NODINE, Minn. – Deputies arrested a Wisconsin woman after two car chases and stops in which she refused to lower to her car window. She looked terrified and apparently high on a controlled substance, deputies said, and a 5-year-old in the backseat was screaming. In the second stop, after taking off from the first, the woman still refused to open her window, and, by then torso-naked, grabbed a knife and, deputies assumed, was threatening to harm herself. Still unable to coax her out, deputies smashed the window, at which point the woman slid to the passenger side, opened the door, and ran. She was caught. Lisa Marie Thorson, 50, of Racine, was taken 20 miles to a LaCrosse hospital for drug-testing. The child was placed in protective custody.
Atop Four-Mile Grade on I-90. Above Dakota, just outside Nodine.
Kwik Trip clerk: Something not right here
This is the sheriff’s office account: The episode began about 11 a.m. at the Interstate 90 Kwik Trip truck stop near Nodine. A clerk called the sheriff’s office that a woman with a child in her car was acting strangely. A few miles away in New Hartford Township deputies caught up with the car, which they said was moving slowly and jerking left and right erratically and then stopped abruptly in the middle of the road. Deputies tried to coax the woman to lower the window. She didn’t. Then she drove off. She eventually stopped again but still refused to open the window. She removed her clothing. Naked from the waist up, she grabbed a knife and apparently to hurt herself. But who knows. Deputies smashed the window for access to the car. The woman fled out the passenger door but was corralled and arrested.