Police: Suspect in deadly chase killed himself
A Jefferson City man who died during a shootout with police in Illinois after a kidnapping and attempted carjacking fatally shot himself, police said Friday.
The Illinois State Police said in a news release that an autopsy showed Leslie K. Austin died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head during the Tuesday shootout. The chase that led to the shootout started Tuesday night in the 500 block of East Elm Street and ended in the Greenville, Illnois, area northeast of St. Louis.
Police said Austin shot and killed Gregory Price, 67, during an attempted carjacking in Illinois. Austin abducted a woman and child, police said. The child was unhurt and the woman was recovering from gunshots wounds in a hospital.
Austin had a criminal record going back at least to 2008 including various assault charges and vehicle theft. The first criminal case that mentions Danielle Smith, the woman kidnapped Tuesday night, was a domestic assault case in 2013 in which Austin was accused of punching her and threatening her life because he didn’t like her earrings.
