High speed chase leads to arrests

By Staff
A gas drive off led to a high speed chase and the arrest of two people wanted on felony warrants last week.
Dispatchers with the Morgan County Sheriff’s Office received a call March 29 at 4:40 p.m. reporting a couple in an older model white Lincoln Town Car drove off from the Spur Station on Highway 231 in Lacey’s Spring without paying for $45.03 in gas. The owner of the gas station said the couple left traveling south on Highway 231 towards the Highway 36 intersection.
Deputies later saw the car traveling west bound at a high rate of speed on Highway 36 just past Herman Bailey Road. Deputies tried pull the suspect over but the driver sped up.
Deputies set up at the four-way stop at the intersection of Highway 36 and Highway 67. The driver swerved around the deputies’ cars, crossed Highway 67 at a high rate of speed and continued west on Highway 36, reaching speeds of more than 100 miles per hour and traveling in the wrong lane of traffic.
The pursuit ended at the Highway 36 and Interstate 65 intersection when the suspects were prevented from turning onto the northbound lane by traffic and turned instead on the southbound ramp where they lost control of their vehicle. They tried to go northbound until they were stopped by a deputy who rammed his car into the suspects’ vehicle and pushed it off into the median.
The driver, Zachary T. Russell, 24, of Belvidere, Tenn. was also wanted on a parole violation in Kentucky. The passenger, Cassaundra Allen, 30, of Shelbyville, Tenn. was wanted by Huntsville Police on charges of robbery in the third degree.
Both were taken to the Morgan County Jail, where Russell remains on numerous charges, including attempting to elude, reckless endangerment, resisting arrest, possession of drug paraphernalia and other traffic charges. He is being held on $2,400 bond on those charges but is being held without bond on the Kentucky charges.
Allen was turned over to Huntsville authorities.