3 more years behind bars in vehicular homicide case

CROKSTON (AP) — A northwestern Minnesota woman has been sentenced to spend another three years behind bars for running over and killing her boyfriend while drunk.

Forty-seven-year-old Beth Windus earlier pleaded guilty to criminal vehicular homicide in the August death of 51-year-old Jonathon Sundquist outside their home in Gonvick.

The criminal complaint said when the couple returned home from a bar, Windus told Sundquist to get out of the pickup and backed over him. Windus was driving with a revoked license at the time and was on probation for drunken driving.

The Star Tribune reported that with credit for time served in jail, Windus will spend three years in prison and the balance of the 4-year, 9-month sentence on supervised release

Day care death investigated in Brainerd

BRAINERD (AP) — Sheriff’s officials in central Minnesota are investigating the death of an infant at a home day care.

Emergency responders found the baby boy unresponsive after they were called to the home Nov. 12. The infant died a short time later at Essentia Health-St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Brainerd.

State regulators have temporarily suspended the license of the day care operator while the Crow Wing County Sheriff’s Office and Ramsey County Medical Examiner investigate.

The Star Tribune reported the Minnesota Department of Human Services’ licensing order says there was an alleged “incident involving a serious injury to a child,” though it contained no specifics. The child was not named.

‘Booby traps’ found in central Minnesota farm field

LITCHFIELD (AP) — Authorities in central Minnesota said someone left “booby traps” in a farmer’s field apparently meant to damage farm equipment.

Meeker County Sheriff Brian Cruze said a farmer near Cedar Mills on Monday reported minor damage to a combine after a chain was drawn into the machine during harvesting.

Cruze told Minnesota Public Radio News it’s premature to speculate on motive. The sheriff said the chain may have been in the corn for weeks or months.

But he said when the farm family got deeper into the crop, it happened again.

Mindy Johnson’s family farms about 2,000 acres of corn and soybeans. She said the second incident involved a 6-foot piece of steel rebar pounded into the ground near a cornstalk where it was hard to see.

Johnson said she doesn’t know why her family’s farm would be singled out.