High-speed chase leaves three dead

A high-speed chase following a traffic stop in Columbia ended in the deaths of three people early Friday morning when their car struck a parked tractor-trailer near Rocheport on Interstate 70.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol identified the driver of the 2004 Nissan Maxima as Torrance T. Stapleton, 28, of Columbia; Tiffany A. Graves, 24, of Hallsville, and Ieisha N. Hayes, 22, of Columbia, were passengers.

Columbia Police Chief Randy Boehm said an officer initially pulled the car over near the intersection of Woodlawn Avenue and East Worley Street. Police stopped the car because the department had received a tip from “a credible source” that one of the women in the car was involved with an Oct. 8 robbery at the Campus Inn, said Capt. Brad Nelson. Further investigation, however, suggests that is not the case.

“At this point we don’t believe that any of the occupants of the car were involved in the Oct. 8 robbery,” he said.

Boehm said the car then sped away as an officer approached it, eventually heading west on I-70. Columbia Police and the Missouri State Highway Patrol pursued the vehicle at a speed sometimes exceeding 100 mph but lost sight of the car just east of the Missouri River bridge, Boehm said.

Officers ended the search and passed the wreck without noticing it, Boehm said. A third Columbia police officer heading back to Columbia noticed the accident when turning around at the Rocheport exit.

Officials and witnesses said the car was destroyed.

“It looked like a bomb went off,” said Todd Oden, the driver of the truck who was asleep in the cab at the time of the accident. He was uninjured in the crash.

Division Chief Gale Blomenkamp of the Boone County Fire Protection District, which responded to the crash, described the car as “totally cut in half.”

“It’s the worst wreck I’ve seen in 16 years of doing this,” he said.

Acting Boone County Medical Examiner Eddie Adelstein said the three people in the car were not wearing their seat belts and suffered “catastrophic injuries.” He said the cause of death was blunt trauma to the head and chest. He said it was standard for accident victims to be tested for alcohol and drugs. Results of those tests will be available in three to four weeks.

In the October robbery at Campus Inn, two women invited a man they met at a nearby restaurant to their hotel room about 11 p.m. While he was lying on the bed, a man entered the room and robbed him at gunpoint.

Nelson said it was unclear why the people in the car tried to get away from police.

“We have no idea why they fled the scene or refused to stop for the officer,” Nelson said, “and I’m not sure we’ll ever know.”