Fleeing Gunman Captured in Wild Chase

IRVINE —  A man accused of stealing a car from a Rancho Santa Fe woman at gunpoint led police on a 90-minute high-speed chase Thursday. In the midst of it he changed cars and abducted a woman who later escaped by hurling herself from the moving vehicle.

The chase ended when police rammed the car, bringing it to a halt and capturing the gunman. Police identified the suspect as Skye Van Ferguson, 19, from Texas. The chain of events that ended with his capture began shortly before 1 p.m. when Van Ferguson reportedly knocked on the door of Ann Bergen, 56, in the 100 block of Via Coronado in Rancho Santa Fe and asked if she wanted her 1989 red Jaguar cleaned.

Van Ferguson then reportedly forced his way into the home at gunpoint, tied up Bergen and stole the car. Bergen later freed herself and phoned police to report her car stolen.

Shanna Parsons, 21, of Mission Viejo was the hostage taken during the chase. She managed to escape minutes before the chase ended by throwing herself from the vehicle as it became slowed in rush-hour traffic on the Santa Ana Freeway.

With the car slowing to about 30 m.p.h. and the gunman’s .357 magnum resting on his lap, Parsons saw her chance and tumbled out the door and into the traffic. Several pursuing California Highway Patrol cars came within a few yards of hitting her.

Amazingly, she suffered only minor bruises and a cut to her foot.

“I’m okay. Nothing’s broken, and I’m free!” Parsons said later, as she rested in a wheelchair at the Irvine Medical Center, her boyfriend Paul Pritts, 22, of El Toro at her side.

Von Ferguson was being held on suspicion of burglary, robbery, kidnaping and assaulting a police officer, CHP spokesman Mel Baker said.

The cavalcade of police cars that pursued Von Ferguson were aided in the chase by Jay Lawrence, a reporter for radio station KFI. Lawrence said he had heard a report of the chase on the police radio in his car and set off to cover the story. He wound up directing officers to Ferguson.

“I was a little nervous when I found out the guy was armed and dangerous and holding a hostage,” said Lawrence, who has been a KFI reporter in Orange County for four years.

The chase began at about 1:30 p.m., when CHP officer Steve Webb spotted a Jaguar traveling north on the Santa Ana Freeway near Lincoln at 75 to 80 m.p.h. As Webb headed after the car, he said, he was perplexed to see it suddenly slow down and actually fall behind his cruiser, where it remained for several minutes.

“He did everything he could to avoid passing me,” Webb said. “I slowed down to 40 m.p.h. to see if this car would pass me. Anyone doing 50 would have to pass me, and, no matter what I did, he wouldn’t pass me.”

Webb said the car changed lanes several times, apparently to avoid driving directly behind the officer. Finally, the car passed Webb slowly. “I wanted to know why he was trying so hard to avoid me,” Webb said, so he began to pull up behind.

At that point, the car rammed a semi-trailer truck directly in front, jamming its hood under the truck’s body. As Webb stopped his patrol car and got out to investigate the accident, the car backed away, almost striking him, and continued north, Webb said.

With Webb and other CHP officers now giving chase, the car left the freeway at Sand Canyon Road and plowed into a another car at the bottom of the ramp, CHP spokesman Baker said.

The fleeing car kept going, driving onto El Toro Marine Corp Air Station, where Irvine police officers joined the pursuit. There, the car crashed into a chain-link fence and the driver fled on foot.

After running for about a half-mile, the driver entered E.D. Natural Stone, a wholesale outlet at Fairbanks and Alton Parkway and abducted Parsons, the store’s office manager, authorities said.

“All of a sudden, he says, ‘This is the deal,’ and pulls out a gun--a real gun!” Parsons said. He put the gun to her head, forced her outside and warned three other employees not to move.

The gunman then ordered Parsons into the passenger seat of her car got into the driver’s seat.

By that time, Parsons said, “the cops were all over the place.”

Parsons said the sight of the police wasn’t comforting because she feared a crash or a shoot-out, if her abductor panicked.

“I wanted to get away from the cops, I really did,” she said. “I wanted to get us out of danger.”

Parsons’ strategy, she said, was to talk to the man in soothing tones as they drove and try to get him wherever he wanted to go. He told her he was going to meet friends near Interstate 5 and then head to Mexico.

She tried as best she could to direct him there, she said, although there was no on-ramp at the intersection that he had mentioned.

“He was very apologetic in the car,” she said. “He put the gun between his legs. He promised not to hurt me. He was scared to death.”

At one point, Parsons said, the man appeared near tears as he recounted how he had crashed two stolen cars during his flight and “nearly died” once when he ran a Jaguar underneath a semi-truck.

Parsons said she thought about jumping from the car throughout the ride north on the freeway, but didn’t see a chance until they were driving slowly on the Santa Ana Freeway.

“I didn’t trust that he was gonna let me go,” she said.

With her seat belt off and her door unlocked, Parsons said, she opened the door and jumped, tumbling into the area between the farthest right lane and the on-ramp.

The gunman kept on going.

“I was going by the Irvine train station on Barranca when I spotted the guy,” radio reporter Lawrence said. “After he did a few zig-zags, I dropped in behind him and dialed up CHP’s dispatcher in Santa Ana. He was going very slow, being very careful.”

Lawrence followed him onto the northbound freeway, reporting his movements to the CHP over his car phone. Finally, he spotted two Irvine police cars.

“Then the girl jumped out of the car,” he said. “It really shook me up when the girl started screaming ‘He held a gun to my head. He was going to shoot me.’ ”

Times staff writers Marla Cone, Eric Lichtblau and Peggy Y. Lee contributed to this story.