Fugitive Luke Brandon arrested over crime spree stretching from Parkside to Goolwa
A crime spree stretching from Parkside to Goolwa, involving a home invasion, petrol drive-off and the ramming of a police vehicle has now been linked to notorious fugitive Luke Brandon.
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- Police searching for fugitive after breaching supervision order
High-risk offender and fugitive Luke Brandon has been linked to a home invasion, petrol drive-off, and police vehicle ramming at Goolwa during a pursuit overnight.
STAR Group officers are swarming the area of Brandon’s last sighting where a white Hyundai sedan was found on Rankine Rd, Goolwa South, about 7am on Tuesday.
The 33-year-old was wanted on a Parole Board Warrant for breaching an Extended Supervision Order.
It was the fifth time he’s breached a supervision order in three years.
Brandon has strong links to the Fleurieu Peninsula and, in 2015, was involved in an eight-hour Goolwa siege after police sought him over an aggravated knife robbery.
He has tested positive to drugs 16 times while on supervision and has an extensive rap sheet that includes assault and theft, as well as threatening to kill a person with a kitchen knife while driving with the victim in the passenger seat of a car.
This morning, a second car – a 1997 gold Mitsubishi Verada registration WBD-989 – was reported stolen in the Goolwa area not long after the Hyundai was found.
The Hyundai was stolen from an elderly woman during a home invasion at Parkside on Monday but the number plates were changed before it was involved in the violent crime spree overnight.
Rosalie Smith, who is aged in her 80s, was putting recycling in the bin outside her Foster St home just before 5pm on Monday when a man and a woman approached her.
Ms Smith’s son David said the man ran inside his mother’s house and grabbed her car keys.
The woman pushed Ms Smith to the side and then backed the woman’s car out of its car space and drove off.
“My mother yelled ‘get out of the car’,” Mr Smith said.
“Fortunately she wasn’t hurt, we are very pleased about that, but she is shaken and we don’t know why these people took the car.
“Obviously for anyone to steal a car in that manner from a woman in her 80s is not a nice thing at all.”
Mr Smith said his mother had seen the woman earlier that day.
“Strangely she saw the female in her yards at about midday today when my mother questioned her she just said she was lost and ran out the front gate,” Mr Smith said.
“When the two returned later to take the car she immediately recognised the woman.”
Mr Smith said his mother is a fiercely independent woman who had raised three sons and is a role model to her granddaughters.
Just after 1.30am on Tuesday, police received a report that two people in a Hyundai stole fuel from a service station on Adelaide Rd, Murray Bridge.
Then in the early hours of Tuesday, the same car was spotted by truckies heading towards Callington and later seen travelling towards Meadows on Bull Creek Rd.
Patrols chased the white car through Currency Creek and Goolwa before it stopped on Port Elliot Rd while heading towards Middleton.
When the police patrol stopped behind the white sedan, the driver suddenly reversed into the front of the police car then accelerated away. The officers were not injured. The car was
Brandon is believed to have been released into the community in May after returning to prison for cutting off his home detention monitoring device on February 15 and going on the run.
While on the run Brandon relapsed into drug use and used a car to allegedly lead police on a pursuit through Strathalbyn, south of Adelaide.
He was arrested and charged with numerous offences including engaging in a police pursuit.
Brandon cut off or disconnected home detention monitoring devices in February, May and October in 2017.
The Attorney-General’s Department argued he was a risk to the community if not kept in prison.