Clarkson man steals truck, wrecks less than 200 yards away on Elizabethtown Rd.

4473159

Monday afternoon at approximately 3:05, the Leitchfield and Clarkson Police Departments responded to the report of a stolen vehicle being wrecked near the Leitchfield/Clarkson city limits on Elizabethtown Road (Hwy 62).

The vehicle, a red pickup truck, was stolen from the parking lot of the Dollar General Store at 2625 Elizabethtown Road. The man who stole the truck, 26-year-old Leslie Neighbors, of Clarkson, fled east in the vehicle on Elizabethtown Road for less than 200 yards before losing control of the truck. He traveled into a ditch near the parallel streets of Oak Wood Lane and Windy Poplar Drive, in the 2700 block of Elizabethtown Road.

Clarkson Police Chief Buck Meredith arrived on scene within two minutes, but Neighbors had fled the wreck on foot. He was captured a short time later by LPD officer Chase Melton.

Neighbors was arrested and charged with theft by unlawful taking (over $500 but less than $10,000) and leaving the scene of an accident, and lodged in the Grayson County Detention Center.

With smoke coming from the wrecked vehicle immediately after the accident, the Clarkson Fire Department was also initially dispatched to the scene, but it was quickly determined that no fire was present.