The chief prosecutor here agreed Tuesday to abandon his efforts to win a death sentence against a man who admitted a spate of highway shootings that left one woman dead and unnerved drivers for months.

This was an aggravated murder case against 29-year-old Charles McCoy, Jr., the defendant in a series of highway shootings the previous year around Columbus, Ohio.

Every year, the police here receive two or three reports of highway shootings.

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A man in a sports car fired a gun at a pickup truck in heavy traffic today in the latest of eight highway shootings that have left two people dead and one critically wounded this summer.

In the past, most highway shootings in and around Los Angeles have been ascribed to road rage.

More recently, a rash of highway shootings near Columbus, Ohio, that began in May 2003 resulted in the death of a 62-year-old woman and unnerved thousands of travelers.

Last year, there were 36 highway shootings in Los Angeles, she said, with one death; there were 46 such incidents in 2003, with 4 deaths, and 46 in 2002, 3 of them fatal.

Mr. McCoy, 29, left, faces an aggravated murder charge in the killing last November of Gail Knisley, 62, and other charges related to highway shootings.