By Angie Thompson



TIFTON — A man who later told a deputy he had drank four bottles of beer led law enforcement officials on a high-speed chase up I-75 Sunday before crashing his vehicle and fleeing on foot.

It took law enforcement officers and K-9s over two hours before they found the man hiding near a pond a mile away.

Edward Anthony Cheatham, 35, of Frankfort, Ky., was charged with DUI, pending the results of blood alcohol tests. He was also charged with attempting to elude, speeding in a construction zone, reckless driving, driving with a suspended license, failure to maintain lane, driving on the wrong side of the road, making an improper u-turn and a seat belt violation.

Dep. Larry Burkhead, a traffic control officer with the Tift County Sheriff’s Department, was running radar on I-75’s Exit 59 Sunday. He clocked Cheatham’s 1999 white Mustang at 106 mph in a 65 mph zone.

When Cheatham passed under the bridge at the exit, Burkhead merged into traffic behind the Mustang and turned on the blue lights and siren in an attempt to stop the vehicle.

Burkhead said Cheatham sped away and reached, at one point, a speed of 110 mph. The Mustang, traveling north, continued to weave in and out of traffic. During the chase, Burkhead said Cheatham slammed on his brakes in front of another vehicle, than made a u-turn onto the Exit 66 exit ramp to Brighton Road.

There, Cheatham made another u-turn back onto the ramp and continued north again before exiting Exit 69, running a stop sign at the intersection.

Burkhead wrote in his incident report that he was able to get the vehicle’s tag number at the top of the ramp and asked a dispatcher to run information on it. He also notified his lieutenant at this time and was instructed to discontinue the chase.

It was there Cheatham lost control of the Mustang and ran into a 12-foot ditch before jumping out of the vehicle and running into a wooded area.

Burkhead followed Cheatham in a brief foot chase, but he was unable to locate him. A perimeter guarded by various law enforcement agencies secured the scene until three officials and dogs with Valdosta State Prisons K-9 unit, a Georgia State Patrol search helicopter, and troopers with GSP’s Tifton post 13 arrived.

Officials found Cheatham over two hours later hiding near a pond. He was searched and arrested without incident before being transported to Tift Regional Medical Center. At the hospital, Cheatham received several stitches for a cut to the top of his head. Blood was also drawn for toxicology testing.

Cheatham’s air bag deployed when the vehicle crashed. No one else was injured during the incident.



To contact reporter Angie Thompson, call 382-4321.