Murder suspect dies after I-35 pursuit, gunfire and fiery crash near Cooke County line

A Dallas man wanted in a Plano killing died Sept. 14 on Interstate 35 near the Cooke–Denton county line after a pursuit in which he fired toward officers and then crashed in the median, where his car caught fire, the Texas Department of Public Safety said in a statement released through the Plano Police Department. The Texas Rangers are investigating the death of William Ralph Grundy, 31.

DPS said officers tried to stop Grundy about 9:50 a.m. on northbound I-35 near Sanger, and the attempted stop turned into a pursuit. Grundy shot in the direction of officers before the wreck near the county boundary, according to the agency. He died at the scene. The update does not give a medical cause of death, and it does not say whether any officer returned fire.

Plano police identified Grundy as a Dallas resident and the former boyfriend of Tashley Gateley, 32, of Plano, the homicide victim found the night before.

The homicide investigation began around 10:15 p.m. Sept. 13 at a home in the 1100 block of Lakestream Drive, according to the department's first statement. Officers reported finding a victim inside with multiple gunshot wounds. Other family members in the house were unharmed, police said.

Detectives later found Grundy's Dodge Charger at a hotel in a neighboring city and kept it under watch while they waited on a murder arrest warrant, according to Plano police. The warrant was signed Sept. 14.

Departments in the region write their own rules for when officers may give chase. Denton police general orders updated in January bar pursuits for traffic offenses alone and generally discourage them for crimes that involve neither violence nor a weapon, with driving while intoxicated as the exception. Dallas police policy allows pursuits of suspected violent felons but requires officers to weigh the arrest against the risk of a collision, injury or death, and supervisors must call off a chase when that risk outweighs the immediate need to catch the suspect. A 2023 Police Executive Research Forum guide recommends pursuing only when a violent crime has occurred and the suspect poses an imminent threat of another, and it calls for behind-the-wheel refresher training every two years. Those are general standards, not a review of this pursuit.

Bureau of Justice Statistics figures count about 760 people killed in pursuit-related crashes in Texas over the two decades ending in 2015, most of them riding in the vehicle being chased. Citing federal highway data, the Police Executive Research Forum reported that fatal crashes involving police pursuits nationwide rose by close to half between 2015 and 2020. Those figures are historical benchmarks, not a measure of current rates on this stretch of road.

The corridor has carried a fleeing driver into Cooke County before. A City of Denton staff report records an April 9, 2021 pursuit in which suspects in a U-Haul ran north on I-35 and drew a sheriff's pursuit through Cooke County. That chase ended with a crash and arrests in Gainesville.

_Editor's note: Everyone charged with a crime is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law._