Oklahoma authorities hunt for suspect after he escaped three times in one morning

BLAINE COUNTY, Okla. (KFOR) -- Police and sheriff's deputies are searching for a man who eluded them three times in one day, stealing and wrecking vehicles along the way.

It started a little after 5 a.m. when Geary police officers pulled over Eddie Urchison on a traffic stop. He gave them his driver's license, but when they discovered he was wanted on drug and weapons charges out of Canadian County, they tried to get him to exit the vehicle, and he took off instead. The Blaine County Sheriff's office was called to assist in the pursuit.

"By the time our deputies arrived they had already wrecked out in a bar ditch and the driver had fled on foot," said Undersheriff David Robertson. Police arrested the woman in the passenger seat, but Urchison was nowhere to be found, at least for a little while.

Urchison showed up out of nowhere about an hour later, allegedly driving a stolen 4-wheeler, and the chase was back on. The undersheriff used his vehicle to try to nudge Urchison to the side of the road at which point he said Urchison turned into him, hit the front of his vehicle, and the 4-wheeler launched into the ditch, throwing Urchison off the vehicle.

But he didn't stop, running into the wooded area. Even with officers and deputies searching, he managed to escape through a gap, and the search was finally called off.

Nearby farmer Kyle Base heard about the manhunt, so when his father's pickup went missing and then was found a mile away, wrecked, he had a pretty good idea who did it. When they got the call around 10 a.m., deputies spoke to witnesses who saw someone matching Urchison's description getting out of the truck.

"He obviously couldn't drive a standard so he ended up blowing the clutch and blowing the motor," Base said. "It's ruined now."

This time he and his fellow farmers joined the hunt.

"The farmers around here don't really like when their equipment's getting vandalized or stolen," Base said.

But he got away for a third time. Now authorities are warning him to turn himself in before his alleged crime spree racks up any more charges. Robertson said he was believed to be staying in El Reno.