Stolen concrete truck leads to 60-mile chase along I-20

Billy Hobbs, The Union-Recorder, Milledgeville, Ga.
·3 min read

Mar. 1—CRAWFORDVILLE, Ga. — A 41-year-old Martinez man finds himself in all kinds of trouble after he stole a concrete truck from a gas station in Columbia County Monday morning and tried to elude local and state law enforcement authorities on a 60-mile chase.

The chase came to an abrupt halt after a trooper with the Georgia State Patrol fired gunshots into the radiator of the truck in Taliaferro County near Crawfordville.

No one was injured in the bizarre crime, which also included the suspect pouring out cement along a stretch of the westbound interstate highway from Appling to the Thomson exit 175 in neighboring McDuffie County.

It was not immediately known whether the cement on the roadway caused any serious traffic crashes, but there were several crashes as a result. The wet cement along the roadway also led to the closure of the interstate for a period.

After the truck became disabled, state troopers, along with deputies from several jurisdictions, including the Taliaferro County Sheriff's Office and Greene County Sheriff's Office, took the suspect into custody.

Maj. Steve Morris with the Columbia County Sheriff's Office identified the suspect as Erik Adam Bodie, of the 4600 block of Dever Drive, Martinez.

Warrants have since been taken out against Bodie for fleeing and attempting to elude, due to driving in a manner that would put the public at risk or harm, theft of a motor vehicle, reckless driving, and running a traffic control device.

The suspect is also expected to face a litany of other charges in other counties resulting from the chase.

Bodie is being held in the Columbia County Detention Center in Appling.

Lt. Michael Burns, public information director with the Georgia State Patrol in Atlanta said the incident began shortly after 9 a.m.

Troopers with the Georgia State Patrol post in Grovetown received radio contact that a deputy with the Columbia County Sheriff's Office was in pursuit of a stolen concrete truck on I-20, Burns said via an email.

Eventually, a state trooper assigned to the GSP post in Grovetown became the primary unit during the pursuit at mile marker 183 in Columbia County, Burns said.

Two other state troopers attempted to use stop sticks to disable the concrete truck in hopes of bringing the pursuit to an end, but they were unsuccessful, he said.

"The concrete truck exited I-20 at Ga. 22 in Taliaffero County and continued north before entering I-20 westbound," Burns said. "Deputies with the Taliaferro County Sheriff's Office attempted stop sticks on Interstate 20 West at mile marker 148, but the driver of the concrete truck swerved toward those deputies and drove around the stop sticks."

The chase came to an end a short time later when a state trooper riding in the passenger seat with a fellow trooper "was able to safely fire rounds" into the radiator and hydraulic tanks near mile marker 146, which ultimately disabled the concrete truck, Burns said.