A 100 mile-per-hour car chase leading Brookhaven police officers to Byram Thursday morning provided new leads into the investigation of two vehicles stolen before Christmas.

At 4:48 a.m. Thursday Brookhaven Police Officers observed a mysterious vehicle on South Church Street with its lights off. Officers reported the car as being a maroon/red-ish Nissan Maxima with a CarMax dealer tag.

Brookhaven Police Department Chief Bobby Bell said  when officers approached the car they observed the vehicle picking up three other people. Bell said the car was dropping people off in different driveways where the individuals would check to see if cars were unlocked intent to steal something from the car or the car itself.

Chief Bell said the officers gave chase, following the car along Highway 51 South to Highway 84 then to Highway 51 before ending without an arrest north of Byram.

The car involved in the chase is believed to be in connection with the car thefts from Morningside Drive and Edgewood Drive in Brookhaven in the days before Christmas. An electronic device in one of the stolen cars “pinged” on the BPD radar from the Byram area.

Chief Bell said they’ve reason to believe that the suspects are coming from the Jackson/Byram area, driving to residential neighborhoods and going into people’s driveways looking for unlocked cars.

“Officers reached 100 plus miles-per-hour as they drove,” Bell said. “As they got north of Byram the car was driving too reckless. They started running people off the road, so the officer made the safest decision and retreated.”

Bell reports with other law enforcement agencies being unavailable at the time combined with the car’s reckless driving, BPD officers deemed it unsafe to continue the chase any further.

As BPD continues the investigation into the car pre-Christmas thefts, the chief encourages people to lock their vehicles.

“We haven’t received any more reports of anything stolen as of yet,” Chief Bell said, “but we need everybody to stay alert.”