A man who escaped from the Jackson County jail in Newport died Tuesday afternoon near Mountain View, Mo., when his car crashed into a tree and caught on fire during a pursuit by officers, authorities said.
Steven Mitchell, 39, was killed when the Nissan Altima he was driving left Missouri Route T in Shannon County, Mo., east of Mountain View, said Sgt. Marty Elmore of the Missouri Highway Patrol.
Officers from the Mountain View Police Department and the Howell County sheriff’s office were involved in the chase, Elmore said.
Mitchell, who had been convicted of first-degree battery, and Steven William Reed, 22, who was awaiting transfer to the Arkansas Department of Correction on aparole violation, were being held in the Jackson County jail. They crawled through a hole in the ceiling in the cell they shared early Monday and escaped through the roof, Jackson County Sheriff David Lucas said.
Deputies found Reed in a wooded area of Independence County about 20 miles from the jail Monday evening, the sheriff said. He faces a first-degree escape charge and is back in the jail withbail set at $1 million.
Lucas said Mitchell’s wife, Jessica Mitchell of Jackson County, picked the two up in her car Monday morning after they escaped. She took Reed to Independence County, then she and Steven Mitchell headed to Missouri, Lucas said.
The sheriff said the two had no family connections in Missouri and were passing through Mountain View, Mo., when authorities there spotted them.
“They were on the lam,” he said. “They were trying to get far away from JacksonCounty.”
Off icers f irst chased Mitchell early Tuesday afternoon but lost sight of the car, Elmore said. Then, Steven Mitchell stopped the car and let his wife out before driving on, Elmore said.
“He kicked her out to the side of the road,” Elmore said. “Then he took off again.”
Police found Jessica Mitchell standing on the side of U.S. 60 near Mountain View and arrested her.
Authorities will extradite her back to Jackson County, where she faces a charge of assisting in or furnishing animplement for escape, Lucas said. She was held in the Howell County jail in West Plains, Mo., awaiting transport back to Newport, he said.
After her arrest, a Mountain View police officer spotted Mitchell’s white Altima on Route T just between Mountain View and Birch Tree about 3:30 p.m. Tuesday and began chasing it, Elmore said.
“After a brief pursuit, [Mitchell] left the road and crashed,” he said. The Shannon County coroner pronounced Mitchell dead at the scene, he said.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 9 on 07/31/2013