A man shot in the forehead by a passing driver pulled his pickup truck off a Monroe County interstate and called 911 for help Tuesday, according to state police.
An ambulance drove Michael Stewart to Geisinger Community Medical Center in Scranton, police said. The hospital treated and released him, a spokesman said.
Using video footage from the pickup truck’s dash cameras, local traffic control cameras and social media, police tracked down the shooting suspect and invited her to an interview.
Tatiana Peterson, 38, of Tobyhanna, came to the state police barracks at Stroudsburg and confessed to shooting Stewart, according to an arrest affidavit.
State Trooper Carl Nerthling charged Peterson with attempted criminal homicide, aggravated assault and four other counts, according to a criminal complaint.
Stewart reported to 911 that someone shot him in the head just before 11:30 a.m. as he drove on Interstate 380 north in Coolbaugh Twp.
Troopers found Stewart sitting in his Ford pickup truck with “a large bleeding wound to his forehead.”
He told troopers that “a black SUV engaged him in a road rage incident,” according to an arrest affidavit charging Peterson. The affidavit does not detail the road rage incident.
Police found a single bullet hole in the pickup’s front passenger side window and two bullet holes in the front driver’s side window.
A witness driving behind Stewart and the black SUV saw the SUV’s driver extend an arm holding a “small pistol” out its driver’s side window, according to the affidavit.
The witness provided a partial license plate number. The pickup truck’s dash camera provided the full number, which police tracked to a 2019 Hyundai Tucson owned by Peterson’s sister. They found the same vehicle, with Tatiana Peterson driving, was involved in a similar incident in January 2024, according to the affidavit. Details of that incident were unavailable.
A Stroud Area Regional Police Department officer told state police Stroud Township traffic control cameras spotted the Tucson driving on Route 33 and Route 611 about 20 minutes before the shooting.
The driver was a heavyset woman with long, dark brown hair who wore dark-rimmed glasses and a gray or white short-sleeve shirt and had a dark bracelet on her left wrist.
Stewart described the shooter as white with long dark brown hair and wearing glasses but couldn’t tell if a man or woman shot him, according to the affidavit.
Police said the dash camera footage showed the black SUV entered I-380 and appeared to leave the highway at exit 8 before veering left and getting back on the interstate’s right lane. The SUV accelerated to catch up.
The camera footage showed the SUVs driver, who matched the description of the driver on routes 33 and 611, extended her left hand out the open driver’s side window while holding a silver handgun and fired, according to the affidavit.
A check of the state Department of Transportation’s database and Peterson’s social media found she matched the SUV driver’s description, according to the affidavit.
Police contacted Peterson and invited her to submit to an interview.
Peterson confessed to firing at Stewart and said she put the gun, a Bersa Thunder .380 ACP, in a dresser drawer in her bedroom, Nerthling wrote in the affidavit.
Magisterial District Judge Jamie Levy denied Peterson bail and ordered her jailed in the Monroe County Prison. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for 10 a.m. Tuesday.
