An 800-pound boulder killed a Minnesota woman and her daughter after it flew off a truck, police say
By Kyle Swenson / The Washington Post 18 min ago

The truck smacked over the railroad crossing and everything went horribly wrong. ... It was last Monday around 4:50 p.m. on a rural stretch of Rich Valley Boulevard in Rosemount, Minnesota, outside of Minneapolis. As the vehicle's tires bounced on the tracks, the impact jostled a huge boulder - with an estimated weight of reportedly 800 pounds - free from the bed. The massive rock jumped from the truck, banged onto the road, and smashed into a 2002 Toyota Avalon like an artillery shell, according to a press release from the Rosemount Police Department.

The rock completely tore through the car as it passed in the opposite direction, ripping off the Avalon's roof and killing the driver and passenger, WCCO reported. Sixty-seven-year-old Karen J. Christiansen and her daughter Jena H. Christiansen, 32, were declared dead at the scene when authorities arrived. It took four firefighters to move the boulder from the accident site.

According to Rosemount Police Chief Mitchell Scott, it appeared the rock had not been properly secured on the truck. "What's sad about this is it could have been prevented," Scott told WCCO. But authorities also initially did not know who was responsible - following the accident on Monday, the truck fled.

It would take three days for police to finally track down and arrest the alleged driver, Joe P. Czeck. Investigators were led to the suspect by photographs snapped of the truck before the Christiansens were killed. ... "By having that photo we were able to do our good old police work," Scott told ABC News.
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