Police start pursuit in Stansbury Park; net car thieves in Vernon four hours later

Three car thieves from West Jordan were apprehended Tuesday morning after a high-speed chase and pre-dawn ground pursuit that crossed Tooele County and lasted almost four hours.

According to Tooele County Sheriff Frank Park, a call came into dispatch reporting cars racing around Stansbury Park at 3:46 a.m. Sgt. Jeffrey Morgan, of the Tooele County Sheriff’s Office, pursued the vehicles — a 1993 Honda Civic and a dark-colored pickup — south on SR-36 until the truck pulled over in Stockton.

At that point, Morgan continued pursuing the Civic, and Deputy Eli Wayman, who had followed a close distance behind Morgan, stayed behind with the pickup.

David Farnsworth, the Stansbury Park resident driving the pickup, which he had borrowed from his brother, told Wayman he was pursing a car he believed to be connected to the theft of his 1993 Nissan Sentra, which had just been stolen from his driveway. Farnsworth realized his car was in the process of being stolen when he awoke to the sound of the engine starting outside his home, Park said.

Meanwhile, Morgan’s pursuit of the Civic, which was traveling without lights on, reached speeds over 100 mph, until the car got a flat tire near milepost 29, a couple miles north of the Faust Road junction. When Morgan got out of his squad car after pulling up behind the Civic, he heard another vehicle approaching behind him.

It wasn’t until the vehicle — the stolen Nissan Sentra, driven by Jason Stout, 20, from West Jordan — nearly hit Morgan before he realized the car wasn’t police backup. The 17-year-old male and female suspects then exited the Civic and jumped into the Sentra, which sped away.

Morgan then hopped back into his squad car and chased the Sentra.

Sgt. Willard Gowans, also of the Tooele County Sheriff’s Office, was at home in Vernon when he heard of the chase on his police radio. He set out road spikes on SR-36 before the fleeing suspects arrived. In an attempt to avoid the spikes, the Sentra swerved off the road to the right and then to the left. At 4:09 a.m., the three suspects fled from the Sentra on foot under cover of a cloud of dust.

Park said officers called the Utah Department of Public Safety Aero Bureau to request the help of its helicopter and infrared equipment to aid in finding the suspects. Officers from Tooele City, Grantsville and the Utah Highway Patrol joined the Sheriff’s Office in the ground search.

At 5:52 a.m., the Sheriff’s Office received word that a male teenager had entered a rancher’s home nearby requesting to use a phone to call his mother. Park said that the male juvenile, who was the driver of the stolen Civic, was taken into custody shortly thereafter.

At 7:19 a.m., police found the female juvenile lying in a field, and almost 20 minutes later Stout was found hiding in an outbuilding on Gowans’ property.

“All of the suspects were taken into custody within a quarter mile from where they exited the vehicle,” Park said.

Stout was booked into the Tooele County Detention Center on two counts of aggravated assault, possession of a stolen vehicle, vehicle theft, possession of a controlled substance and felony fleeing.

Park said Stout has a history with law enforcement and was wanted on $43,000 worth of outstanding warrants from courts in Salt Lake Valley at the time of his arrest.

The 17-year-old male, from West Jordan, was charged with felony fleeing and possession of stolen property. The 17-year-old female accomplice, also of West Jordan, was charged with possession of a stolen vehicle. Both teens are being held at the Utah State Juvenile Detention Center in Salt Lake City.

Park said police believe the threesome traveled together from Salt Lake in the Civic, which they had stolen on July 20 in Layton, to Tooele County with the intent to steal a vehicle in Stansbury Park, Park said.

“In the Civic there was a set of about eight keys that were filed down and manufactured to start any kind of car of that make,” Park said.

All three of the suspected car thieves were under the influence of methamphetamine, Park added.

jamieb@tooeletranscript.com