Crash Ends 20-mile Chase
SCOTT SONNER, Associated Press
RENO, Nev. (AP) --
A woman suspect in a Sparks shooting slipped out of handcuffs, stole a state trooper’s cruiser and led officers on a 20-mile chase Friday before she crashed and was captured north of Winnemucca.
Tracy Wrenn-Hornich, 29, Reno, is wanted in connection with the shooting of a woman in a pickup on a Sparks street on Monday, Sparks police Lt. Ken Lightfoot said.
She was not injured in the crash Friday just off U.S. Highway 95 in Humboldt County, but complained to patrolmen that she had suffered an injury prior to the accident, he said.
Wrenn-Hornich allegedly made off with the Nevada Highway Patrol car after a state trooper assisted a Humboldt County sheriff’s deputy with a traffic stop on U.S. 95 north of Orvada, the patrol said.
Trooper Dave Black and the deputy were questioning Wrenn-Hornich and another person in the car when she told the officers she was probably wanted for a shooting in the Reno area, Trooper Bob Sneed said in a news release Friday.
Wrenn-Hornich was handcuffed and placed in the patrol car. She “apparently slipped the handcuffs and drove away in the patrol vehicle southbound on U.S. 95,” he said.
The chase ended when she crashed on South Valley Road near the Hetrick Farms north of Winnemucca. The troopers said she would be taken to the Humboldt County Jail.
Sparks police will wait for Humboldt County authorities to file charges there before issuing a warrant for her arrest locally, Lightfoot said Friday.
“There are a substantial number of charges she is going to be held for in Winnemucca, including grand theft auto, so we are standing in line behind them,” he said.
Wrenn-Hornich is wanted in connection with the shooting of another woman in the neck early Monday inside a pickup truck on A Street.
The victim, Janet Brown of Reno, spent three days in intensive care at the Washoe Medical Center but was released from the hospital on Thursday, Lightfoot said. A motive for the shooting was not clear and it remains under investigation, he said.