Stolen U-Haul Smashes Into FedEx Truck After Wild 90 mph Police Chase in Winthrop, Maine

Caspian Hollingsworth
May 28 2025
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Stolen U-Haul Sparks High-Speed Chaos on Rural Maine Roads

It started with a call about a stolen U-Haul van in Auburn, Maine, but nobody could have predicted how wild things would get on February 19, 2025. That afternoon, police say the rental was snatched from an Auburn facility and soon spotted weaving unpredictably through nearby Monmouth. By 3:40 p.m., officers locked eyes on the van as it barreled near Route 202 and Main Street in sleepy Winthrop. Whatever was running through the head of 25-year-old Ronald R. Hinkley Jr. from North Monmouth, it certainly wasn’t caution—he floored it, sending the U-Haul screaming past 90 mph on roads meant for a Sunday drive, not a movie car chase.

Police scrambled to keep up, knowing they had to end this before it crossed into even more dangerous territory. For six tense minutes, cruisers tailed Hinkley as he wove through traffic, desperate to shake them. Officers in Monmouth stood ready with spike strips, planning to blow out the van’s tires if it got that far. They never got the chance—the chaos reached its peak in the most Maine way possible: with a collision right outside a quiet driveway.

No Major Injuries in a Major Mess

On Winthrop Center Road, a FedEx delivery truck was turning left into a private driveway. Hinkley tried to whip the U-Haul past, but the timing couldn’t have been worse. The two trucks slammed together—metal buckled, glass shattered, and the chase ended with both vehicles totaled. The air hung heavy for a moment after the crash, which had drawn more attention than any small-town roadside drama could hope for.

Unbelievably, nobody was seriously hurt. The FedEx driver, 59-year-old Brenda Bas from Old Orchard Beach, got checked out at the scene and refused a ride to the hospital. Police say her work van was reduced to scrap, but she managed to walk away with only minor treatment—something she’ll probably be talking about to customers for a long time. Hinkley and his passenger, 31-year-old Robert Hermanson of Warren, didn’t get off so easy in a different way. Both were handcuffed at the scene and hauled off to Kennebec County Jail, facing a stack of charges that comes from mixing a U-Haul rental with reckless driving and a police pursuit.

The chase was over before officers could do anything dramatic with spike strips, but these guys made enough noise—sirens, squealing brakes, crunching metal—to keep Winthrop buzzing for a while. Police recovered the wrecked U-Haul and worked with FedEx to clear up the mess, making sure the only lasting impact was twisted metal, not lost lives. For those on the roads that afternoon, it was a close call and a reminder of how quickly an ordinary day can flip upside down.

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