Kendra Boone Florida serial repeat offender steals sheriff’s SUV, kills self & two others in wrong way crash. A litany of prior arrests and what one deputy did wrong.
What was she thinking? A Florida woman stole a sheriff’s deputy SUV and led authorities on a high-speed chase before dying in a wrong-way crash that killed two others, according to authorities.
The Marion County Sheriff’s Office said deputies responded to a suspicious incident on Feb. 1 at the Forest Plaza in Silver Springs. Officials were told Kendra Dalyn Boone, 33, was trying to take an elderly woman’s keys, but was unsuccessful and kept trying to gain access to the vehicle.
‘This moron stole a police vehicle and killed two human beings,’ Marion County Sheriff Billy Woods told reporters at a press conference Friday.
‘Sheer panic’
Body camera footage showed Deputy Chris Witte instructing Boone who was approaching his vehicle to go to the back of the patrol vehicle but as he walked away to the rear, Boone jumped into the driver’s seat — which was running with the key in the ignition — through an open passenger’s window.
Witte yells at her to stop as she began driving away in his patrol car. He chases after the car and opens the driver’s door, attempting to pull her out, but she hits the gas and speeds out of the shopping center parking lot, according to the clip.
Deputies said they followed Boone for several miles and tried to deploy stop sticks but Boone was able to perform a U-turn and avoid officials while driving at speeds ‘well over 100 MPH and driving erratically during her attempt to evade deputies.’
At one point, Boone drove off the road in an attempt to pass a semi-truck but lost control of the vehicle, entered into oncoming traffic and crashed into a black pickup truck, officials said.
Deputies said when they arrived on the scene, Boone and three people in the truck were unresponsive.
Boone and two of the truck occupants — the 73-year-old male driver and a 72-year-old female passenger from Waterloo, South Carolina — were pronounced dead on the scene. The third person was rushed to a local hospital in critical condition, according to the sheriff’s office.
Woods said he and his deputies felt ‘sheer panic’ when they learned that a patrol car had been stolen.
‘We know what’s in the vehicle. There’s a long rifle in there,’ he said. ‘The moment she did that, she was a threat to human life — a threat for merely getting in that car. Think about that for a minute. What do citizens think when they see blue lights coming down the road? They think it’s a good person — not an a–hole like this.’
A local business owner on Hwy 40 shows me the pursuit of Kendra Boone after she stole a Marion County Sheriff Deputy vehicle. As the minutes go by (edited) you can see packs of law enforcement vehicles go by. About 15 minutes later a fire truck and ambulance do as well. @MyNews13 pic.twitter.com/HrZ1R4JHQ5
— Spectrum News Asher Wildman (@AsherWildman13) February 2, 2024
Lengthy criminal history
The carjacker was recently released from prison and had a lengthy criminal history.
Boone had 13 felony charges and nine misdemeanor charges on her record — of which she was convicted of two misdemeanors, according to the sheriff.
In addition to several arrests all around Florida, Boone was arrested three times in Marion County between 2020 and 2021.
She was convicted in Marion County on her last arrest and was sentenced in 2022 to two years.
Boone was also convicted in a separate class in Orange County — but instead of ordering her sentence to begin after she completed the two-year sentence she was handed in Marion County, a judge made the sentences concurrent, meaning she was given 30 months with credit for the time served in her other conviction, according to Woods.
If the sentence had been consecutive, Boone would still be serving time. She was released from prison in the last few weeks, according to 352 Today.
Deputy error
‘If this person would have been in jail, I wouldn’t have two dead innocent people,’ Woods said. ‘Her, I don’t give a crap about.’
The sheriff made clear that he places zero blame on the deputy whose vehicle was stolen.
‘My deputy did absolutely nothing wrong,’ he said, adding that policies on leaving patrol vehicles running ‘doesn’t mean s–t’ when asked by a reporter.
Then again, perhaps two innocent people would still be alive, had the deputy thought to turn off the vehicle and take the car keys with him upon exiting his vehicle.
