A family member posted bond on Oct. 11 to get 18-year-old Braiden Billings out of the Jasper County Jail, where he was being held on an assault charge. The next evening, according to the Jasper County Sheriff’s Office, that relative’s 2007 Chevrolet Corvette was going more than 140 mph west on Interstate 80 with Billings driving.
The sheriff’s office laid out the timeline in a press release, published in full by Ottumwa Radio. Criminal complaints in the case, reported by the Newton Daily News, add the rest. Newton police took a stolen-vehicle report at about 5:08 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 12. The owner, who is 70, told officers Billings broke into a locked detached garage and drove off in the car.
At about 7:58 p.m., a sheriff’s deputy spotted the Corvette westbound near mile marker 150 and tried to stop it near the Mitchellville rest area. The driver kept going into Polk County. The sheriff’s office says he then put the car into a ditch on purpose northeast of Altoona, where it came to rest in a bean field. Billings and his passenger, Natalee Ryan, 18, also of Newton, were taken into custody “without further incident.” The Iowa State Patrol and the Colfax and Prairie City police departments assisted…