TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - An active tracking device on a car led police to arrest a Tallahassee man who carjacked a victim at gunpoint.
Rickey Hughes Jr., 23, stole the car on Oct. 6, as the victim went to speak with a friend, according to a probable cause affidavit.
The victim said that, while he was outside his car talking to his friend, he saw Hughes walking toward the car and so he ran back to it.
But the victim stopped when Hughes pointed a handgun at him and ordered him to back up, which he did, and Hughes drove away.
Unbeknownst to the suspect, the stolen car had active tracking by American Car Center. American Car Center was notified, documents say, and they deactivated the car's starter when it was revealed the car was at a Flash Foods gas station in Thomasville.
Documents say the Thomasville Police Department and the Thomas County Sheriff's Office found the car at the gas station and saw the suspect next to it.
However, when they tried to detain him, Hughes escaped in a nearby Jeep.
At the end of the pursuit, two of four occupants of the Jeep were taken into custody, court documents said, but not Hughes and another person, who both fled on foot.
The suspects who were caught both gave a Tallahassee Police Department investigator information that implicated Hughes as the carjacker.
The TPD investigator wrote that a .380 caliber handgun found in the front passenger compartment of the stolen car matched one stolen from a Tallahassee home on Oct. 1. The gun also matched the description of the handgun that the victim said Hughes used in the carjacking.
On Oct. 15, the victim identified Hughes as the armed suspect in a photographic lineup.
Hughes was booked into the Leon County Detention Center on Wednesday and remained there Tuesday on a $20,000 bond. Hughes faces charges of robbery/carjacking with a firearm or weapon and possession of a weapon or ammunition by a convicted Florida felon.
