Sketch released of man suspected in fatal road rage shooting
SEATTLE -- Seattle police detectives have release a sketch of a man suspected in the fatal road-rage shooting of Yancy Noll last month.
The 42-year-old Noll was gunned down in his own car on Aug. 31 while waiting at a red light on 15th Avenue NE at NE 75th Street.
According to police, the shooter pulled up in the oncoming traffic lanes next to Noll and for reasons that may be related to road rage, fired multiple rounds at Noll, striking him several times. The suspect then fled the scene in his car and remains at large.
The suspect's vehicle is described as a silver 2002-2008 BMW Z4 convertible with a black interior. The car may have recent body damage, including a broken-out passenger side window.
Several witnesses describe the shooter as a well-dressed white or Asian male in his late 20s to 30s with dark, slicked-back hair and were able to provide investigators with enough details to generate a sketch.
Noll was a wine steward for the QFC grocery chain and was well-known in the wine community. Friends describe Noll as a good-hearted outdoorsman who had been planning a kayaking trip in the coming days. They can't imagine any motive for killing him.
"He had a heart of gold. He really cared about people," said friend, Laural Waters. "It just feels senseless, given who he was."
Anyone with any information is asked to call 911 or the Seattle Police Homicide Tip Line at (206) 233-5000. Anonymous tips are welcome.
The 42-year-old Noll was gunned down in his own car on Aug. 31 while waiting at a red light on 15th Avenue NE at NE 75th Street.
According to police, the shooter pulled up in the oncoming traffic lanes next to Noll and for reasons that may be related to road rage, fired multiple rounds at Noll, striking him several times. The suspect then fled the scene in his car and remains at large.
The suspect's vehicle is described as a silver 2002-2008 BMW Z4 convertible with a black interior. The car may have recent body damage, including a broken-out passenger side window.
Several witnesses describe the shooter as a well-dressed white or Asian male in his late 20s to 30s with dark, slicked-back hair and were able to provide investigators with enough details to generate a sketch.
Noll was a wine steward for the QFC grocery chain and was well-known in the wine community. Friends describe Noll as a good-hearted outdoorsman who had been planning a kayaking trip in the coming days. They can't imagine any motive for killing him.
"He had a heart of gold. He really cared about people," said friend, Laural Waters. "It just feels senseless, given who he was."
Anyone with any information is asked to call 911 or the Seattle Police Homicide Tip Line at (206) 233-5000. Anonymous tips are welcome.
I am sickened at the comments in this forum. Â An innocent man is dead and all you people can do is make fun of it? Â This guy's family and friends are mourning and want justice. Â We need to solve this so they can try to move on. PLease! Please stop the jokes and be serious. Â This is what is ruining society....lack of respect!
I am surprised that witnesses could get that good of a look at the driver but not the licence plate number. Either way, I hope they find him fast. Yancy was a friend of a friend's boyfriend. Very sad.
Wow, some of these comments are sickening. Someone knows who this is. Please turn him in.
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 @SecretAgent  @sexy back! Yes because we can judge people by the make and model of the cars they drive, not by the inane comments they leave on internet forums
This was not road rage or a random shooting, this sounds like a personal vendetta , the facts just don't add up. There is a lot more to this story that we don't now or the media is telling us. I'll bet we find out a lot more in the weeks to come.Â
 @hinterland ummm, show me your proof of this then
@hinterland Why do you think that?
Looks almost like "undercover ninja cop" who karate-kicked a surrendering suspect in a convenience store during a big drug bust.
"Secrect, Asian mannnn"
 @206_Assaulter Hey, that's my song!!
hmmmmmm, a white or asian driving a bmw...that really narrows it down.
From what I have gathered...Jim foreman reports the dog Lola is now with yancy's gf. But another girl, Jen mallinger, waited for the apt. 2 doors down from yancy to open up so she could move in next to him. The driver of the BMW has "slicked back black hair." Jen also has black hair. Did Jen gun down yancy in a jealous rage?
How can this not be solved yet? They have a car, description, and there are frickin traffic cameras ALL OVER this city!! It's so frustrating. How in the world can they not have come up with a license plate yet? Freeway cameras on I-5? Cameras all over Lake City Way? Roosevelt? They know what direction the guy came from and left in.... and the photo of the car. I support our police department 100%, but there is something wrong here. They should be knocking on every single door where a bmw is registered. Every rental, every sale, every dmv record should be investigated. I realize this takes a load of time, but they should have something by now. And to those of you regarding the confusion with asian/white- People can be biracial. This man could be both, or neither for that matter. I'm sure it's not easy to get a great look at a driver speeding away from a crime scene. It doesn't mean anyone is lying or mistaken.
@victory1 State law prohibits the use of traffic cameras for anything other than recording traffic infractions for which they were installed to monitor. People have fought hard to protect their privacy, so hard they have sacrificed their common sense.
@victory1 They may already being shadowing this guy, and media reports such as these are often times merely diversionary.Â
WATCH YER BACK, NINJA!!!!
@DualLeads@victory1
Sounds reasonable however my guess is this guy has shaved his head and is in the wind on an East bound jumbo jet. The car is probably covered and parked in a garage
Something about this case bothers me. Currently the reported description has now been expanded from original descriptors of a well-dressed White male to the now possibility of an Asian male in his 20s or 30s with dark, slicked-back hair. I recall seeing TV news reports where a couple of Asian witnesses eagerly shared their eyewitness accounts of the shooting. This did strike me as peculiar to have actual eyeball witnesses grant TV interview(s). While itâs not unusual to have people who were inside, heard shooting however didnât see the actual crime come forward for interviews chiming away how bad the neighborhood has become. As I recall they described a White driver of suspect vehicle. Surely Asian folks would be able to recognize with a greater certainty if the shooter was Asian or not. I hope these people are not trying to muddy up the description by purposely steering the cops and community away from and protecting a possible Asian shooter blaming a White suspect. This is a tactic that happens all too often when non-minority gets jammed up. We have seen they have a tendency to blame it on a big mysterious phantom Negro man, who came out of nowhere in the dark scaring the heebie-jeebies out of the people.
 @Harrison They said asian or white the same weekend this happened.
 @Harrison The media referred to the suspect being possibly White or Asian in the earlier reports. I think you are barking up the wrong tree.
Â
BTW, "Phantom Negro Man" sounds like a good name for a punk rock band.
And the "Yuppie Hunt" begins............
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 @SecretAgent  @CIAassassin --heres to hoping neither of you are for real......
Interested in the significance of the broken out passenger side window. Did he shoot through it? Was it punched out just prior to the fatal shooting per an altercation?
Either way - this guy is screwed, and I'm sure its doggin him, and I'm damn glad that it is! This dude is bad news and needs to be sharing a death-row cell with the Craigslist killer.
I have seen so many BMW drivers are cocky,they drive very fast like they have to be in a hurry !
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Well, if one parent were white and one asian, you'd get....um....nevermind--I'll leave you to pursue Boris and Natasha.
These crimes are almost always solved by snitches. Make it worth their while. A reward.
 @Klondiko so?  Why don't you turn him in then?
Assuming it was his car they might want to check the local dealerships. 20's 30's, slicked back hair, nicely dressed, hmmmmmm
I hope SPD is competent enough to solve this case, but I have my doubts. Isn't the bystander shooting from Pioneer square earlier this year STILL unsolved?
 @Whobeke How about you solve this?  Huh?  It is people like you who give the SPD a bad name.  They try to do their job...but, people like you obstruct them and waste valuable time
Pretty sure SPD has had a hand in giving themselves a bad name. Good grief.
 @Whobeke Everyone's a detective on here.  How about all you guys become cops and show them how it's done?  What's stopping you?
 @Un named  @Whobeke Doesn't pay enough. Leave it to the "I guess I'll do this..." crowd.
You would think he would drive the same routes all the time. If he drove by there before he would drive by there again. Please keep an eye out in that area.
 @mstipton How do you know the car wasn't stolen?Â
 @mstipton Not unless he went out of his way to gun him down because he was pissed.
I cannot understand this. Â That is one of the least common cars around. Â Surely going through the registration records would yield some information, assuming it's registered in Washington.Â
Sounds like it would be easy to trace that kind of car using DMV records. Such a sad society we are that we cannot control our anger better than this way. RIP sir, Justice is on the way.
Catch this scab. Get him off the streets and where he bolongs.
What color is the rag top? We could assume black, but for reasons I will keep to myself I would like to be sure. If you are an Asian in a silver Z-4, you might want to trade it in for now.Â
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 @Romey-Rome  @LNSeveN Which may make it even easier if the person/people they investigate can't produce the car they had just owned and they conveniently lost.
Hmmm... looks like Simon Cowell did it.
 @KOMO_Sapiens I had the same thought.
It does look like him. ;-)
Purportedly there are only about 250 cars in that model/color in WA.........they should be pinning this down pretty quick.
Witnesses had enough detail to provide a sketch but no one thought to get a license plate number?
 @Tattooed_Angel The guy sped off.....
I hope they find this guys rotting corpse deep in the woods somewhere along with his burned-out Beemer.
We got to get this guy. Otherwise who will be next!
Guns don't kill people but they sure make it easier.Â
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 @mstipton Then change the tone you have in your mind while you read the text.
 @ChrisP  @mstipton Explain how my comment is offensive.Â
 @ChrisP  @Sovereign  @mstipton mwaaa
 @Sovereign  @mstipton Flagged both of your comments for being offensive