SLIPPERY ROCK TWP — State police investigators were planning to talk Monday to one of the victims in a puzzling weekend shooting that played out in the parking lot of an off-campus housing complex near Slippery Rock University.

But that interview will be 350 miles from Sunday’s crime scene where police say three men got out of a car and opened fire at another occupied car that had just pulled into The Grove apartments.

“It’s very important what that (victim) is going to say in how we move forward on this investigation,” Trooper Gregory Bogan, lead investigator in the case, said Monday.

Police are trying to make sense of the shooting as they try to unravel the mystery. Solid clues have been elusive. Physical evidence is scant.

Based largely on the eye and ear witness accounts of tenants and security staff at the large housing complex on Harmony Road in Slippery Rock Township, investigators have a general outline of what happened.

Three males about 12:30 a.m. Sunday were in a tan or gold-colored Toyota Avalon in the parking lot.

When a gray Pontiac Bonneville pulled into the lot, the three males — at least two armed with handguns — jumped out of the Toyota. They fired multiple shots, as many as six rounds, Bogan said. No injuries were reported and both cars took off.

Police later recovered a single spent shell casing. Investigators would not identify the caliber of the round.

Bogan conceded there are no suspects and no motive.

And for some time after the gunfire faded away, there were no identified victims. Even the number of victims wasn’t known.

But investigators caught a break when they learned that at least one witness got the license plate number of the car apparently targeted in the shooting.

The owner of the Pontiac Bonneville, who police believe was there, drove away. He kept driving until he reached home — Philadelphia.

Bogan declined to say much more about the 23-year-old man, who has no criminal record and who is not an SRU student.

Police did not immediately know why he was in Slippery Rock.

Troopers in Philadelphia, who are assisting with the investigation here, were hoping to answer that question and others when they interview the man.

Meanwhile, Bogan plans to conduct more interviews of his own.

Police canvassed The Grove, which has 560 tenants, mostly students in 27 buildings, shortly after the shooting, searching for potential witnesses who saw or heard something.

As of late Monday afternoon, Bogan guessed that he spoke to 20 people — about half of whom provided useful information to the investigation.

But because the suspected crime happened at night and there are no surveillance cameras at the apartment complex, police don’t have good descriptions of the suspects.

All three are black. One wore a light blue hooded sweat shirt. That’s about it, Bogan admitted.

Witnesses were able to pass on seemingly better descriptions of the two cars involved in the shooting.

Still, based on what they were initially told, police issued a news release just hours after the gunfire that erroneously identified the victims’ car as a Pontiac Grand Prix.

Investigators are asking anyone with information about the shooting to call police at 724-284-8100, or 911. Bogan said he is particularly interested in any cell phone video that may aid the investigation