LANSING - A 32-year-old man who threatened suicide during a domestic dispute was killed Thursday when he crashed his car trying to elude police.

Cory Spackman of Lansing was pronounced dead at the scene of the crash on Route 34, just outside Ithaca.

State police said the incident began about 6:30 a.m. when Spackman's estranged wife called police to say Spackman was demanding to see his children and threatening to kill himself after he went to her home in violation of a court order of protection.

When the wife told Spackman she had called police, he said he would kill a police officer and then fled the scene in his car.

Just before 7 a.m., a Cayuga Heights police officer spotted Spackman's car and began following him with his emergency lights on in an attempt to pull him over.

Spackman continued driving into the city of Ithaca, where Ithaca police joined the chase

Soon after, a Tompkins County sheriff's deputy pulled in front of Spackman's car in a marked patrol car. Spackman accelerated past the deputy's patrol car at high speed, troopers said.

Once he passed the deputy's car, Spackman suddenly veered off the side of the highway, hit a guard rail and went airborne. The car struck a utility pole, snapping it in half, and came to rest upside down in a wooded area down a steep embankment.