MILTON, Fla. (AP) -- A man and woman charged with murdering his parents in Blountstown were arrested here following a vehicle and foot chase, authorities said Monday.
Police and Santa Rosa County sheriff’s deputies arrested Charlton John Andrews, 19, of Blountstown, three hours after he crashed a stolen sports utility vehicle into the front porch of an unoccupied Milton house Sunday night.
The second suspect, Jennifer Nichole Jackson, 23, of Milton, was arrested about a half hour later at another home here.
Both were being held without bond Monday at the Santa Rosa County Jail on open murder counts pending their return to Calhoun County. An open murder count leaves it to prosecutors or a grand jury to determine a specific count.
The bodies of Ruthie Mae Andrews, 58, and Jack Paul Walker, 48, were found in their home earlier Sunday.
Investigators believe they were fatally bludgeoned as early as Friday, said Santa Rosa sheriff’s spokesman Jerry Henderson.
The suspects Sunday left Blountstown, about 40 miles west of Tallahassee, and drove about 140 miles across the Florida Panhandle to Milton where Jackson has relatives, Henderson said. Calhoun deputies had warned local authorities to be on the lookout for them and the stolen Ford Explorer.
Santa Rosa deputies said they spotted the vehicle about 7:15 p.m. Sunday and chased it a short distance before it crashed.
Charlton Andrews then fled into the neighborhood on foot. He was caught hiding on the roof of a business where he had been spotted with an infrared sensor aboard a sheriff’s helicopter from neighboring Escambia County.
The search attracted a crowd of onlookers. One was arrested on a charge of assaulting an officer who was trying to control the crowd.