High-speed chase ends in Destin house
Comments 0 Recommend 0 February 17, 2009 - 11:40 AM
Jenni Rich Florida Freedom Newspapers DESTIN - Waking up early on a Monday morning is not usually a treat - especially when it's because there is a red Ford pickup truck parked in the guest room of your home. "It sounded like a thud and the dogs started barking," homeowner Norma Calhoun said. It was a quiet morning in the cul-de-sac of Seaview Circle as the Calhoun household was sound asleep, and next-door neighbor Sara Harris was rising around 4 a.m. to get ready to head off to her nursing job. "She heard a car coming at high speed," husband Gary Harris said. It was a 2001 Ford that led deputies on a high speed chase from Fort Walton Beach. The truck was traveling south on Eglin Parkway when police clocked the vehicle going 45 mph in a 30 mph zone. The officer pulled in behind the truck with lights on and called in a traffic stop, but the driver had other plans. The truck did not stop and the report said that the driver proceeded onto eastbound U.S. 98, accelerating at speeds up to 80 mph, swerving all over the road as he crossed Okaloosa Island. The report said the driver almost ran the truck off the roadway near the sea wall. Fort Walton Beach police in pursuit were joined by Okaloosa County Sheriff's deputies as the truck crossed the Marler Bridge into Destin. The driver sped up Marler Street and tried to lose the units in the back streets of Destin until he made the mistake of turning onto Seaview, a street that ends in a cul-de-sac. The truck made tracks across the Calhouns' lawn and crashed into the front guest room of their home, just missing their porch. "My grandson just moved out, thank God," Norma said. "He would have been there." After the impact, the driver and a passenger fled on foot. The driver escaped into the dark, but the passenger was apprehended. The passenger said that the driver, a young male approximately 25-years-old, was someone he just met. The owner of the truck is a Niceville woman that was called from the scene. Gary said that he was standing nearby as the officer spoke with the woman and she told the officer that the truck was primarily driven by her son, but that he loans it out to a lot of people. After the truck was pulled from the home, the Calhouns were left with a gaping hole through the brick siding and sheet rock. The impact knocked the big double window off its mount and into the home. The shrubbery lining the front of the home kept the damage from being worse than it was. An evergreen "that's been there forever" kept the truck from penetrating the brick home even more. "It was almost on the bed," Calhoun said. Ironically, the Calhouns were set to have a security system with surveillance installed next week. "We've been in this house 30 years and been through every hurricane, and this is the worst damage," Norma said, adding that they have never had more than $1,000 worth of damage happen to the home at once. The truck lifted the rafters of the home, causing more damage to the foundation than meets the eye. "You don't wake up every morning with a truck in your house," Norma said.
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