With sheriff's deputies in pursuit, a driver crossed the centerline on a highway in Aitkin County and was killed in a two-vehicle crash monday, the state patrol said.
The Kanabec County Sheriff's Office deputies were attempting to stop Christopher Scott Podvin, 37, as he drove north on Hwy. 65, and he strayed into the southbound lanes near 390th Avenue in Williams Township. He collided with a southbound tow truck about 11:07 a.m., the patrol said.
Podvin, of Mora, was not wearing a seat belt at the time of the crash, the patrol said. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
The truck driver, Jeffery Norman Vorbeck, 61, of Tamarack, was taken to Mora Hospital with noncritical injuries, the patrol said.
Deputies were responding to a suspicious vehicle call in Mora. When they arrived, they found a man and a woman sleeping in a Jeep Grand Cherokee.
The woman got out, but the man, later identified as Podvin, threw something out the window and took off, said Kanabec County Sheriff Brian Smith.
Speeds reached 75 mph as the pursuit moved through Kanabec County. On Hwy. 65, he struck the tow truck that had slowed and pulled onto the shoulder just north of the Kanabec-Aitkin county line.
Podvin had a warrant for a weapons violation in Pine County, Smith said.
