A suspected hit-and-run driver was facing four homicide counts Sunday after his pickup slammed into Girl Scouts collecting trash along the side of a Wisconsin road, killing three children and an adult chaperone, police said.
Colten Treu, 21, was driving the black Ford F-150 that veered off the road and into the troop Saturday in Lake Hallie, about 95 miles east of Minneapolis, Lake Hallie Police Sgt. Daniel Sokup said. Treu fled the scene but turned himself in several hours later, Sokup said.
Two girls and the chaperone died at the scene, he said. Two injured girls were rushed to a hospital, where one died and one was hospitalized in critical condition.
Hours later, hundreds of community members gathered outside Halmstad Elementary School, holding candles and umbrellas and signing songs to honor the victims
The Girl Scouts were in fourth grade.“I’m in shock about the whole thing,” Joslyn Curtis, whose niece was one of the Girl Scouts not injured in the crash, told the Leader-Telegram in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. “My heart goes out to everyone who was hit and their families. But selfishly, I’m so grateful she (her niece) was not one.”
Sokup said the investigation was ongoing, but that the crash occurred in daylight in an area with no blind spots.
“The area is not an unsafe area,” he told the Minneapolis Star Tribune. He added that it was unclear whether Treu may have been distracted when the crash occurred.
Sokup said Treu will be charged with four counts of homicide through the negligent use of a vehicle.
Cecily Spallees, an attendant at a nearby group home, said drivers regularly speed in the area, where the road changes from a 55 mph to 35 mph. There are no streetlights along the section of road, she told the Star Tribune.
“I’m always telling one of my residents that he shouldn’t walk this strip at night,” said Spallees. “It’s not safe.”
Contributing: The Associated Pres
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