Names of Cottage Grove, Fridley crash victims are released

The names of two recent Twin Cities crash victims were released by authorities on Tuesday.

The victim of a fiery vehicle crash who died Saturday in Cottage Grove was identified as a 52-year-old North Oaks man.

Gordon M. Babbs was southbound on Innovation Road at a high rate of speed when his 2016 Lincoln MKX burst through a chain-link fence and rolled several times, police said Tuesday.

Emergency personnel got to the crash just south of Hwy. 61 around 12:30 a.m. Saturday. The vehicle was engulfed in flames and turned on its side about 50 yards from the road.

Babbs died inside the burning car before rescuers arrived.

The Ramsey County medical examiner's office determined Babbs' preliminary cause of death as "severe thermal injuries."

Babbs, the lone occupant in the car, was a Woodbury real estate broker, according to his LinkedIn account.

Afia H. Geleto, of Spring Lake Park, died Sunday night about an hour after the collision, according to the Hennepin County medical examiner's office.

The car that Geleto was riding in slid across the median near University and 57th Avenue NE. and into the southbound lanes, according to the Anoka County Sheriff's Office. The car was hit by a southbound SUV around 6:35 p.m., the Sheriff's Office added.

A 5-year-old boy in the car was hospitalized with serious injuries.