To clear the air right away, there were no children on this school bus when it was allegedly hijacked from Cincinnati, Ohio last week. For that matter, there wasn’t anybody on board when 32-year-old Chad Murdock jumped behind the wheel. For reasons that are still unknown at this time, he was the person who then led police on a multi-state chase before finally coming to a stop in a cornfield in rural Indiana.
Mind you, that cornfield was one of many this school bus saw during the hour-long pursuit. According to a statement from the Indiana State Police, the bus was stolen from the Cincinnati area on May 30 at approximately 10:15 am local time. WCPO Cincinnati reports the original driver of the bus was apparently reviewing a route he would be driving for the summer and stepped out for a moment. That’s when Murdock allegedly hijacked the bus and headed west.
The video picks up the action with the chase well underway, showing five police vehicles in pursuit. The first of many off-road excursions comes barely a minute into the clip as the bus veers off the divided highway into a field. Only a few patrol vehicles are able to follow at that point, but eventually, we see over a dozen pursuit vehicles and a helicopter involved in the chase.
It’s not just cornfields under attack, either. We see the bus veer through several backyards and even skirts a cemetery, crashing through ditches and fences in the process. Some of the fields look barren, but there are a few where crops are visible. It’s unknown how much property damage was caused during the course of the pursuit.
The driver also manages to avoid tire-puncturing stop sticks, at first anyway. Towards the end of the chase, the tires are finally blown out, causing the bus to become virtually uncontrollable. It comes to a stop in a small ditch with damage clearly visible on the front, and several police vehicles were also damaged in the wild chase. Murdock was arrested without incident and charged with possession of stolen property, criminal recklessness with a vehicle, criminal mischeif, and resisting law enforcement.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a school bus involved in a police chase. In October 2020, an 11-year-old boy managed to steal a bus in Louisiana and led police on a 30-minute chase through town, smashing fences and a gas pipeline before finally crashing into a tree. As with this recent incident, there were no injuries in that school bus chase. But rumors say the boy is still grounded to this day.
