This event was one of those heart-pounding adrenalin-pumping times of our lives. After checking out of the hotel in Florida we had several hours before we needed to be at the airport. We decided to go to the manatee watching area south of Tampa at Apollo Beach. As we drove along on US 41 (kind of funny since that is the same highway that goes through Marquette) Kevin (driving) looked out his side window just after we passed a major intersection. In that split second that he wasn’t looking a little white car ran the red light on the cross street to turn left into our lane, came whipping up behind us, went around us and zoomed in and out of traffic. Just behind him was a policeman with his lights flashing and his siren blasting. “Good” I said to Kevin, “He’s going to get that guy.” “What guy?” Kevin asked and, as I began to explain, another cop came, then another and another. It was then that we realized this was a made-for-TV type high speed car chase!
Quite a number of police vehicles passed us going after the car. We couldn’t even pull out of the way because they were going around us both ways. After all the cops were ahead of us we made our way once more toward the manatees. As we got down the road I could see a lot of people standing in their yards and on the corner looking down a side street. Good, I thought – they got that guy.
We drove on a little ways and Kevin glanced in his rear-view mirror and said, “There’s someone coming up behind us” about the time I kind of yelled “That’s him!” Once again he came right up to us before going around on the right. We pulled over onto the center median to let the jillions of cop cars get past. We could see that they had formed a road block up ahead. Good, I thought, they got that guy. We were sitting on the narrow median behind another car caught in the middle of the chase. In order to stay completely out of the way, Kevin had pulled a little into the oncoming lane. No one was coming that way since the road was closed off by all the cops. And we waited for the situation to clear up.
All of the sudden Kevin realized that the little white car had managed to escape once again and was heading right for us! He backed up a little and pulled out of the oncoming lane just as he passed. When he passed, the driver looked right at us into our eyes. I remember thinking “I hope he doesn’t have a gun.” By this time there were probably 20 different police vehicles – different city cops, state police, sheriff deputies, etc – following the crazy guy. We sat there until the cars all went past us and we thought they had the guy. We went on to see the manatees most of which, because it was so warm, weren’t there anyway and the ones that were didn’t come up much.
When we got home we looked online to see what was up with the crazy guy. It turns out that the man, John Mullaly, flipped out about 7:30 that morning. His girlfriend called police and told them he was unstable and would likely hurt himself or someone else. They began chasing him after he stole his father’s truck (notice I didn’t say little white car). When they received a call that the truck was involved in an accident and had flipped they called off the search and proceeded to the accident. Mullaly had hit a car with a woman and her children (luckily no one was seriously injured) and flipped the truck. End of story…..Except…..he got out of the truck wielding a machete and carjacked a small white Mustang from a young man (the little white car). Thus began the high speed chase. The police finally stopped him by throwing things to pop his tires under the car at the end of a dead end road. It turns out that he tried to run over 2 deputies, bit 2 policemen during his arrest and was talking about Aliens and President Ford.
Here is a link to a video of the end of the chase – after he turned off 41, then somehow managed to turn back toward it again. http://tbo.com/video/xml/MGBO049DPWE.html
This was certainly a moment to remember but the kind of event I hope I never have to remember again!
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