Kidnapper Steals Specials Needs Children, RV Explodes In Flames After Police Chase

A Texas man kidnapped his girlfriend and their two young children before leading police on a high-speed chase in an RV. The incident ended when the man killed himself and the vehicle was engulfed in flames.

Tony Kelly Sr. reportedly took the woman and the children, ages 1 and 3, at around 2:30 a.m. in Arlington, Texas. Police said the situation began after the woman confronted Kelly at his place of work. Both of the children had special needs, Kelly’s family told the Dallas Morning News. At some point during the kidnapping, Kelly shot the woman three times.

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Police were notified when the woman was able to text 911 for help while she was inside the RV.

“We’ve been kidnapped, I’ve been shot,” she said, according to Arlington police spokesman Christopher Cook. She ended the text message conversation with authorities by saying “Thank u please kill him bye.”

At some point during the kidnapping, a main claiming to be Kelly called local television station KDFW.

“She’s a work of art,” he reportedly told the station. “She tried to kill herself, tried to kill me and she pretty much did kill herself. I shot her once in the leg. I shot her twice — once in the leg, once in the other leg. One in the back.”

Kelly allegedly told the station she attempted to get him fired from his job and had drugged him in the past and that he shot her out of revenge. The person on the phone at the television station attempted to convince him to stop to no avail.

After police received the text message from the woman in the car, they located the RV in the town of Caddo Mills. The unidentified woman either jumped or got pushed out of the car while it was going 80 or 90 miles per hour. Police attempted to stop Kelly by placing spike strips in the road to puncture his tires, but Kelly continued driving over them on the rims of the vehicle. He finally stopped when the vehicle caught fire, releasing the children safely.

“The flames that were fanning underneath the front of the bus, they were really hot,” Deputy Floyd Kincaid with the Dallas County Sheriff’s Department told KDFW. “Some of the fuel had started to burn. You could feel the heat coming from it and there was a lot of smoke just because of all the plastics and everything that were burning with it.”

As the fire completely engulfed the vehicle, officers at the scene heard Kelly fire his gun, killing himself inside the car.

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Kelly’s 20-year-old son, Tony Kelly Jr., told KDFW that his father also called him while he was driving the RV to tell him he loved him. Kelly’s son, who Kelly was living with at the time of the kidnapping, said his father’s girlfriend had claimed to be a victim of domestic violence and that his father said she harassed him, according to the Dallas Morning News.

The woman was taken to a hospital where she required immediate surgery. Authorities said she made it out of surgery successfully but had a broken jaw and a breathing tube along with other injuries. The two children were taken to the hospital as a precaution.

“The best thing is that we got the children out and we’re very fortunate that happened,” Hunt County Sheriff Randy Meeks told reporters. “We pray that [the woman] will recover and will be okay. It was a pretty traumatic experience I imagine to go through.”

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