A Jacksonville man remains behind bars after his arrest for allegedly stealing a car and crashing into a field east of the city.
According to reports from the Jacksonville Police, 31-year old James Lacy, of the 11-hundred block of South Main, was booked at the county jail at around 10 a.m. Sunday for burglary, theft over $500, and failure to appear for residential burglary, after being taken into custody shortly before 5 a.m. Sunday morning.
Lacy is accused of stealing a vehicle from a local car garage in the 12-hundred block of South Clay Saturday night.
Jacksonville Police Chief Adam Mefford explains the course of events leading up to Lacy’s arrest.
“In the early morning hours of Sunday, officers spotted a vehicle driving in the area of MacMurray College. When officers observed the vehicle, the vehicle blacked out its headlights and left the area. Continued search ended up finding that the vehicle had crashed into a field east of town. A subsequent search of the area led us to an individual who was hiding nearby in a creek bed. After finding that individual and evidence located at the scene, that led us to believe that he was the individual responsible for that vehicle. Subsequently he was arrested for burglary and theft over $500,” says Mefford.
Chief Mefford says the charge of burglary pertains to the allegations that Lacy took the vehicle from a garage, and that the theft charge is in regards to the actual theft of the vehicle. He also says that the warrant for residential burglary is for a separate incident that’s alleged to have taken place earlier in the year.
Mefford says authorities were forced to remove the suspect from a creek prior to taking him into custody.
According to police reports, Lacy allegedly drove the vehicle off of the roadway in the one thousand block of East College Avenue and struck an embankment before driving into a soybean field. Lacy is said to have then left the scene before being discovered approximately 40 minutes later in a creek bed near the accident.