Additional information has now been released, regarding a series of incidents that left two people dead Monday night.
Walker County Sheriff’s Office Deputies were dispatched to a residence on Old Dalton Road just after 8:30pm in response to a report of a shooting at the location. They arrived to find 63 year old Roy Leonard McKeehan Jr. dead of an apparent gunshot wound and trauma to the head and neck areas. They also learned that a man and a woman had left the scene just prior to their arrival, and a lookout was placed on the vehicle.
A short time later Chattooga County Deputies spotted the vehicle and attempted to pull it over on Highway 27 near the Pennville Wal-Mart – however the driver refused to stop and a chase began which eventually ended in Cherokee County, Alabama.
Law enforcement deployed spike strips on County Road 41 near Ringgold Crossroads puncturing the suspect’s tires, leading him to crash into a ditch.
Officers approached the vehicle, and found that 35 year old Daniel Chad Marks – had apparently taken his own life, dying of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Cherokee County Coroner Broderick Smith pronounced Marks dead at the scene.
The woman in the vehicle, now identified as Marks’ girlfriend Lucinda McKeehan, suffered only minor injuries in the wreck.
According to news outlets in northwest Georgia earlier in the day Marks and Lucinda McKeehan had been in an argument, while she was holding the couples’ child. Reports indicated that Marks struck the child in the side causing it to stop breathing – he then fled into a nearby wooded area, where he remained for several hours.
After returning to the home, the girlfriend’s father, Roy McKeehan – allegedly confronted Marks with a metal pipe. An argument ensued, and police said that Marks shot the 63 year old victim in the head and then proceeded to beat him with the metal pipe.
Lucinda McKeehan had apparently tried to hide outside the house, but, before authorities arrived, she was kidnapped by Marks as he physically forced her into his vehicle and fled the scene. They were spotted by a Chattooga County Sheriff’s Deputy some 20 minutes later, and that’s when the deadly chase began.
(AM1180/Coosa Valley News)