Tuesday morning in Peach County took a sudden and heartbreaking turn, leaving family and community members searching for answers. What should have been a normal start to the day ended in pure tragedy on a local highway.
Zachary Inglett was only 27 years old, living up the road in Bonaire, Georgia. Right around 9:00 a.m., he was driving through Byron when an officer spotted his car near Georgia Highway 42 and Moseley Road.
The officer tried pulling him over for dark window tinting, but things went sideways fast. Instead of stopping, Inglett hit the gas and drove off, starting a chase down Highway 49.
Byron Police Chief Wesley Cannon made the call to stop the pursuit after just one mile. He knew the risks with morning traffic and erratic driving, choosing to avoid a potential disaster on open roads.
But the danger didn’t end there. A Peach County deputy spotted Inglett’s car a bit later and tried to pull him over, but Inglett kept running. He sped over 100 mph, swerving onto the wrong side of the road and passing people in no-passing zones.
The desperate run stretched almost 11 miles across the county. It all finally crashed to an end in the Five Points area near the Gas N Go on Vineville Street in Fort Valley.
Deputies ran up to the car right after the wreck to check on him. They found Inglett inside, suffering from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Officers and paramedics tried everything they could to save his life right there on the scene, but he didn’t make it.
Sheriff Buck Shannon confirmed that no deputies fired a single shot during the incident. Now, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation is taking over the case and conducting an autopsy to help bring closure to this tragic sequence of events.
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