Las Vegas ? The story was compelling: An eagle-eyed tipster spotted the man wanted in a deadly string of Ohio sniper shootings reading a newspaper story about himself in a Las Vegas casino, gathered a trail of evidence and turned him in to police.

But a little more than a week after the tip that led sniper suspect Charles McCoy Jr. into custody, questions have surfaced about the story told by tipster Robert Conrad Malsom.

Investigators say McCoy was never at the Stardust casino and doesn’t appear on the casino’s surveillance tapes. A Wisconsin tourist six years older, 6 inches taller and 30 pounds heavier than McCoy says he’s the man who spoke to Malsom.

So how did McCoy wind up in custody?

Sticking by his story

Malsom, 60, is sticking with the story he told repeatedly last week as TV cameras rolled.

He said he offered a slice of pizza to a man at a sports-betting parlor at the Stardust and realized he was face-to-face with a fugitive. He said the man was reading a USA Today story about the search for the highway shooter, and that he left behind a water glass, matchbook, lunch wrappers and a scribbled note on the back of a horse-betting worksheet.

“I know what I saw,” he said. “I was certain.”

After the man left, Malsom says he gathered up clues he left behind and spent the afternoon trying to get the FBI and police in two states to believe him. Later that night he found McCoy’s green Geo Metro with Ohio license plates at a budget hotel just off the Strip.

Robert Conrad Malsom speaks to media at the Budget Suites Motel near the Las Vegas Boulevard in this March 17 file photo. No one knows exactly how Malsom found the man suspected of terrorizing motorists along Ohio highways for 10 months.

The efforts earned Malsom praise from law officers and put the unemployed salesman in line to claim at least part of a $60,000 reward for catching the culprit behind 24 highway shootings in which one person was killed.

Investigators say they don’t much care how much of Malsom’s story is true, since he somehow found the sniper’s car. They would not comment on a possible reward.

On the defensive

But as the media spotlight turned to media glare, Malsom has been trying to defend himself.

Last week Malsom gave a copy of the note he found at the casino to The Associated Press, although it’s not clear who wrote it and law enforcement officials won’t comment.

Undated, unsigned and almost indecipherable, the note has 30 lines written sideways on an 8 1/2- by 11-inch sheet of paper. Half appear to begin with the word “You.” One word resembles “Columbus”; another, “opportunity.” One line seems to include the phrase “absolutely preposterous.”

“This letter confirmed it for me,” Malsom said. “This was written by McCoy. Nobody’s disproved it to me.”

But Mike Cholak, 34, a real estate broker from Kenosha, Wis., said he was the one reading a USA Today at the Stardust when Malsom approached.

“I’m positive that the whole pizza experience happened to me,” Cholak said by telephone.

And the lead investigator in the case in Ohio said authorities had no evidence McCoy was ever in the Stardust during the 24 hours he was in Las Vegas before his capture.

“It wasn’t him. We checked,” said Franklin County, Ohio, Sheriff’s Detective Zachary Scott.

“We have videos of (McCoy) at other casinos, wearing a white shirt,” Scott said. “We’re pretty comfortable that when he said he wasn’t at the Stardust, he wasn’t at the Stardust.”

Friendly disagreement

Even Malsom’s former best friend in Las Vegas says he doesn’t believe Malsom met McCoy at the Stardust — and he was with Malsom at the time.

“He actually thinks it was McCoy he saw inside the sports book,” said Thomas Smith, 65, a neighbor in the RV park where Malsom parks his motor home. “I’m convinced that it wasn’t.”

Malsom and Smith aren’t speaking since arguing over who should get the reward. Their relationship has turned “venomous,” Malsom said.

Authorities acknowledge that Malsom made repeated 911 calls to get authorities to respond. Las Vegas Police are investigating why it took at least 14 increasingly frantic calls before officers met him near the motel where McCoy was arrested. Police later found a 9 mm Baretta handgun and ammunition in McCoy’s motel room.

Despite the discrepancies in Malsom’s account, investigators credit Malsom with helping catch McCoy, 28, who is jailed in Ohio facing a felonious assault charge.

“He helped out. He found the car,” Scott said from Columbus, Ohio. “He thought it was McCoy. That’s what he says. Then he started looking for cars, and found the car.

“What are the Vegas odds on that?”