SOB STORY

Woman Faked Kidnapping After Leading Cops on High-Speed Chase That Left 2 Dead: Police

Jeannine Jaramillo caused a five-car crash, which killed a police officer and a retired firefighter. She said she had been kidnapped at knifepoint by her boyfriend.

A woman has been charged with murder after a high-speed, wrong-way chase down a New Mexico highway last week resulted in a five-car pileup, killing a police officer and a retired firefighter, authorities say. Jeannine Jaramillo, 46, initially told police that a new boyfriend had kidnapped her, ordering her at knifepoint to drive them away in a vehicle later identified as stolen. After the crash, which result in the deaths of Santa Fe police officer Robert Duran, 43, and former firefighter Frank Lovato, 62, Jaramillo told local outlet KOB 4 that she “crawled out the driver side window… and I just ran for my life, and I was screaming, ‘Help me.’” Jaramillo and witnesses at the scene said they saw her alleged kidnapper flee the scene. But authorities were unable to locate any suspect matching the description, and an officer wrote in an arrest report that he only saw Jaramillo in the car. Authorities also linked last Wednesday’s crash to a startlingly similar incident back in September, when Jaramillo again led officers on a high-speed chase, running multiple red lights and swerving into oncoming traffic. When police tracked her to her house, Jaramillo explained that a man had been holding a knife to her neck in the car.