Two women are dead after the car they were riding in crashed in Faribault County Thursday, the State Patrol said.

They were southbound on 400th Avenue at 20th Street near Elmore, Minn., when their 1999 Chevrolet Cavalier left the road about 7:45 p.m. and landed in a ditch.

The driver, a 33-year-old from Elmore, was taken to a hospital in Blue Earth where she died. A 32-year-old passenger from Inver Grove Heights was taken to St. Mary's Hospital in Rochester, where she died, the patrol said.

Names of the victims have not been released.

In a separate crash, a 57-year-old Brainerd man identified as Ray Demars was killed in a head-on crash on Hwy. 371 Thursday evening. A driver heading south near Greenwood Street in Brainerd crossed over the centerline and collided with Demars' vehicle at 6:30 p.m., the patrol said.

Demars was dead at the scene. The other driver, Gerrey Stevenson, 40, of Little Falls, was taken to North Memorial Medical Center in Robbinsdale with a serious injury, the patrol said.

Tim Harlow