BRANDON, Miss. (AP) – A trail of mayhem that began last week in a suburban Mississippi apartment ended Wednesday morning when a stolen SUV chased by police flipped in a fiery crash in a rural Kansas field.
In between, authorities suspect 28-year-old Alex Deaton killed two people, shot three others and stole four vehicles.
“He’s led us on quite the chase the last few days and I think everybody here is happy he’s in custody,” Mississippi Department of Public Safety Commissioner Marshall Fisher said at a news conference Wednesday.
Officials in Mississippi, Kansas and New Mexico are investigating Deaton, although Mississippi authorities appear likely to get first crack at prosecuting him because both the killings he’s being investigated for happened there. Fisher and Rankin County Sheriff Brian Bailey said Mississippi will seek to extradite Deaton from Ellsworth County, Kansas, where he is jailed.
“So far, everybody is wanting to release him to us to come back here; and we want that also,” Bailey said.