A San Francisco Bay Area doctor was shot and killed during an off-roading trip with his 15-year-old son after he stopped to ask a man for directions.
Dr. Ari Gershman of Danville was shot near Downieville in rural Sierra County on the Fourth of July.
Gershman and his son, Jack pulled over at a fork when a man pulled up behind their Jeep on an ATV.
Jack said that his father suggested to ask the man for directions, but the man “pulls out a pistol and starts shooting.”
The son then ran from the car into the surrounding woods and got lost for about 30 hours, before being finally able to call his mom, Paige Gershman.
“I said, ‘Where’s Dad?’ And he’s like, ‘He’s been shot.’ And I said, ‘What do you — what do you even mean?” Paige said in an interview.
Ari died at the scene while Jack spent 30 hours alone and lost in the dense woods wearing only shorts and a T-shirt.
The teenager drank from a stream the entire time, and was found covered in bug bites and scratches when he was rescued.
The shooter, who was later identified by police as John Thomas Conway, was arrested following a police chase on his ATV.
Police say Conway tried to run through a checkpoint on an ATV, as he posed an unspecified threat, and at least one officer fired a weapon and a police dog was released.
Before the death of Ari Gershman, Conway also shot and injured two other people nearby who survived.
The Butte County Sheriff’s Office listed Conway as one of the most wanted fugitives for having outstanding felony warrants which includes vandalism, battery and two counts of making terrorist threats.
Conway is currently recovering from a gunshot wound at a hospital in Chico.