Two Great Falls men were arrested last month after at least nine bullets were fired into a recreational vehicle parked at a residence on Utterback Store Road. Two people inside the RV were not injured.
Vahid Esmaeilian, 19, of 1309 Colvin Forest Dr., and Jonathan Heidel, 19, of 10220 Akhtamar Ct., were arrested at Walker and Manning Roads in Great Falls a little after midnight on April 17, soon after the shooting, according to Officer Tom Harrington of Fairfax County Police.
Both were charged with shooting into an occupied dwelling.
The two people in the RV first heard voices shouting obscenities, followed by a hail of at least nine bullets and the sound of a defective muffler as a white or silver Acura pulled away, according to one of the residents in the house where the RV was parked.
One of two people inside the RV followed the car and got a description, which was relayed to police.
After Fairfax County Police identified a car meeting that description and pulled it over, the victim who had followed the car was able to identify it from the distinctive sound of its muffler, said a family member.
When the arrests were made just after midnight on April 17, police found .22 long rifle shells in the possession of the suspects, said the victim’s family member.
The RV was parked at the home because the family was planning to leave for a vacation early the next day, according to a family member. A man and woman who planned to sleep in the RV had been standing up talking before the bullets were fired.
But they went to bed before the incident occurred at about 11:45 p.m. so they were lying down when the bullets were fired, said police.
“A car pulled up, and they yelled and started firing bullets. He went from back to front. We found nine places where they shot through it,” said a family member. “If the [the man and woman in the RV] had been standing where they were, they both would’ve been hit.”
After the bullets were fired, the man in the RV “jumped out of bed, jumped in his truck and chased them,” said a family member. He caught up with the car at the traffic light at the intersection of Utterback Store Road and Georgetown Pike.
But when the driver of the car saw the pickup approaching, he turned onto Georgetown Pike and sped east toward Great Falls village at speeds approaching 100 miles per hour, said the family member.
By then, police were closing in and an officer spotted the car on Walker Road, made a traffic stop, and arrested the two men.
The family was unable to get the RV substituted for another, so they boarded up the broken windows and continued with their vacation, the family spokesman said.