By LESLIE EIKLEBERRY
Salina Post
A car belonging to a Hays woman that was reported stolen in Saline County didn't disappear into a cloud of dust the second time it was found.
Saline County Sheriff Roger Soldan said this morning that a 2006 Dodge Magnum belonging to Jennie Bettes, 50, of Hays, was found Tuesday at an apartment complex at 2130 E. Crawford Street. The car was locked and intact.
Soldan said a couple of people of interest have been developed and law enforcement personnel are looking for them now.
The Magnum's brush with the law began at 3 a.m. Friday when it was stopped by an officer of the Salina Police Department. Two people in the vehicle, including the driver, who was Bettes' son, were arrested, Soldan said Tuesday, however, he did not know what the requested charges were for either person. Bettes was not in the car at the time of the stop.
When the arrests were made, the keys to the car were given to the third person in the car, Soldan said Tuesday. He explained that in such situations, a driver is given the choice of having the vehicle towed or having someone he or she knows drive the vehicle from the scene.
When Bettes was unable to determine the whereabouts of the car for several days, she reported it stolen to the Saline County Sheriff's Office on Monday. The person who was given the keys to the car could not be found and does not answer his cellphone.
After the car was reported stolen, an officer was looking for it in the Salina Police Department's new Flock traffic/tag reader camera system. The officer noticed that the car appeared in the area of W. Crawford Street and Centennial Road at multiple times throughout the day, Salina Police Captain Paul Forrester said Tuesday.
Late Monday night, a patrol officer got behind the car near the intersection of Viemont Avenue and Beverly Drive in west Salina and attempted to conduct a traffic stop in the 1600 block of Beverly Drive. When the officer got out of his patrol vehicle and ordered the driver of the Magnum to do the same, the car sped off southbound on Beverly Drive and a pursuit began.
Forrester said Tuesday that during the pursuit, speeds reached approximately 100 mph.
The pursuit went west on W. Crawford Street, and the car blew through the stop sign at Kansas Highway 140. It then went west on K-140 before turning north on S. Hohneck Road.
Forrester said that due to the dust, the officer lost sight of the Magnum and terminated the pursuit.