A 5-year-old Florida girl is dead after her father threw her off a bridge and into Tampa Bay, 62 feet below, St. Petersburg police say.

The suspect, John Nicholas Jonchuck, Jr., was allegedly traveling 100 mph in a P.T. Cruiser, when an officer gave chase and saw Jonchuck stop on the Dick Misener bridge. The officer said Jonchuck pulled a little girl out of the car and threw her over the side.

As the officer called in the incident and climbed down a ladder to the water in search of the victim, Jonchuck drove off. Two off-duty St. Petersburg officers followed Jonchuck, and eventually stopped him with the help of Manatee County deputies.

Divers recovered the body of Jonchuck's young daughter, Phoebe, a mile from the bridge.

"We don't know if the child was alive at the time the child was thrown into the water. The officer said he thought he heard the child scream, but he is not sure. We're just waiting for the report to come back from the ME's Office," St. Petersburg Police Chief Tony Holloway said.

John Jonchuck was "charged with 1st-degree murder, aggravated assault on an officer, and fleeing and eluding and aggravated assault with a motor vehicle on a law enforcement officer," Tampa Bay's WFTS reports.

His criminal record includes multiple arrests for domestic violence and DUI, and a family friend who he and Phoebe lived with in 2013 had recently called police after receiving harassing text messages from him.

"Maybe financial issues, maybe he had nowhere to go. Maybe it was the drugs. I think the drugs made him snap," that friend, Melody Dishman, told WFTS.

[Photo via WFTS]