3 Girl Scouts, 1 adult killed in Wisconsin hit-and-run crash

A truck lurched off a road in western Wisconsin on Saturday and hit a group of Girl Scouts picking up trash in a ditch, leaving three girls and one adult dead and a fourth girl critically injured, police said.

Sgt. Daniel Sokup of the Lake Hallie Police Department said the driver of the black Ford F-150 pickup truck fled the scene but later turned himself in. He identified the driver as Colton Treu, 21, of Chippewa Falls, Wis.

Sokup said Treu will be charged with four counts of homicide through the negligent use of a vehicle. He said the crash happened before a hill and there were no blind spots.

“The area is not an unsafe area,” Sokup said. He said it was not immediately known what might have led the driver to leave the road.

The crash happened late Saturday morning as the girls were picking up litter in a ditch in Lake Hallie, a town about 95 miles east of Minneapolis.

A relative of a Girl Scout in the troop who was not injured told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune that the girls were in the fourth grade at Halmstad Elementary School in Chippewa Falls. The Girl Scouts were all wearing bright safety vests and were accompanied by several adults.

Two of the girls and the adult were pronounced dead at the scene. A third Girl Scout was taken to a hospital where she died, Sokup said. The fourth girl was taken to a hospital in critical condition.

The names of the dead were not immediately released.