By Michael Lollar
The Commercial Appeal
MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- The bullets had stopped flying, and the prison escapees’ stolen truck skidded to a halt on Winchester Road after being bumped by a police car.
One of the men fought police officers as they chased him into a stand of bushes and handcuffed him. The other gave up without a fight.
It was the end of a nationwide manhunt for two men who escaped from a Louisiana prison on March 4 and are believed to have killed a nuclear plant inspector in Vicksburg, Miss., and dumped his body in Alabama before they were spotted Monday in Jackson, Tenn.
When the men were safely in custody, DeSoto County Sheriff Bill Rasco dialed the number for the widow of the murdered plant inspector.
“She said, ‘Did you get both of them?’ Then she said, ‘I’m so glad because I didn’t want anyone else to get hurt,’” Rasco said.
Rasco said a DeSoto County dog squad officer had stopped the men briefly after recognizing their stolen truck and the license plate number.
As he approached the truck, the escapees sped away. The chase began quietly with officers joining the pursuit without turning on their flashing lights at first, said DeSoto County sherriff’s spokesman Dick Hackett.
But when the stolen pickup reached the Mississippi-Tennessee line, the lights began flashing and the chase was on.
Police and sheriff’s vehicles joined Highway Patrolmen, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and U.S. marshals. It had become a virtual fleet with what Hackett estimated at up to 30 law enforcement vehicles in hot pursuit when the men found Bill Morris Parkway and exited onto eastbound Winchester Road.
Hackett said at least one bullet was fired into the tailgate of the truck during the chase. A police vehicle then bumped the rear of the truck, which spun sideways and stopped near Hacks Cross Road with fugitive murder suspects Ricky Wedgeworth, 36, and Darian “Drake” Pierce, 33, inside.
Rasco said an officer fired a shotgun blast into a front tire to keep the fugitives from trying to escape again.
The men are accused of killing the plant inspector, David Cupps of the Columbus, Ohio, area. He was in Vicksburg to inspect the Grand Gulf nuclear power plant. Rasco said the trunk of his car was covered in blood when it was discovered.
Cupps’ body later was found outside a Comfort Inn in Bessemer, Ala.
The men then were spotted in Jackson, Tenn., where they fled on foot after being stopped by a Tennessee Highway Patrol officer.
Copyright 2011 The Commercial Appeal, Inc.