LAKE HALLIE, Wisconsin: A pickup truck lurched off a road in western Wisconsin Saturday and hit a group of Girl Scouts picking up trash in the ditch, leaving three girls and one adult dead and critically injuring a fourth girl, police said.
Sgt. Daniel Sokup of the Lake Hallie Police Department said the driver of the black Ford F-150 pickup truck fled the scene but later turned himself in. He identified the driver as Colton Treu, 21, of Chippewa, Falls, Wisconsin.
Sokup said Treu will be charged with four counts of homicide through the negligent use of a vehicle. It was not clear why the vehicle veered off the road, but local residents said the road in the area was dangerous and there had been numerous accidents there.
The crash happened late Saturday morning as the girls were picking up litter in a ditch in Lake Hallie, a town about 95 miles (153 kilometers) east of Minneapolis.
The girls were in the fourth grade at Halmstad Elementary School in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune quoted a relative of a girl in the troop who was not injured as saying. The Girl Scouts were all wearing bright safety vests and were accompanied by several adults.
Two of the girls and the woman were pronounced dead at the scene. A third Girl Scout was transported to a hospital where she later died, Sokup said. The fourth girl was transported to a hospital in critical condition.
3 Girl Scouts, 1 adult killed in Wisconsin hit-and-run crash
3 Girl Scouts, 1 adult killed in Wisconsin hit-and-run crash
- The crash happened late Saturday morning as the girls were picking up litter in a ditch in Lake Hallie, a town about 95 miles (153 kilometers) east of Minneapolis
Costa Rica says plot to assassinate president uncovered
- Security services unveiled that a hitman had been paid to assassinate president Rodrigo Chaves
SAN JOSE: Costa Rica’s government on Tuesday said it had uncovered a plot to assassinate President Rodrigo Chaves on the eve of national elections, in which his right-wing party is tipped for victory.
Jorge Torres, head of the Central American nation’s Directorate of Intelligence and National Security, cited a “confidential source” as informing the agency that a hitman had been paid to attack Chaves.
The purported plot comes two weeks before the country holds presidential and parliamentary elections.
Chaves, who is barred by the constitution from seeking a second consecutive term, has backed one of his former ministers, Laura Fernandez, to succeed him.
Opposition groups have warned against what they see as possible interference in the election from the iron-fisted president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele.
Chaves has invited Bukele to Costa Rica on Wednesday to lay the founding stone of a new mega-prison modelled on El Salvador’s brutal Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT).
Thousands of young men are being held without charge in CECOT, as part of Bukele’s war on gang violence.
