Carjacking ends in taxi crash

It took three crumpled cars and 15 minutes to catch a knife-wielding fugitive who left a wake of automobile destruction and angry victims across town Friday.

What started as a purse-snatching in a mall parking lot developed into a carjacking and high-speed chase that ended in a crash with a taxi near Southeast Missouri State University.

Police said that about 4:30 p.m. a man threatened a woman in the parking lot at Westfield Shoppingtown West Park outside JCPenney and attempted to steal her purse. He got away with the purse, dropping his weapon, a pocket knife.

People standing in the nearby Barnes & Noble parking lot heard screaming, saw the man's maroon car speeding away and followed in their own vehicle.

Using a cell phone, the witnesses aided police in keeping up with the man's location, following him from the mall parking lot to Bloomfield Road, where police pulled in behind and gave chase.

At Bloomfield and Kingshighway, the man lost control of his car on a turn and hit a median.

Another driver tried to trap him in his car by pulling his van close to the man's car door, but he wriggled free.

'Lock your door!'

Jason Plains was at a stoplight heading west on Bloomfield Road when he saw the maroon car being chased by police.

"I saw him spin out and jump out of his car," Plains said. Plains said he told his passenger, Christopher Smith, "Lock your door, man!"

He said the man, whom he described as red-haired in his early 20s, grabbed his rear passenger door and tried to climb in, jogging along and yelling for Plains to stop, but he couldn't keep up with the car and lost his footing.

"I took my car over the curb and he went flying," Plains said.

Peggy McKee wasn't as lucky as Plains.

The man forced her from her sport utility vehicle in the parking lot of Huck's convenience store and took off.

In McKee's stolen car, the man fled down Bloomfield to Pacific, across William, through Southeast Missouri State University campus to Alta Vista Drive, then down Terrace Drive to Sprigg Street, where he was hit by the taxi, police said.

Kelley Transportation driver Thomas Tennant had just dropped off a passenger and was headed south on Sprigg Street in the company's orange van when a dark Blazer flew off Terrace Drive in front of him.

Door to escape

The final barrier to the man's freedom was apparently a door at the university's maintenance building on Normal Avenue. After jumping out of the car on Sprigg, fleeing through yards and jumping fences, the man was stymied by the locked door. That's where police caught him, Schmidt said.

Late Friday the man's name was being withheld pending formal charges, which police said would be numerous.

"This man blew through every stop sign and light along the way," police Cpl. Rick Schmidt said. "He only slowed down when he hit something."

Taxi driver Tennant, suffering from back pain, had a co-worker drive him to a hospital after talking to police.

Across town at Bloomfield Road and Kingshighway, a shaken Sheri Landgraf stood on the side of the road and watched her mother being interviewed in the back of a patrol car.

"Thank God she wasn't hurt," Landgraf said. A few minutes later, she was able to hug her mother and reassure herself that she was OK.

When told the man had been caught, Peggy McKee's brother-in-law, Pat McKee, asked if the thief had been injured.

"If he's not, I wouldn't mind putting a few bruises on him," the retired teacher said.

abuchanan@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 160