Shooting along Indiana highway where SUV was stopped leaves 2 dead

PALMYRA, Ind. >> Two men were fatally shot after a police officer and two good Samaritans stopped along a southern Indiana highway to help a driver who was stopped in the roadway, police said.

The shooting happened Monday night after an officer with the Palmyra Police Department stopped to assist the “apparent stranded motorist” on State Road 135, Indiana State Police said, but they didn’t say what precipitated the gunfire or who fired the shots.

As the officer arrived, two good Samaritans also stopped in a pickup truck to help, but “within seconds of exiting their cars, shots were fired” at the scene just south of Palmyra, about 20 miles northwest of Louisville, Kentucky, police said in a statement.

State police did not provide additional details, saying in the news release that investigators have not said how many weapons were involved, how many shots were fired, or who fired the shots.

The shooting killed the SUV’s driver, 31-year-old Justin Moore of Owensboro, Kentucky, and one of the good Samaritans, 24-year-old Jacob Tyler McClanahan, of Corydon, Indiana, police said.

Autopsies were scheduled for Wednesday, according to Indiana State Police, who were investigating at the request of Harrison County authorities.

The Palmyra officer was slightly injured, suffering minor scratches, and did not sustain a gunshot wound, said Sgt. Carey Huls, a state police spokesman.

Huls said he would be speaking to investigators later today to see if more information on the shooting can be released, but he said they might want to await Wednesday’s autopsies “so we can say without any question as to what happened and who shot who.”

“Last night they just didn’t have the answers in front of them,” he told The Associated Press.