3 girls escape from Baldwin facility, lead police in chase on turnpike
Three teenage girls are facing charges after state police said they escaped from a Baldwin facility and led troopers on a chase on the Pennsylvania Turnpike to Somerset.
A trooper on patrol Dec. 1 around 8 a.m. noticed a work van driving erratically eastbound in Somerset County. The driver of the van didn’t stop for a traffic stop and led police on a chase with speeds reaching 95 mph in a construction zone. The van hit three other vehicles, according to police.
The chase moved off the Somerset interchange and onto North Center Avenue where the van hit a fourth vehicle and stopped in a gas station parking lot, police said.
The girls, ages 14, 15, and 16, were taken into custody. Investigators said they learned the trio had escaped from the New Outlook Academy in Baldwin, a residential school for at-risk teen girls about 65 miles away from Somerset.
The van had been stolen from a location in Brentwood that morning, police said.
Renatta Signorini is a TribLive reporter covering breaking news, crime, courts and Jeannette. She has been working at the Trib since 2005. She can be reached at rsignorini@triblive.com.
Remove the ads from your TribLIVE reading experience but still support the journalists who create the content with TribLIVE Ad-Free.