ELY
Dirt biker, 19, dies after losing control and colliding with deer A 19-year-old Ely man was killed after the dirt bike he was riding collided with a deer.
The St. Louis County Sheriff's Department says Zachary Scott Matschiner lost control of the bike Wednesday evening. He was transported to the Ely-Bloomenson Community Hospital and later flown to St. Mary's Medical Center in Duluth.
His cause of death was head trauma injuries. Authorities said he was wearing a helmet and other protective gear at the time of the crash.
FOSSTON
Minnesota native charged in series of assaults on women in Arizona A Fosston High School graduate has been charged with murder, violent sexual assault and kidnapping in a series of attacks against women in Arizona dating to 2004.
Trent Christopher Benson, 36, was jailed earlier this month in Mesa after DNA tests connected him to attacks against four women, two of whom were killed. He is awaiting trial on the charges as police in the Phoenix area continue to investigate.
Benson grew up in Fosston, which is about 45 miles west of Bemidji in northwestern Minnesota, and graduated from Fosston High School in 1990 where he was captain of his high school swim team and kept in touch with classmates years after graduation.
"He was a very nice kid, active in school," one of his classmates, Prudence Shereck, told the Grand Forks Herald. Shereck said she and Benson continued to exchange the occasional e-mail in recent years, and that he sent her a note of sympathy in 2005 when her husband died.
"He was an average kid who came from a tremendous family and upbringing," said Pat Hanlon, Benson's swim coach. "He just seemed like one of those kids you would expect nothing but the best from throughout his life."
