A 20-year-old has been arrested on multiple charges in the Feb. 4 wrong-way fatality on Interstate 295 in a stolen pickup truck and remained in jail Tuesday in lieu of about $2.6 million bail, according to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office.
Rodney A. Wesley of the Westside was charged Feb. 6 with vehicular homicide, leaving the scene of a crash involving death, carjacking, two counts of attempted carjacking, grand theft auto, petty theft and resisting an officer without violence.
The Florida Highway Patrol reported someone driving a stolen pickup truck the wrong way on Interstate 295 caused a three-vehicle crash killing a 66-year-old Jacksonville man on a motorcycle. The truck’s driver then tried to steal another vehicle but latched onto the outside of a semi-tractor trailer to get away.
Interstate 295 is shut down for hours at 103rd Street in Jacksonville following a deadly wrong-way crash involving a stolen pickup truck.
The truck had been carjacked the same day at about 4:30 p.m. at an Arco gas station on 103rd Street. The victim said when he got out and reached for a pump, the suspect was standing in front of him, according to an arrest report that redacts the next line. He ran into the store with a laceration to his forehead and watched the suspect drive away in his truck. He provided a thorough description of him, including his multi-color backpack.
Then following the chain-reaction crashes on I-295, detectives inspected the victim’s truck and found a multi-colored backpack matching the description by the vehicle’s owner. A broken air gun pistol also was located, according to the report.
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Two days later detectives with the Gang and Community Problems Response units were actively searching for Wesley due to several warrants for his arrest. One was for a Feb. 3 auto theft on Somerton Court off Ricker Road near 103rd Street. The victim left his car running while he was using an air compressor on the tires. When he had gone inside his home briefly and came back out, his car was gone. A neighbor’s daughter told police the thief went by the nickname “Loyalty,” according to the report. The car was located abandoned the next day on nearby Buttercup Street.
One of the unit’s detectives spotted Wesley riding a bicycle on another nearby road, Susie Street, and activated the patrol vehicle’s red and blue lights. But he swerved around the detective. Others in the area blocked his path, causing him to dismount from the bike and run. He was found hiding behind a shed on Osteen Street and arrested.
The Public Defender’s Office has been assigned his case but not yet a specific attorney, according to court records as of Tuesday evening.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Jacksonville man arrested in wrong-way crash on I-295 in stolen truck
