River claims Pontiac driven off boat ramp

A two-hour search by the Missouri State Water Patrol Friday failed to find a car driven off the Red Star boat ramp by a Southeast Missouri State University student who said she was trying to elude a pursuer.

As water patrol troopers methodically swept back and forth from the ramp downstream trying to locate the car at about 5 p.m. Thursday, Southeast freshmen Ashley Durst and Jane Ritter watched from the top of the ramp. Durst and Ritter were with Lauren Ostendorf, 19, about 15 hours earlier when Ostendorf drove her 1997 Pontiac Grand Am down the ramp.

Ostendorf had returned to her home in St. Louis earlier in the day, the pair said.

Ostendorf reported the accident at 4:21 a.m., Cape Girardeau Police Cpl. Jason Selzer said. In her statement, Ostendorf told officers that as she drove into an area of town she was unfamiliar with in an attempt to get away from the pursuing car, she ended up on the boat ramp, Selzer said. Ostendorf told police she and her passengers had to swim to shore, and flagged down a passing vehicle for a ride back to their rooms in Towers Complex.

"Someone was following us. Someone really was following us," Durst said.

Durst and Ritter said the trio had gone to McDonald's, where a car with young men began following them. The pursuit went on for about 20 minutes, they said, and they drove into the Red Star area to get away. Fog and darkness made it hard to tell where they were, Ritter said.

"All of a sudden we hit water," she said. "At first we thought it was a puddle."

Instead, it was the Mississippi River.

Water patrol agents from as far away as Hannibal, Mo., and Table Rock Lake brought a small boat equipped with side-scanning sonar capable of seeing 66 feet to either side. It found no solid clues as to the car's whereabouts, troopers said as they gave up the search.

The Mississippi River deposits large amounts of silt on the west side of the river near the boat ramp, and troopers speculated the car was swallowed by the thick sand on the bottom of the river.

"We're just not seeing anything," trooper Steve Peterson said.

The escape from the car was scary in the dark, Ritter said. "It started to turn, and go that way," she said, pointing downstream. "I climbed out the window."

Durst said the car started sinking quickly when she opened the door. "It kind of did a Titanic thing. As soon as I got out, it got sucked under."

The three women, wet and cold, flagged down a passing car and the driver took them to their campus residences, Durst said.

"That lady was so nice," she said. "I didn't even get her name."

The water patrol was called by the Cape Girardeau police to locate the vehicle. If they had found the car, trooper Tim Murrell said, they would have put a diver into the river in attempt to retrieve it.

rkeller@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 126