Alcohol suspected as crash factor

FERGUS FALS (AP) — Minnesota authorities say alcohol may have been a factor in a two-vehicle crash that injured five people near Pelican Rapids.

The Minnesota State Patrol says a pickup truck failed to yield the right-of-way at Highway 59 at about 9 p.m. Sunday when it pulled in front of an SUV and collided with it.

KFGO-AM reports four people in the SUV suffered injuries and were taken to a hospital in Detroit Lakes. The pickup’s driver was taken to a hospital in Fergus Falls but was not seriously injured.

Authorities have not said whether the pickup driver will face charges.

Man drowns at Iowa campground

ROCK VALLEY, Iowa (AP) — Authorities say a Minnesota man drowned while swimming at a northwest Iowa campground.

Rock Valley police say Anthony Boyenga, 31, went under the water Saturday afternoon while swimming with his children at the Rivers Bend Campground beach. A diver called to the scene found his body less than an hour later. Authorities say Boyenga lived in Ellsworth, Minnesota.

Man to be sentenced in cold case

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A man whose conviction for the 1983 rape and killing of a Minneapolis teenager was made possible by DNA evidence is being sentenced today.

A Hennepin County judge last month found 64-year-old Darrell Rea guilty of the death of 17-year-old Laurie Mesedahl, whose body was found bludgeoned along railroad tracks in North Minneapolis. Rea has denied the accusations.

Prosecutors said detectives were able to solve Mesedahl’s case because one of Rea’s victims escaped after he stabbed her with an ice pick in the back of the neck in 1988. The woman managed to escape the stranger’s car and ran for help covered in blood.

Years after the 1988 attack, police obtained a warrant for a person of interest in the case and several other violent crimes over the years. They got samples of Rea’s blood and saliva and compared it to a sample from the 1988 case; it matched Rea’s DNA profile.

However, prosecutors couldn’t charge Rea for that assault because, according to state law, too much time had passed. But with Rea’s DNA on file, Minneapolis police launched a Cold Case Squad in 2013 and began reviewing unsolved cases, including that of Mesedahl’s. Forensic testing found Rea’s blood and semen on Mesedahl, investigators said, and police arrested Rea in 2015. He was convicted for the 1983 murder on May 1.