Bank Robbery Suspect Caught After Car Chase

A suspected bank robber led deputies on a car chase Sunday from a Westlake Village cemetery, where he was seen while visiting his father’s grave, to a Woodland Hills intersection where he crashed his car and was captured, Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies said Monday.

Jeffrey Taylor, 31, a transient suspected in bank robberies in Calabasas and Crescenta Valley, was arrested Sunday afternoon and was being held without bail at the sheriff’s station in Malibu, Deputy Mary Landreth said.

Deputy Dan Trudell was on patrol in the Westlake Village area when he heard a Ventura County sheriff’s broadcast seeking Taylor and reporting that he may be heading for the Pierce Brothers Mortuary & Cemetery in Westlake Village, Landreth said.

Trudell staked out the cemetery and called for assistance when a man matching Taylor’s description left in a 1970 Camaro, which also matched the vehicle the suspect was known to be driving, authorities said. Trudell and other deputies followed the Camaro onto the Ventura Freeway and attempted to stop the man after he left the freeway at Cheseboro Road, officials said.

“He stopped for a stop sign and then the chase was on,” Landreth said. “He started going. He took the deputies through local streets and then went back on the freeway.”

The Camaro went off the freeway again at De Soto Avenue in Woodland Hills and went to Ventura Boulevard, where it crashed into the rear end of a car stopped at a traffic signal. Taylor tried run away but was captured, officials said. An 18-year-old West Hills woman, who was in the car that was struck by the Camaro, was treated for minor injuries.