A 59-year-old woman from Cass Lake crashed her pontoon on Leech Lake and died Tuesday afternoon.
The Cass County Sheriff’s Office identified the victim as Theresa Kay Cechini. An autopsy by the Ramsey County Medical Examiner’s Office found that Cechini suffered a medical emergency before the crash near Walker City Park on the south shore of Leech Lake.
Sheriff Bryan Welk said in an interview that she “suffered a cardiac event.” Cechini was the sole occupant of the 2016 Regency Tri-Toon that crashed into rocks in front of a residence on Cleveland Avenue.
“There was a witness in another pontoon,” Welk said, adding that no one else was injured. That area of the lake is popular for swimming and fishing and is typically teeming with summer activity that time of day.
First responders were called to reports of the boat crash at 1:25 p.m. Cechini was unresponsive as deputies removed her from the boat to provide medical aid. She was pronounced dead at the Walker airport.
Cechini and her husband, Randy, owned the Lodge at Leech Lake, a restaurant in Walker that they closed in July after opening in 2024.
“Randy and I would like to extend our deepest regrets and most humbling apologies when we say that we are closing The Lodge at Leech Lake. We want to thank all the people and community that have supported us through this adventure,” Theresa Cechini wrote in the July 16 announcement.
The Cechinis moved to northern Minnesota in 2022 after vacationing with family in Walker for more than 30 years.
