CLINTON (AP) — The Mississippi Highway Patrol is investigating after two Jackson State University students were killed in a single-vehicle crash in Clinton.

WAPT-TV reports it began about 3:45 a.m. Wednesday when someone at a gas station called Clinton Police about a suspicious vehicle.

When officers arrived, the driver took off. Police Chief Ford Hayman says officers followed the car, which crashed a few minutes later near the Natchez Trace.

MHP says the driver apparently lost control of the car and hit a tree. The victims, 21-year-old Johnathan Thomas and his 19-year-old girlfriend, Skylar Liddell, each died at the scene.