A high-speed chase across county lines Thursday night ended in a fatal crash involving Pike County sheriff's deputies.
Michael Ardizone, 38, was killed in the crash, and the driver of the vehicle, Sara Elizabeth Edmonds, 22, of McComb, was airlifted to the University of Mississippi Medical Center, the Mississippi Highway Patrol reported.
Deputies and Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics Agents attempted to stop the 2025 Kia Soul on Locust Street in McComb when the car fled, Sheriff Wally Jones said.
Deputies pursued the vehicle to Walthall County, where the chase continued on Highway 27.
Jones said the driver hit a pursuing deputy’s vehicle at least four times before one of those hits resulted in the accident, which the highway patrol said occurred at 7:34 p.m. about five miles south of Tylertown.
Jones said Friday morning that the deputy was about to employ a tactical maneuver to disable the vehicle, but the wreck occurred before that.
Jones said the fleeing vehicle was driving into oncoming traffic as deputies pursued it.
The sheriff said no deputies were hurt.
Ardizone, who reportedly lived in McComb but whose last known address was Cumming, Ga., was one of the inmates who filed suit against former Sheriff James Brumfield, former jail warden Herbert Young and former jail administrator Richard Bynum.
In his complaint filed in U.S. District Court in August 2023, Ardizone said his wife died of a heroin overdose on the day of his arrest, and he had been held in jail amid overcrowding and inhumane conditions for more than 15 months without access to courts and no movement on his case.
Ardizone alleged in his complaint that “inmates have knives and use them on a regular basis,” including inmates locked up for homicides and with records of stabbing people at other facilities.
Circuit Court Judge Mike Taylor noted Ardizone’s lengthy incarceration and ordered his release from jail in March 2024.
