later, by police in Albuquerque. Back in jail, the suspect now denied involvement in the crimes, although he did admit possession of the murder weapon. It was sold, he claimed, to an anonymous Cleveland resident, shortly before the series of shootings began. Authorities responded with announcements that Wable had signed statements implicating himself in the murders, and formal indictments were issued on November 14, 1953. Convicted in the death of Harry Pitts on March 13, 1954, Wable was formally sentenced to death nine months later. He died in Pennsylvania's electric chair on September 26, 1954.