January 21, 2006|By ANNIE LINSKEY | ANNIE LINSKEY,SUN REPORTER
Candice Nelson says her boyfriend was dropping her off at her Hanover workplace after a lunch date when she asked him to park the car and give her the keys - it was, after all, her mother's 1990 Toyota he was driving.
"Wherever I go, you go," Nelson recalled her boyfriend responding.
Anne Arundel County police say the boyfriend, Brandon Anthony Williams, 19, of Severn, then sped off, holding his girlfriend captive as she yelled for him to stop and frantically called emergency operators on her cell phone.
He led officers on a winding chase through the county Thursday before crashing into a Ford pickup that another motorist had used to block him, police said.
"I was screaming the whole time and yelling," said Nelson, 20, also of Severn, in a phone interview yesterday. "I wanted to get back to my daughter. I was scared because I didn't know what would happen."
Yesterday, Williams, 19, was ordered held on a $439,500 bond in the county detention center by a district judge.
He is charged with 16 counts, including kidnapping, first-degree assault and attempting to elude a police officer, police said. He also received about a dozen traffic citations, including for driving without a license, police said. He faces 131 years behind bars if convicted on all counts.
According to Nelson and police, Williams picked up Nelson from Child Time, a day care center in Hanover where she works, about noon Thursday. The couple, who had been dating for three years, went to Taco Bell for lunch.
When Williams wouldn't drop her off back at work, Nelson tried to jump out of the car at red lights, police said. But Williams sped though the signals without stopping, according to the charging documents.
Using her cell phone, Nelson tried unsuccessfully to call her mother. Then, she said, she called the police.
"After he started acting simple [driving erratically], I just dialed 911," she said. "That's when he just really started speeding all over the place, jumping on the other side of the lane to go around cars."
An emergency dispatcher transferred her call to Sgt. Harry Peterson of the county's Western District, who asked her "yes and no" questions to determine her location.
Officer J.S. Golas spotted the car driving south on New Ridge Road, according to the documents. Trailed by police cruisers with lights flashing, Williams turned onto Dorsey Road and then headed south on Telegraph Road, speeding through several busy intersections, according to the documents.
"I would never have thought he was capable of doing anything like this," Nelson said.
At one point, Golas tried to block him in traffic, but Williams crashed into the driver's side of the police car, causing minor damage, according to the documents.
At one point, Williams cut off a truck driven by Robin Ross, 43, of Elkridge. Ross noticed the police cars and "knew there was a school ahead" and decided to position his Ford pickup on Reece Road ahead of Williams, according to the documents.
Williams crashed the Toyota into the truck and was unable to continue, the documents said. Nobody was seriously injured, according to the documents.
After police arrested Williams, he was served nine outstanding warrants for other offenses, including trespassing, theft, forgery and destruction of property, police said.
annie.linskey@baltsun.com
