Crime-Spree Suspect Caught After Car Chase

The suspect in a crime spree that included rape, kidnapping and one slaying in this tourist-conscious area was captured Monday after a 15-mile car chase.

James Sears Hartsock, 25, was spotted in the small town of Holly Hill driving a car stolen from a woman who was abducted last week and held captive for four days, police said.

The woman, who was freed late Sunday near downtown Orlando, had positively identified her abductor as Hartsock, telling police she saw his identification and that he told her who he was.

Hartsock also was wanted in connection with last week’s bludgeoning death of a man and the rape of a woman outside a hotel across the street from Universal Studios, in the heart of Orlando’s tourist district.

That was the first of four murders in a three-day period near an entertainment corridor lined with hotels, family restaurants and outlet shopping malls.