Pickup Driver Charged In Fatal Amish Buggy Crash

Courtesy: Clearwater County Jail/Christopher Keith Baumann

BAGLEY, Minn. (AP) — Prosecutors have charged a pickup driver for rear-ending an Amish buggy and killing a rider in northwestern Minnesota.Twenty-seven-year-old Christopher Baumann of Bemidji is charged with criminal vehicular homicide in the Saturday night crash in Clearwater County.

Baumann is suspected of driving drunk when his Ford F-350 pickup struck the horse-drawn buggy from behind on Highway 92.

The State Patrol says 23-year-old Elsie Yoder of Clearbrook was taken to a Fargo, North Dakota, hospital and later died. Her brother, 27-year-old Mervin Yoder, who was driving the buggy, was taken to a Bagley hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

Minnesota Public Radio reports officers found the pickup driver a half-mile north of the crash. The complaint says Baumann had bloodshot eyes and slurred speech.

The Amish family’s horse had to be euthanized.