High Speed Chase Leads to One Fatality
By: Alex Hale
Updated: May 30, 2010
State troopers, Ashley and Union County deputies got in a high speed chase with a jail escapee. 38 year old Joseph Mitchell of Hot Springs escaped from a Garland County Hospital on Sunday— police say he got out with the help of his girlfriend. Union County Sheriff Ken Jones says Thursday he got word Mitchell was near the Union County line. Sheriff Jones said, “Spikes were deployed in the highway to try to stop the vehicle, speed was 95-100 miles per hour, people were being run off the dump by the vehicle.” Jones says shots were fired to slow the vehicle but it wasn’t until Mitchell slammed into an Ashley County Sheriff Deputy’s car that the chase came to a stop. “That truck became a weapon and he would have killed people he was trying to, he had made statements to family members that he would not be taken alive and he was certainly acting that way.” Mitchell’s girlfriend, 47 year old Belinda Bair of Mountain Pine was hit during the shootout and died at the scene.
He’s expected to be back in Union County next week. Sheriff Jones says Mitchell facing charges of attempted murder, aggravated assault with a motor vehicle and fleeing. 
