News

3 members of MN family mourned across globe

Photo: Lorenzo Herrera, Photos.com

Aug 20, 2012 at 7:11 am

WILLMAR, MN (AP) - Family and friends across the globe are mourning three members of a family killed when a pickup truck crashed head-on into their minivan near Willmar.

The Friday night crash killed 40-year-old Michelle Hoffman, her 8-year-old daughter, Julia, and Hoffman's mother-in-law, Marta Stoffers, 68, of Atwater, who was driving. It also critically injured Hoffman's 5-year-old son, Jason. Authorities initially incorrectly identified Stoffers as Hoffman's mother.

The Star Tribune reports (http://bit.ly/Ory4im) the Hoffmans are from Eden Prairie but were living in Oman, where Michelle Hoffman and her husband, Michael Hoffman, worked at the American International School of Muscat. They came home to visit friends and relatives. They were due to return overseas for one more
year in a few days.

The driver of the pickup, a 21-year-old Norwood Young America man, was jailed.