The Associated Press
NASHVILLE, Jan. 27 (AP) — It has all the makings of a country song: an escaped prisoner, his terminally ill mother, a Wal-Mart truck, Nascar and a Nashville singer’s tour bus.
Christopher D. Gay, 32, escaped from a prisoner transport van last Sunday in South Carolina, the police say, and evaded a five-state manhunt by stealing a pickup, a big rig and a bus that belongs to the singer Crystal Gayle before being arrested on Friday in Florida.
The police say his motive for fleeing was simple. “I take it he was just trying to see his mom,” said Michael Douglas, the police chief in Pleasant View, Tenn., near the home where Mr. Gay’s mother is dying of cancer.
Mr. Gay, who has a history of theft involving trucks and other heavy equipment, escaped during a bathroom break in Hardeeville, S.C., as he was being taken from Texas to face felony theft charges in Alabama. (The van was taking a route allowing it to pick up prisoners in other states.)
He stole a pickup truck and made his way to Manchester, Tenn., where he stole a Wal-Mart tractor-trailer filled with $300,000 worth of merchandise, the police said.
On Tuesday, Mr. Gay got within 50 yards of his mother’s house, about 25 miles northwest of Nashville, but abandoned the truck when it got stuck and fled into some woods, the authorities said.
He was spotted on Thursday night driving a tour bus at USA International Speedway in Lakeland, Fla., but drove off after speedway officials became suspicious and asked him for identification, the police said.
A license plate check showed the bus belonged to Ms. Gayle, whose hits include “Don’t It Make Your Brown Eyes Blue.” Ms. Gayle did not know the bus was missing from a Nashville garage until speedway officials called, the police said.
“What he done was wrong, but he knows his mama don’t have long,” his mother, Anna Shull, told The Tennessean this week.