Duped by possum-playing perp, Princeton woman dragged while trying to halt carjacker

A man faked being hurt in a late-night bicycle crash along a Sherburne County road, lured in a would-be good Samaritan and sped off with her car despite her high-risk efforts to stop him, authorities said.

The calculating crime occurred about 10:45 p.m. Wednesday along County Road 2, just south of Princeton, the Sheriff's Office reported.

Neither the suspect nor the well-intentioned victim's vehicle has been located.

Once she saw the man speeding away, Katie Kangas, 27, of Princeton, latched onto the moving vehicle in hopes of thwarting him, the woman's boyfriend said Friday.

"She tried to wrestle with him a bit to get the keys or put it in park," said Chase Johnson.

With Kangas still hanging onto the car, the man drove into a shallow ditch and then "pushed her off" as he returned to the road, Johnson said.

"She missed the tire by about a foot," he said. "If he had turned the wheel even a little bit, she would have lost a leg."

The woman pulled her car over after seeing a shirtless man on the shoulder with a bicycle on top of him.

"When the victim stopped to provide assistance, the suspect ran to the victim's car and started to drive away," the Sheriff's Office statement read.

The woman tried to halt the man as the car was moving, but he pushed her away, leaving her slightly injured.

The suspect is described as white, in his early 20s, black hair, 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighing 160 to 180 pounds. He was wearing black pants.

The stolen car is a silver 2001 Pontiac Grand Am, with Minnesota license plates XNE 531.