Stolen-vehicle chase kills two

A woman evading police crashed into a car at Santa Fe and Mineral in Littleton

A woman fleeing a Douglas County sheriff’s deputy in a stolen car reached speeds of up to 100 mph before T-boning a vehicle at Santa Fe Drive and Mineral Avenue early Wednesday morning, killing two people inside the other car, authorities said.

The woman, who has not been publicly identified, was arrested and remains in custody, said Jose Uribe, spokesman for the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office.

A second suspect, driving another car, eluded authorities and has not been caught, according to a news release. Deputies later found the second car, which had been stolen in Castle Pines.

The identities of the two victims have not been released. One of the victims was a male.

Douglas County sheriff’s officials defended the decision to engage in the early morning chase, which lasted about 10 minutes. Deputies weighed a number of factors in making their decision to pursue the suspects, including the suspects’ recklessness and the time of day, sheriff’s spokeswoman Cocha Heyden said.

“At that time of the day there was no one on the road,” Heyden said. “One of the cars was driving northbound in southbound lanes. We learned that the cars involved had been stolen. We put all that into consideration.”

She added that a review will be conducted on the advisability of continuing the chase that ended in two deaths.

The chase began at 2:07 a.m. when a Douglas County sheriff’s deputy tried to pull over the speeding suspect, who was driving a car that had been stolen in Aurora, and another vehicle near the intersection of Santa Fe Drive and Daniels Park Road, just north of North Happy Canyon Road, Uribe said.

The suspect in the fatal crash was driving between 80 mph and 100 mph on northbound Santa Fe.

Deputies set up “stop sticks,” designed to puncture tires, ahead of the chase at Santa Fe and Highlands Ranch Parkway. But the suspect veered into the southbound lanes to avoid the trap, according to a Douglas County Sheriff’s Office news release.

At 2:17 a.m., the suspect crashed into the side of a car traveling west on Mineral Avenue, killing that vehicle’s two occupants, Uribe said. The other driver got away.

The deputy was not involved in the crash.

The Regional Transportation District had closed the light-rail station at Santa Fe and Mineral because of the crash, but service had resumed by late morning.