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WASHINGTON, Sunday (AFP)

A vise of anxiety tightened on the greater Washington area with people changing their habits and lifestyles as a serial sniper killer's toll climbed to eight dead and two wounded in 10 days.

Police said each of the victims was felled at long range by a single bullet from the same rifle.

Major Howard Smith of the Spotsylvania County, Virginia sheriff's department said ballistic tests showed a Pennsylvania man killed Friday in Massaponax, Virginia, 80 kilometers (50 miles) south of here, was shot by the same weapon as the nine others: a 5.56-millimeter (.223-caliber) assault-type rifle.

He said the tests were done by the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, whose ballistics lab is considered the best in the country.

"We all in the community obviously feel concerned ... stressed," Virginia Governor Mark Warner told a press conference.

"It is striking terror in people's hearts," said Spotsylvania County sheriff Ronald Knight, in whose jurisdiction the latest attack fell, adding: "We are doing everything that we can. We are continuing to follow up on everything that we can." Although all 10 shootings have not been positively linked to a single weapon, police acknowledged they had few clues to the shooter.

"At this point," one police source said on condition of anonimity, "the odds are in the sniper's favor."

"The eyes and ears of the public are some of our best assets right now," said Warner.

A Newsweek poll meanwhile showed fear of a sniper attack had quickly climbed to the top of the list of things Americans are most worried about, surpassing terrorism, the stagnating economy and job and retirement security.

Police in the affluent suburbs of Maryland, north of Washington, where the shooting spree began last week with five killings in 16 hours, said the FBI will soon release a "graphic aid" on the sniper case, without elaborating.

Fears were also being fueled by the brazenness of the sniper, who at the scene of one shooting left a taunting message to police on a tarot card, and at Friday's killing fired on his victim at a gas station as a Virginia state trooper stood across the street.

Witness accounts, said police, indicated the fatal bullet may have flown over the head of the policeman before hitting its random victim. Many of the area's shops and restaurants have reported slower business as residents limited their outdoor time.

All of the victims were carrying out everyday activities in the Washington area, shopping or, in four cases, pumping gas into their cars at self-service filling stations when they were shot.

Five people were killed within a 16-hour period from late October 2 to October 3 in Montgomery County, which borders Washington. A sixth person was shot in the chest and killed late October 3 while standing on a Washington street corner close to the Maryland border.

On October 4, a woman was shot in the back in the parking lot of a shopping mall in Fredericksburg, Virginia, near Massaponax, but survived.

A 13-year-old boy was shot and wounded Monday in Bowie, Maryland, while a 53-year-old man was shot and killed late Wednesday while getting gas in Manassas, Virginia. Kenneth Bridges, 53, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania was fatally shot Friday just yards (meters) from where a state trooper stood across the road.

The reward for information leading to the killer's capture and conviction has soared to 500,000 dollars.

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