CINCINNATI (Court TV) — Authorities involved in a high-speed chase through multiple Tennessee counties were stunned last week when they pulled over the vehicle and found the owner dead and her alleged killer behind the wheel.
Lance Mason Miller, 32, of Abbott, Texas, was arrested Saturday and booked into the jail in Wilson County, Tennessee. He was charged in Ohio in the kidnapping and murder of 36-year-old Kaitlyn Ashley Lynch.
Kaitlyn Ashley Lynch (Photo courtesy of John Reuthers)
Lynch, who lived in the Westwood neighborhood of Cincinnati, left behind two young daughters, according to Scripps News Cincinnati.
Anyone who knew her well knew her girls were the lights of her life, the news station reported. Her family expressed the shock of her killing on a GoFundMe page set up to help her children.
“Anyone who knew Kaitlyn knew how much she loved being a mom to her two beautiful daughters and how she was always willing to lend a hand,” the page reads. “She was funny, beautiful, determined, and she will be deeply missed by all.”
A GoFundMe page was created to get Lynch’s body back to her family in New York and help set up education funds for her daughters.
Officers responded shortly before midnight on Saturday to a residential area in Westwood, where witnesses reported a volley of gunshots. The officers found evidence of a shooting and abduction.
“I heard five shots, and an immediate two afterwards,” a neighbor, Andrew Kenton, told the Scripps News affiliate.
Lynch’s vehicle was spotted a few hours later in Wilson County, according to Scripps News Nashville. A harrowing chase ensued.
Miller was stopped after spike strips were used on westbound I-40 near mile marker 243, the news station reported.
According to the family’s fundraising page, Lynch was found in the passenger seat, dead from a gunshot wound to the chest.
Miller is expected to face charges of evading arrest and abuse of a corpse in Tennessee, where he’s currently awaiting extradition to Hamilton County, Ohio, to face the murder and kidnapping charges.
Lance Mason Miller, 32, of Abbott, Texas, is charged in Ohio for the kidnapping and murder of 36-year-old Kaitlyn Ashley Lynch, 36, of Cincinnati. Miller was arrested in Tennessee while driving Lynch’s car, pictured, with her body inside. (Scripps News Nashville)
Jim Hartke, an attorney based in downtown Cincinnati, told Scripps News Cincinnati, that Lynch was a kind, generous person who “lived for her children.” He said she would sometimes bring the girls to his law office, where she worked.
“That’s kind of just who she was,” Hartke said. “We just enjoyed the heck out of her around here.”
Another staffer called her “spunky… a pistol” and noted that nearly a week later, her death didn’t feel real.
Hartke said Lynch and Miller were acquaintances and that Lynch had allowed Miller to stay briefly at her home. Though some of his office staff were leery of Miller, Hartke said he’d had no misgivings about the man.
He had drinks with Miller and Lynch Friday night, just hours before she was killed.
“I don’t have anything to say to him. We’ll have to let the justice system run its course,” Hartke told Scripps News Cincinnati. “But I certainly hope he gets convicted of kidnapping, abuse of a corpse and murder — and receives the maximum sentence.”
