A Bermudian man living in the DC area said residents are now constantly on the lookout after an unknown gunman shot and killed five people at random in suburban Washington on Wednesday and Thursday.

It is believed the shooter used a high-powered rifle to kill the victims. Each died from a single gunshot wound.

"People are really scared out here," Duane Wellman, 28, told The Royal Gazette.

Mr. Wellman, who lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, said the entire community was in shock.

"I was driving in my car when I heard the news yesterday morning," he said. "I couldn't believe it."

The father-of -one said after he called his daughter's school to see if it was closing, he contemplated not going to work, as many residents had decided to do.

"All we knew there was a lunatic on the loose," he said.

And knowing that the perpetrator could still be in the area is not easy, Mr. Wellman said.

"Everybody's on edge because they don't know what's happening.

"When people see a vehicle matching the description of the shooter's car, they stare at it, afraid that that he may be inside."

He also said shoppers going to the malls quicken their step from the parking lot to the building out of fear they may be attacked.

And while he said he planned on staying "close to home" this weekend, Mr. Wellman said residents will have to return to their normal lives soon, albeit cautiously.

"You have to go on with daily activities, but you have to be on your p's and q's when you are out."

Maryland police yesterday said they were now looking for two men in the sniper slayings. "You've got a driver, you've got a shooter," Montgomery County Police Chief Charles Moose said. Police said the description of men in a white van came from a witness to one of the murders.

Authorities were also trying to determine whether a 72-year-old man shot to death Thursday night on a Washington street was connected to the Maryland slayings.

And yesterday afternoon, a woman was shot in the back as she loaded packages into her car outside a crafts store in Fredericksburg, 55 miles south of here. Her condition was not immediately known.

The crafts store is part of the Michaels chain; the window of a Michaels store in Maryland was shot at Wednesday night, 45 minutes before the killing spree began. Police said it was too early to tell if the Virginia shooting was related.

Moose said investigators would wait for forensic results before deciding whether Pascal Charlot, 72, of Washington, was the sixth victim of the apparently random attacks.

"I'm not denying we have extreme interest, but we are going to wait for the science," Moose said.

Police hunting for the killers pulled over white vans yesterday and plastered orange stickers on the back to show the vehicles had been checked. Moose said investigators were chasing more than 200 leads.

Each Maryland victim was felled by a single bullet, apparently from a high-powered rifle or handgun. Police said evidence indicated the killer was some distance away and used .223-calibre bullets.

The search went on amid a mix of fear and defiance among residents of the economically and culturally diverse slice of the suburban county where the shootings occurred.

All over Montgomery County, people did what they usually do on a Friday, but they moved slowly and quietly, glancing at trees, bushes and rooftops. Many said they were afraid but wouldn't stop getting groceries, going to work or leaving their children with a baby sitter.