Four men who died in a crash while fleeing from police Thursday were linked to a string of burglaries in northern Pennsylvania, police said.
Ranfis Perez-Magro, 40, Jarred Conner, 19, an unidentified 15-year-old male and a 17-year-old male died when their car slammed into a tree in Erie County, according to Pennsylvania State Police Sgt. Mark Zaleski. A fifth person who was in the vehicle, 22-year-old Donnell Gamble, was hospitalized after the crash with "moderate" injuries, Zaleski said. Charges against him are pending.
The men had been fleeing the scene of a burglary when a trooper spotted them and started pursuing their car. "They obviously didn’t want to get caught,” Zaleski said, adding that the car accelerated to a speed of 115 mph during the chase. The trooper was about 700 yards away from the suspects' car when it veered off the road, overturned several times and slammed into a tree, he said.
Investigators found a number of items in the vehicle that had been stolen in the Thursday morning burglary, as well as other objects that went missing in previous robberies, Zaleski said. A stolen gun was found during search of a house connected with Perez-Magro, according to police.
Brandon Peck, the homeowner who called the cops after he found his house ransacked Thursday morning, said he can't wrap his head around the series of events that the discovery set off. "I'm sorry for the loss of these people. I don't wish any ill-harm to anybody — but, it's just tragic all around," he told NBC affiliate WICU.
— Elisha Fieldstadt
