A police pursuit that started in Wylie ended in a fatal crash at Farmersville last week when a 15-year-old suspect in an aggravated assault slammed into a flatbed truck.

The deceased is Austin Schell, a student at Achieve Academy in Wylie.

At about 2:50 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 10 Wylie police responded to a disturbance call at an apartment complex in the 100 block of S. Fifth Street where a woman reportedly was in the parking lot bleeding, Sgt. Donald English recounted.

Witnesses told officers that the woman’s son might have been involved in the incident and that he drove away in her vehicle, a Mazda sport utility vehicle. Officers spotted the vehicle as they approached the scene and attempted to initiate a traffic stop, but the driver sped away northbound on Hwy. 78, the police sergeant reported.

Wylie police requested assistance from neighboring police departments and Farmersville police were able to deploy stop sticks as the pursuit entered their jurisdiction.

After encountering the stop sticks, the vehicle traveled another two miles, drove into incoming traffic and struck a flatbed truck loaded with portable toilets, wedging the SUV under the bed of the truck, English reported.

The driver, identified as Schell, was pronounced dead at the scene. There were no other injuries.

English said that a preliminary investigation revealed that the suspect had struck his mother several times in the head with a baseball bat, causing severe injuries. The victim was taken to a hospital in Plano where she remains in the intensive care unit.

Wylie Police have asked Texas Rangers to conduct an independent investigation into the aggravated assault/fatality crash because of the WPD involvement in the incident.

For more stories like this, see the Oct. 18 issue or subscribe online.

By Joe Reavis • [email protected]