FRANKLINTON --
At least two cars and a truck were forced off the road
during the police chase that led to three deaths
Saturday afternoon, raising questions about whether the
officer should have continued his pursuit of an erratic
driver.
Police Chief Ray Gilliam and Town Attorney Mitch Styers
spent much of Sunday reviewing 911 tapes and talking to
witnesses who either saw the deadly pursuit or
encountered an erratic driver before the chase began.
The state Highway Patrol is continuing its
investigation.
"It's a very tragic event," Gilliam said.
As Franklinton officials began their internal
investigation, the family of the two sisters caught in
the middle of the high-speed chase tended to making
funeral arrangements for two lives cut short.
Linsay Erin Lunsford, 18, and her sister Maggie Rose, 9,
were on their way home from a shopping trip at the local
Wal-Mart when the 1988 Pontiac driven by Guy
Christopher Ayscue, the man fleeing the Franklinton
police officer, crossed the center line on U.S. 15 and
slammed into their Kia.
The sisters, according to the state Highway Patrol, were
killed instantly.
Members of the Lunsford family grappled with their grief
Sunday."The man who hit our daughters, Linsay and
Maggie, was being pursued because he was driving
erratically, not because he had just committed a violent
crime," the family said in a prepared statement. "What
our family does not understand is why, after a couple of
miles into the chase, the officer did not discontinue
the pursuit when it was evident the driver would not
stop." The Franklinton police chase policy, which
was described but not released by Gilliam and Styers,
gives officers discretion in deciding when to pursue a
person suspected of committing a felony.
Officer Mike Dunlap was outside an
Exxon convenience store at the edge of downtown
Franklinton when he encountered Ayscue, the 38-year-old
Henderson man who died while fleeing police.
The
Exxon clerk had summoned Dunlap to the parking
lot for a different reason. A videotape from the store's
security camera shows the clerk moving toward Dunlap's
car and, in the background, a 1988 Pontiac moving
quickly through the intersection on the wrong side of
the road.
Dunlap pulled out of the parking lot, according to his
chief, turned on his siren and tried to get the Pontiac
to pull over on narrow, two-lane N.C. 56. The rural
route goes through the small downtown of
Franklinton, about 30 miles north of Raleigh.
Three minutes into the chase, according to Styers, 911
logs show that a black truck, a black Mustang or
Mercedes and another car pulled off to the side of the
road to get out of the way of the fleeing suspect and
the officer pursuing him.
Chief Gilliam said he would not know until the internal
investigation is complete whether the officer should
have called off the chase at that point. "Chases
have always been challenged whether it's the right thing
to do or the wrong thing to do," he said Sunday. Dunlap
has been placed on administrative duty, a routine action
in such incidents. He has been with the Franklinton
Police Department for nearly two years and has been a
police officer for almost five years, the chief said.
The suspect's record
Ayscue, 38, had a criminal record that spans at least 20
years, with more than a half-dozen DWIs and other
driving charges. Until a toxicology report is complete,
investigators will not know whether alcohol or drugs
were a factor in Saturday's wreck. In August, Ayscue was
charged with speeding in Vance County and was scheduled
to appear in court in January.
As he gave chase, Dunlap was not aware of the suspect's
record or other reports earlier in the day of his
erratic driving, the chief and town attorney said.
Styers said the internal reviewers will try to get at
what was foremost in the officer's mind as he gave
chase. "What did the officer think?" Styers said. "We
have hindsight, but what we'll have to look at is what
he was thinking. Obviously, he thought there was enough
danger to keep pursuing."
A day after the crash, the smell of burned debris hung
in the air at the scene. Pieces of broken glass and a
part of a fender lay on the burned patch of grass and
dirt where the Lunsford sisters died.
Nine-year-old Taylor Bailey stopped by the wreck site
with her mother to lay down a bouquet of
pink roses. A note fastened on the plastic sleeve
with a safety pin said, "Maggie was a great friend she
was sweet and kind. I love you. I will miss you."
Taylor and Maggie had gone to school with each other
since kindergarten. This year they were in fourth grade
together at Mount Energy Elementary School. Maggie never
left anybody out, Taylor said.
Taylor picked
pink roses because Maggie's middle name was Rose,
she said.
Maggie and her older sister had just done some shopping,
said Liz Lunsford Lee, the girls' oldest sister. An hour
before, the girls had shared lunch with their mom at
Burger King, she said. They were on their way to see
their father when they were killed less than three miles
from his home.
Sisters had special bond
Linsay, a freshman at UNC-Greensboro and the fourth of
six children, left the campus most weekends for home to
do laundry and spend time with family.
This past weekend, she needed her computer fixed because
the
hard drive kept crashing, Lee said. Linsay's
father was helping repair it.
On Sunday afternoon, Jean Ellis was helping decorate the
Stem United Methodist Church for
Christmas. She remembered the family coming into
the sanctuary, always arriving a little late, in single
file, mom last. "They'd come like little soldiers,"
Ellis said.
The two Lunsford sisters got along particularly well.
Maggie, the youngest, had even spent the night in
Linsay's college dorm at UNC-G this year.
Linsay was studying to become a teacher and interested
in teaching English as a Second Language classes.
