DENNISON, Minn. — A Kenyon woman died in the collision of her pickup truck and a farm tractor nine miles north of Kenyon. The victim was victim’s Christa Lynn Webster, age 48. The tractor driver, Logan Andrew Kremmin, 19, of Northfield, was unhurt. The pickup was heading tractor south toward Kenyon and the tractor north toward Hampton Randolph. This was about 11:16 p.m.  on State Highway 56 at 390th Street.

They made it across first tracks. Not second set. The impact was on the far tracks, the Canadian Pacific mainline, just off the Westview Golf Course. Image: Steve Lunde

Woman dragged 20 feet by train; injuries critical

WINONA, Minn. – A train struck and critically injured a Winona woman who fell out of her wheelchair while being pushed across tracks in the Bierce Street industrial area. She was dragged 20 feet by the locomotive, which the engineer was attempting to brake. Police said the woman was conscious when officers arrived. She was taken to the Winona hospital, then airlifted 40 miles to a Trauma Level One hospital in LaCrosse. Police didn’t release the woman’s name but said she was 42 and lived nearby.

Police reconstruction

> The woman and her husband had been downtown and were returning to their home in the Bierce Street area.

> The woman’s husband was pushing her across two sets of tracks — one the Canadian Pacific mainline and the other a spur switching off to the Union Pacific yard along Riverview Drive. About 70 feet separates the two tracks.

> The couple had crossed the UP tracks, nearest Riverview Drive, and were almost to the CP mainline. The husband saw the CP freight train coming and tried to get across those tracks ahead of the engine.

> The woman fell off wheel chair in the train’s path.

> The engineer saw the situation and was braking at the moment of impact. The train was westbound, heading out of Winona, and had been going about 30 mph, the limit through town.

> The woman was conscious but unable to talk when police arrived. The husband was unhurt.

> The crossing was blocked about two hours. Police said they found the cross gates cross arms and flashing lights were working properly.

WINONA, Minn. – A custody trial over the children of missing Winona e\woman Maddi Kingsbury has been postponed. Instead of a showdown between the children’s grandparents and their father, a deal has been reached with Winona County. The deal:

> The County will remaon guardian of the children, who are 5 and 2.

> The grandparents, David and Cathy Kingsbury of Winona, will remain as interim custodians.

> The father, Adam Fravel, will have supervised access to the children.

Neither Fravel nor the grandparents are pleased with the deal worked out with the county’s Social Services agency. The agency forcibly took the childen from Fravel shortly after Maddi disappeared in March. Fravel then sued for custody as the children’s biological father. The grandparents, however, haven’t wanted him anywhere near the children and told the court they have “significant concerns” that Fravel “knows more about Ms. Kingsbury’s disappearance than he is letting on.” Fravel has denied any role in Maddi’s disappearance.

Earlier: Marking Maddi’s 27th birthday in blue

Earlier: Maddi search turns again to Mississippi River

Earlier: Maddi update: Police reticent on probe’s new wrinkle

Earlier: Probe restructured in Maddi Kingsbury disappearance

Earlier: Special prosecutor named in Kingsbury case

Earlier: Kingsbury custody issue: Blacked-out documents

LEWISTON, Minn. – Police flushed four people from a house at the Arches enclave near Farmers Park after a report of gunshots from the house. There were no arrests. The report of gunshots had come from a man who said he had been called by a woman at the house to come pick her up. While waiting, he said, two shots were fired at him. He sped away and called 911. Police couldn’t raise anyone at the house by phone, so they scrambled 19 officers and the Winona MRAP Bearcat armored vehicle to the scene. They blared a message from the Bearcat that everyone come out with hands up. One by one, two men and two women emerged and were cuffed. There had been no shots fired, said a man who had been in the house, but he admitted throwing firecrackers out a window to scare off the man who had driven up in first place to pick up a woman inside. To avoid congestion in the narrow Arches coulee during the raid, traffic on U.S. Highway 14 was detoured on backroads between Lewiston and Stockton The house, at 23121 Highway 14, has a troubled recent record. It was raided also in January with four drug-related arrests

Earlier: Arches drug raid arrests total four

Earlier: Drug raid takes pair at rural Lewiston house

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LACRESCENT, Minn. – A LaCrescent driver was injured in a two-vehicle collision and taken across the river to a LaCrosse hospital. Injuries to Marlene Kay Cleven, 82, of La Crescent, were described as non-life threatening. Police said Cleven was coming out of Kistler Drive onto Highway 16 at the south edge of LaCrescent. The other vehicle was heading out of town on Highway 16. Neither the second driver, Jennifer Lee Kinstler, 48, of Houston, nor a 10-year-old passenger was hurt.  The vehicles were Cleven’s 2010 Toyota Prius, whose airbag deployed, and Kinstler’s 2017 Honda Odyssey, whose airbag also deployed.

ROCHESTER, Minn. — Condo owners at Rochester Towers were told they cannot go back to the temporarily condemned downtown high-rise for at least a month. An engineering firm needs the time to identify structural issues that led to the evacuation of the building Friday. The condo ownership board said access won’t be allowed even for personal belongings. Anyone needing emergency medication or medical equipment was told to contact the building managers who can retrieve the items. On Friday, when the building was evacuated, the 180 residents had only a couple hours to gather things up and get out.

Earlier: Temporary fix at Rochester high-rise: More needs doing

Twin cooling silos. Plant is on Prairie Island on Mississippi River 45 miles downstream from Minneapolis and 75 miles upstream from Winona.

Equipment malfunction blamed; customers unaffected

RED WING, Minn. – For the past 1-1/2 weeks the Prairie Island Nuclear Plant has been limping on just one of its two reactors, Xcel Energy, the plant’s owner, confirmed.  There has never been any danger to the public, the company said. What happened? Excel’s account:  What’s called an “unusual event” in the industry occurred May 27 when a transformer malfunctioned and set off a fire alarm that ultimately disabled the plant’s Unit 2 reactor. Unit 1 kept functioning normally. Meanwhile Unit 2 was powered down for repairs. Electric service to customers was never interrupted. The U.S Nuclear Regulatory Agency was notified immediately with “A Notification of Unusual Event,” which is the lowest of four emergency classifications established by the agency.

DAVENPORT, Iowa — The bodies of a second and third victim from an apartment building collapse have been recovered from the rubble. They were identified as Ryan Hitchcock, 51, and Daniel Prien, 60. Authorities believed everyone else who lived on the building had been accounted for. Most injuries were relatively minor, except for one woman who had to have a leg amputated. Meanwhile, a second huge section of the century-old building fell to the ground.

Earlier: First body recovered from Iowa building collapse

Earlier: Mayor: Search for collapse victims to be respectful

OWATONNA, Minn. A Park Rapids couple were injured when their motorcycle struck a deer on U.S. Highway 14 near Owatonna. Kenneth Allen Malz, 66, and Linda Rose Malz, 61, were taken to the Owatonna hospital with non-life threatening injuries. The accident was about10:20 a.m. Their 2014 Harley Touring bike didn’t fare well. Nor did the deer.

WASECA, Minn. – An Owatonna man wanted for murder surrendered after police surrounded an apartment building in Waseca with SWAT sharp-shooters. Jason Lee Horner, 38, was taken without resistance. He was a suspect in the death 15 miles away in Owatonna last week. A 25-year0old woman was found shot in the head under an Interstate 35 overpass. Hofrner arrest was about 4 a.m. He was booked into the Steele County Jail in Owatonna on suspicion of murder, albeit  not premeditated, and of being ineligible to possess a firearm charge. Horner has a police record — a 2018 burglary conviction in Austin and also aiding and abetting an assault, and domestic assault.

Earlier: Mother to mourners: Beautify ugly murder site

DAVENPORT, Iowa — The body of one of three men missing in the partial collapse of a decrepit downtown apartment building was found in the rubble. Branden Colvin Sr., 41, lived in an upper floor of the six-story structure. Two other men, also with apartments on an upper floor, were still missing.

Earlier: Mayor: Search for collapse victims to be respectful

ROCHESTER, Minn. – Engineers have stabilized the high-rise Rochester Towers condominium that was evacuated Friday after structural problems were found. The condo management company, First Service Residential, said deteriorating columns at the east ads west ends of the 54-year-old building had been shored up in a temporary fix. Engineering and construction teams still need to work through options for the structure, the company said. Meanwhile, the 15-story downtown building remained vacant. The 194 tenants were told remain elsewhere for at least two more nights. For sure it will be longer for some: More than a dozen units were torn up for crews to fix columns.

Nobody home yet. Except engineer and construction teams, who have patched structurally flawed columns but not yet figured out a permanent fix.

Downtown traffic

Traffic had been rerouted when the building was evacuated Friday. Now restored is Second Street Southwest. Still closed by emergency construction machinery and materials: Northbound Fifth Avenue Southwest from Second Street Southwest to Third Street Southwest. Access to Mayo Clinic’s Baldwin parking garage was opened from Fifth Avenue Southwest. The garage was within a 150-foot collapse zone and had been vacated.

Earlier: Rochester condo evacuated: Collapse feared

WINONA, Minn. – Hearing a noise in his house late at night, a man got up to check. In the kitchen was a guy rummaging in the refrigerator. “Get out,” he told the guy and pushed him out on a back porch. “Don’t you know who I am,” the guy said, as if of some importance or least someone to be recognized. Then there was a struggle. The guy pulled the man’s hair and punched him and wandered off. The 61-year-old homeowner called police, who saw his scratched legs and bruised arms. The man said entry apparently had been through an unlocked screen door. He declined medical treatment. This was in the 400 block of West Fourth Street. Then came another police call. Not far away a guy had punched a window at a second house and said, somewhat inexplicably, “I can give you money.” Officers rushed over and arrested Michael David Hilton, 32, of Winona, on tentative charges of burglary and assault.  The second homeowner said he thought he recognized the intruder from around the neighborhood. There was no physical attack in the second encounter, but the homeowner said the would-be intruder had challenged him to “assume a fighting position.”

Hilton. One victim reported Hilton asking for money, the second victim that he offered money. Not much of this made sense.

DAVENAPORT, Iowa – Mayor Mike Matson said work will proceed gingerly to clear rubble around a collapsed apartment building wall where it’s feared three tenants were buried a week ago. The clean-up had been delayed by fear that the remaining walls could collapse on searchers. Now, said Matson, it’s to recognize that the debris pile must be cleared and may a “place of rest” for the unaccounted persons. The Crews would be sensitive in clearing the rubble, he said, comparing work to an archeological dig. The missing:

Branden Colvin. Age 41.

Ryan Hitchcock. 51.

Daniel Prien. 60.

Earlier: Video shows Iowa apartment in stress in last seconds

HOUSTON, Minn. — Deputies from Houston and Winona counties broke up a teen-age beer party up Sather Valley Road near the county line. Deputies estimated 40 to 50 kids, mostly from LaCrescent 16 miles away, were partying at a barn. Most fled into the woods when the deputies pulled up about 10 p.m. Some didn’t run fast enough or hid in the barn, where deputies rounded hem up. Ten were cited for underage boozing. Their parents were called to pick them up, which added to the mayhem. Farmers in the area were calling 911 about suspicious vehicles circling backroads. It was the parents lost in the dark trying to find the remote barn where deputies were holding their drunk kids. The deputies, two from each county, hung around long enough to transfer the kids over to their parents. Meanwhile, a couple dozen other party-goers, probably more, stayed in the woods to wait out the cops, who eventually left. The deputies saw no adult host, although some boozers were in the were in the 18 to 20 age range.

TROY, Minn. – A landowner out on County Road 6 planned a bonfire party and invited a few friends, but it got out of hand when crashers showed up. He called police. Winona County deputies arrived, which dampened the enthusiasm of the uninvited interlopers, who left. This was about 9 p.m. between Fremont and Troy in the far west end of the county.

OWATONNA, Minn. – The mother of a slain 21-year-old Elysian woman asked anyone with information about what happened to contact Owatonna police. Sabrina Schnoor urged people to respect the privacy of her daughter Stacia and the family. “Allow investigators to do their job,” she said. Stacia Schnoor, mother of a young son, was found shot in the head under a highway overpass in Owatonna. Those wishing to show respect, she said, should perhaps go to where Stacia was found. “Clean that ugly place up and leave something beautiful for her. This was the last thing she saw. Remove the ugly there and make it beautiful for her.”

Earlier: All-points bulletin out for Owatonna murder suspect

Verbatim

Mother: “Sabrina was a beautiful young lady. Her heart was amazing. She had a pure soul and innocence that made her see only the good and best in people. She would quickly put herself out just to help anyone. She couldn’t stand to see anyone hurt. She loved her son so very much. He filled her heart with joy. He was on her mind at all times. The whole world is now a darker, sadder place without her.”

Stacia Schnoor.  In a family photograph.