Cydney Upton was driving back to Lawrence Tuesday from her job in Overland Park when something shot past her on Kansas Highway 10.

“It happened so fast — it was like white lightning,” Upton said. “He had to have been going 120 miles an hour. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

She’s sure it was the car driven by Nam Ouk Cho, the 19-year-old Lee’s Summit, Mo., man accused of leading police in Lawrence on a high-speed chase that ended in a crash at the intersection of 31st Street and Nieder Road. The collision killed Lawrence resident Judith Vellucci, 56.

After passing the De Soto exit, Upton said, she knew she had to do something.

“You know, after De Soto, K-10 is one lane because of all the construction,” she said. “Well, he just drove on the construction side of the cones. When he needed to get back in the lane of traffic, he’d just whip right in. Everybody was watching out for him, hitting their brakes.

“What he was doing was extremely dangerous. It was like stunt driving.”

So Upton dialed 911 on her cell phone. She doesn’t remember which law enforcement agency answered.

“Whoever it was said I needed the Highway Patrol and put me on hold,” she said. “But the Highway Patrol’s line was busy, so he said he would forward my concern, and I was disconnected.”

After the construction zone, Upton said, the white car disappeared on the horizon.

¢ 6News video: Police cleared in chase investigation¢ Witness says driver was ‘going to kill somebody’¢ Wildgen: Review shows police not at fault in fatal collision (8-29-03)¢ City to review fatal police chase (8-29-03)¢ 6News video: Cho charged with second-degree murder (8-29-03)¢ Police: Pursuit warranted (8-28-03)¢ 6News video: Police say pursuit followed policies (8-28-03)¢ Death is second of summer for victim’s family (8-28-03)¢ LPD pursuit policy¢Join the discussion on Reader Reaction¢Victims of Police Pursuits¢Kristie’s Law

“By the time I got to Lawrence, I was mad,” Upton said. “It really irritated me that somebody could drive like that all the way from De Soto and not get stopped — and this was after I’d reported him to 911.”

Anger, apprehension

Her anger soon turned to apprehension. “When I got to Massachusetts (Street), I heard the sirens, and the police cars went screaming past me,” she said. “I said to myself, ‘It’s him, it just has to be him.'”

Upton said she didn’t blame Lawrence police for the accident on the city’s southwest side. “I wasn’t there, obviously,” she said. “But the way he was driving — they couldn’t have not gone after him, they had to try to stop him. He was going to kill somebody whether they tried to stop him or not.”

Upton says she now finds herself wondering whether she did enough to convey the urgency of the situation when she called authorities.

“You’re only on the phone for like five seconds,” she said. “They probably put me down as just another erratic-driving complaint when, really, it was a life-or-death situation. I don’t know if I did enough to convey that.”

Call in question

It’s unclear which law enforcement agency answered Upton’s call and how the call was handled.

On Wednesday, Kansas Highway Patrol spokesman Lt. John Eichkorn confirmed receiving one erratic-driving report Tuesday afternoon that matched Cho’s car. Eichkorn said someone told police that at 5:52 p.m., a driver reported a white Acura cutting in and out of traffic and passing cars dangerously on Kansas Highway 7 near 67th Street east of De Soto.

Though Upton said she called about 5:52 p.m., she said she was not on Highway 7 east of DeSoto and didn’t identify the white car as an Acura.

Attempts to reach Eichkorn for comment Friday were unsuccessful.

After the accident, police said they learned that a vehicle similar to Cho’s had been spotted earlier driving erratically on Interstates 35 and 70 and Kansas Highways 7 and 10 — a route from Lee’s Summit to Lawrence.

Lt. Dave Cobb, a spokesman for the Lawrence Police Department, said it was difficult to know which agency received Upton’s call.

“It all depends on which (cell phone) tower transmitted the call,” Cobb said. “I know I’ve made calls out that way and I’ve gotten the Lenexa P.D., the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office. I think I got the Shawnee P.D. once.”

Cobb said Upton’s account conformed with others received by the department.

“We’ve got other people saying the same thing,” she said. “And I can tell you that when you listen to the audio tapes of the officers — they desperately tried to stop this guy. They did everything they could.”

The Journal-World has filed an open records request with the department seeking a copy of the tapes.