Truck thief with a Heart

A convict who went on the run for 2,000 miles to see his sick mother was caught after stealing a tour bus belonging to the country singer Crystal Gayle.

Christopher Gay was being transported from Texas to Alabama, to stand trial for stealing trucks ,when he gave his guards the slip at a service station. He stole a truck and raced off towards Pleasantville where his mother lay bedridden with colon cancer.

In Georgia the engine gave out, so he traded the truck for a tractor-trailer. That conked out in Tennessee, so he stole a delivery truck from outside a Wal-Mart.

Barely 50 yards from his mothers home he fell asleep at the wheel and careered of the road. When police stopped at the scene , he ran through 4 miles of forest, eluding 19 officers.

After emerging from the woods, Gay took a tour bus belonging to Gayle from a garage in nearby Whites Creek. He drove it south through Tennessee and Georgia to a racetrack in Lakeland, Florida, where he claimed to be an assistant of the Nascar racing champion Tony Stewart. "He didn't look the part," said track manager Barry Williams, who called the police. "He said he was going to McDonald's in the bus."

Officers finally caught up with Gay 100 miles away in Daytona Beach as he watched another racing event. Last night, he was in Volusia county jail, awaiting extradition to Alabama or Tennessee, where he also has outstanding arrest warrants.

"My heart goes out to him and his family," Gayle said. "It's a sad story, his mother is very ill. I hope he gets to see her."

"He has a good heart" said his mother "Last time he escaped it was to see his granddaddy Joe. That's how much his family means to him."