A cell phone call, then a scream, then silence

A 21-year-old motorist getting directions over her cell phone was killed when she rolled her vehicle in Stearns County.

Star Tribune

Last update: October 15, 2008 - 9:49 PM

As a 21-year-old motorist spoke with her boyfriend on a cell phone early Wednesday, he heard a sudden scream -- then nothing.

Leanne M. Toepper of Albany, Minn., had fatally crashed her car on northbound County Road 166, north of Freeport, according to the Stearns County Sheriff's Office.

Her boyfriend had been giving Toepper directions to his home in Millwood Township about 12:20 a.m. when "he heard her scream, and he lost cell phone contact," the Sheriff's Office said in a news release.

Sheriff's deputies sent to the scene found Toepper's car rolled over in a ditch on County Road 166 near 405th Street, described by Sheriff's Lt. Dave Nohner as a "rural, twisty, curvy kind of road."

Toepper, who was ejected from the vehicle, died at the scene. Sheriff John Sanner said that she probably was not wearing a seat belt.

As for being on a cell phone while driving, Sanner said, "there are so many things to preoccupy yourself while driving, it's crazy."

Crashes in which distraction or inattention was a factor -- including text-messaging or cell phone use -- are vastly underreported, according to the state Department of Public Safety.

The state reports that distraction played a role in at least 15 percent of all fatal crashes during 2005-07, resulting in 240 traffic deaths. Another 1,163 motorists suffered life-altering injuries as a result of distracted-driving crashes in this same period.

Until earlier this year, Toepper had lived in Anoka for about five years with the family of her previous boyfriend and the couple's 1-year-old son, said Thomas Gangle, that boyfriend's stepfather.

Gangle said Toepper had recently moved in with an aunt in Albany and was working toward her high school-equivalency degree.

PAUL WALSH

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