A Florida woman stole a police cruiser last week, sparking a chase that ended in her death and the deaths of two others in a pickup truck she crashed into, officials said.
Kendra Boone, 33, stole a sheriff’s deputy’s SUV and drove it on East Highway 40 about six miles from Ocala Florida, according to Marion County Sheriff Billy Woods.
Woods said the incident started when Boone attempted to take an elderly woman’s keys and get into her car. Sheriff’s deputy Christopher Witte arrived on the scene and instructed Boone to stand near the rear of his patrol car. When Witte got out of the car, Boone entered the vehicle from the passenger window and then climbed into the driver’s seat.
Witte can be heard on the video yelling, “No,” as he ran back around to the driver’s side, pulling the door open after Boone got in through the window and into the driver’s seat.
The deputy yelled, “Stop, stop, stop,” before Boone drove away with the driver’s door still open.
Boone drove east on East Highway 40 “at a high rate of speed,” Woods said, before making a U-turn and driving westbound to evade the deputy cars chasing her.
Deputies deployed stop sticks in an attempt to stop the car, but Boone made a U-turn again before she could hit the sticks, according to the Ocala News.
Boone was “traveling well over 100 mph” and “driving erratically during her attempt to evade deputies,” according to Woods.
Ultimately, Boone lost control of the vehicle and entered the oncoming traffic lane, and collided with a black pickup truck, according to the release.
There were three people in the pickup that Boone hit, according to a statement from the Marion County Sheriff’s office. Boone and two of the three in the truck – a man and a woman in their 70s from South Carolina – were killed. The third person in the truck was transported to a local hospital and was listed in critical condition, the statement said.
“Contrary to what people think… we’re not God and we do not know what people are thinking and we do not know what we are going into, but this individual decided to do what she did,” Woods said at the press conference.
Boone’s sister, Karisten Hinsinger, told the Ocala Gazette that her sister had mental health issues and wouldn’t want to hurt anyone.
“My sister, the one we all loved unconditionally, would not have ever wanted to hurt anyone,” she said. “We feel so bad for the family who have lost people in the crash. We wish we could have prevented it.”
Hinsinger went on to say that while law enforcement was in a difficult position with her sister, Sheriff Woods should not have called her names during the press conference on the day following the incident.
“I do not believe she’d intentionally hurt anyone. Something else was wrong,” Hinsinger said.
Hinsinger told the Gazette that Boone’s children were distraught to watch on TV as Woods said he “didn’t give a crap” about Boone, and referred to their mother as a “moron” and used an expletive to describe her.
Hinsinger called Woods’ profanity “unacceptable.”
Records show Boone was charged with fleeing from or eluding police, a felony; and trespassing, a misdemeanor, in 2021.
Boone was booked into the county jail twice in 2020. Once on a misdemeanor charge for trespassing, and once on a felony charge for burglary of an occupied structure.
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