A Globe man, Jaeden Spurgeon, was sentenced to 20 years in prison by a judge. Spurgeon pleaded guilty to one count of manslaughter and two counts of aggravated assault.
According to the Pinal County Attorney’s Office, on April 10, 2017, Globe Police Department took a domestic violence report about a man who reportedly stole his girlfriend’s black SUV. When police found the SUV, Jaeden Spurgeon was driving in a parking lot. When one officer tried to approach Spurgeon’s car on foot, Spurgeon sped up and nearly hit the officer before he fled on US60. Multiple police agencies pursued Spurgeon for about 20 miles but stopped their pursuit after Spurgeon began driving the wrong-way on a divided highway for another nine miles. During that time, at least five people called 911. The defendant later admitted to police he was driving up to 100 miles per hour. When police caught up to Spurgeon, they discovered he collided with two other cars.
While Spurgeon was driving the wrong-way, he killed one woman and seriously injured her male passenger. The woman, pinned in the car, died of blunt force trauma. Another woman, driving a third car, was also involved in the collision, but was not injured.
Spurgeon pleaded guilty to manslaughter and two counts of aggravated assault. One count of aggravated assault was for intentionally putting an officer in reasonable fear of imminent physical injury and the other aggravated assault for recklessly causing an injury with a dangerous instrument.
The judge sentenced Spurgeon to the maximum 20 years in prison. Spurgeon received a twelve-year sentence for manslaughter followed by another eight years for aggravated assault. The second aggravated assault sentence of 7.5 years will run concurrently with the manslaughter charge.