MARION, Iowa (KCRG) – Authorities say one person has died and three others are injured after an accident near Marion Friday night. Linn County Sheriffs officials say they were called to Highway 13 north of Travis Road around 9:45 Friday night for reports of a wrong way driver collision. Police say a Saturn Car was driving north on Highway 13 when it collided with a Honda CRV. One of the passengers of the Saturn was ejected and pronounced dead at the scene. The other two occupants were taken to a local hospital with serious but non-life threatening injuries. The driver of the Honda had to be freed from the car. She were taken to the hospital with life threatening injuries. Police say a third vehicle also became involved with the crash. No one in that car was injured. Northbound lanes of Highway 13 were closed for a little more than four hours. The crash is under investigation. 18-year-old Yoseph Wendafrash Abera, from Somerset, New Jersey, died in the crash after being ejected from the Saturn. Barnabas Destahun, the Saturn’s 27-year-old driver from Marion, and 20-year-old Natnael Wendafrash Abera from Highland Park, New Jersey, were injured during the crash. 32-year-old Katie Marie Austin Karkow from Cedar Rapids was driving the Honda. She has sustained life-threatening injuries.
CLAYTON COUNTY, Iowa (KCRG) – The Clayton County Sheriff’s Department is warning people to be cautious out on the ice as temperatures have warmed up. In a Facebook post, the department said ice conditions are deteriorating, and to pay close attention to flowing sloughs. It said an ice fisherman went through the ice Saturday and had to be rescued, but that everyone is now safe.
MALCOM, Iowa (KCRG) – Iowa State Patrol says one person is dead and four others are injured after a multi-vehicle crash Friday night. It happened near Malcom between exit 191 and 197 around 5:30 Friday night. Authorities say a truck was traveling eastbound on I-80 when it rear ended a Ford passenger van. That crash caused the van to go through the median into oncoming traffic in the westbound lane, colliding with another truck. One person died and four others were taken to a local hospitals with injuries. The crash closed Interstate 80 in both directions for a while.
OTTUMWA, Iowa (KCCI) – Skeletal remains found on the banks of the Des Moines River near Keosauqua in 2022 have been identified as those of a missing Iowa man. Investigators say the remains belong to Timothy Fortney, of Ottumwa, who was 22 years old when his mother first reported him missing in 2019. At that point, he hadn’t been seen for more than a year. He was added to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System in 2021. The Van Buren County Sheriff’s Office recovered a human femur bone from the riverbank of the Des Moines River outside of Keosauqua in February 2022, according to a news release. Authorities partnered with a team from Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, and private lab Othram Inc., which matched DNA from the bone to that taken from samples of Fortney’s family members. This year Southeast Missouri State and Othram also helped identify remains found by a Missouri hunter in 1978 as 15-year-old Helen Renee Groomes, who went missing from Ottumwa in 1977. It’s unclear what led to Fortney’s death. The case is still under investigation. Anyone with information about Fortney’s death is encouraged to contact the Ottumwa Police Department Investigations Unit at (641) 683-0661.
