Truck Driver Convicted Of Criminal Vehicular Homicide
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – A 38-year-old truck driver from Buffalo was convicted of criminal vehicular homicide and careless driving in the May 2010 fatal crash that killed two people and an unborn child on Interstate 35 in Lakeville.
Jason Styrbicky was convicted by a Dakota County judge of three counts of criminal vehicular homicide and one count of careless driving.
He was indicted on the charges in May 2011 after he rear-ended a group of stopped vehicles that were stopped on Interstate 35 near County Road 70 in Lakeville on May 24, 2010. He was driving about 68 miles per hour as he approached the stopped vehicles, which were behind a semi-trailer carrying dozens of crates of live bees. Those bees were released in the crash. Traffic had been stopped on the interstate because of a lane closure.
The accident killed 50-year-old Pamela Brinkhaus of Elko, 24-year-old Kari Rasmussen of St. Anthony and her unborn child.
The charges accuse Styrbicky of driving in a grossly negligent manner. Police at the scene said he was not wearing prescribed glasses or contact lenses when officers got to the scene, and none was found in his truck. He told authorities he was trying to grab an energy drink that had fallen to the floor of the cab in his truck.
Styrbicky is scheduled to be sentenced July 31.
