For the second time in five days, Wyoming law enforcement Thursday rescued a teen girl kidnapped in another state.
The Cheyenne Police Department, with help from the Wyoming Highway Patrol and Laramie County Sheriff's Office, recovered a teen girl reported as a runaway from Westminster, Colorado, the agency reports.
She was unharmed and riding with an 18-year-old who led law enforcement on a high-speed chase up and down Interstate 25 through Cheyenne.
Ethan Cundiff of Rockport, Indiana, was arrested after trying to dodge spike strips and other obstacles while being chased north on I-25, then south again after he turned around, WHP Trooper Jason Simmer told Cowboy State Daily.
Why he decided to reverse direction and drive back toward the officers pursuing him is a mystery, Simmer said.
Cheyenne police were called at about 9 a.m. Thursday to assist the Westminster Police Department “with a runaway juvenile case,” CPD says in a report detailing the pursuit and arrest. “It was believed that the juvenile was in Cheyenne with a teenager she met online, later identified as Ethan Cundiff.”
An officer spotted Cundiff’s red passenger car near the 5700 block of Education Drive, but Cundiff took off when the officer “approached the driver’s side of the vehicle and asked Cundiff to exit,” the report says.
The officer got back into his vehicle and chased Cundiff toward I-25, then onto the interstate.
Finally Gives Up
That’s where WHP troopers joined the pursuit, along with Laramie County Sheriff’s Office deputies, as Cundiff “continued driving north for several miles,” the report says.
“Cundiff drove recklessly at high speeds, at times swerving between lanes of traffic,” the CPD reports. “A CPD officer pulled in front of the pursuit and successfully deployed spike strips, which stopped the vehicle along the side of the interstate.”
Nobody was hurt, including a trooper whose vehicle was struck by Cundiff’s during the attempt to stop him.
After he was stopped this time, Cundiff complied with commands to get out of his car. He was arrested and booked into the Laramie County Jail on suspicion of kidnapping, reckless driving, reckless endangering, fleeing and eluding, interference of custody and possession of marijuana.
The girl “is safe and has been reunited with her family,” the Cheyenne Police Department reports.
Deja vu
Thursday’s highway stop in Cheyenne was the second in five days that a Wyoming highway stop ended with the safe recovery of a kidnapped teen girl.
On Sunday, WHP troopers and Rawlins police stopped a registered sex offender from Nebraska authorities called a "wanted predator" who was suspected of abducting a 13-year-old girl from her home in South Dakota.
Within hours of being reported missing, a Wyoming Highway Patrol trooper recognized the car described as belonging to Sean Carlos Payne, 33, of Omaha, Nebraska.
After Payne tried to flee, he was stopped and arrested.
The 13-year-old girl with him was recovered and Payne arrested on suspicion of kidnapping, reckless driving and eluding, as well as on other outstanding warrants out of Nebraska.
Greg Johnson can be reached at greg@cowboystatedaily.com.
