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Body recovered from pond in Maple Grove may be that of missing 18-year-old man

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Police recovered the body of a person Thursday from a pond in Maple Grove who believe may be an 18-year-old man who hasn’t been seen for nearly three weeks.

Officers responded around 2:20 p.m. after receiving a report of “something suspicious” in a pond near 80th Avenue N. and Lakeview Drive, according to a news release from Maple Grove police.

The Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office Water Patrol recovered the body, believed to be linked to the disappearance of 18-year-old Maple Grove man Winston Drepaul, police said.

The Hennepin County Medical Examiner had yet to confirm Thursday night the identity and the cause and manner of death, but investigators have reached out to Drepaul’s family, police said.

Police did not provide additional details about the death circumstances, but said updates will be provided to the community as the investigation continues. They do not suspect that foul play factored into Drepaul’s disappearance, Maple Grove Police Cmdr. Jon Wetternach said Thursday.

The department’s release added that “the loss of life is difficult and tragic for any family or community.”

Drepaul, who also goes by “DeeDee” or “Dez,” was last seen leaving his apartment in the 11800 block of 80th Avenue N. at about 4:30 a.m. on March 23.

Authorities shut down a portion of Lakeview Drive near 80th Avenue on March 29 and 30 as they searched the pond, where a volunteer found a jacket belonging to Drepaul. Search crews used underwater technology to search the pond where Drepaul’s jacket was spotted but did not find him.

Star Tribune staff writer Tim Harlow contributed to this story.



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Nicollet Avenue bridge in Minneapolis gets $34 million federal grant

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“Under the Biden-Harris Administration, more than 11,000 bridges in communities across America are finally getting the repairs they’ve long needed with funding from our infrastructure law,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, in a news release. He said the bridge repairs ensure “people and goods can get where they need to go, safely and efficiently.”



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Driver, 19, passing illegally on Wright County road, causes fatal crash

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A 19-year-old driver trying to get around slower vehicles collided head-on with an SUV in Wright County and killed one person and injured several others, officials said Thursday.

SUV passenger Janice Evelyn Johnson, 92, of Arden Hills, died Monday at HCMC from injuries she suffered in the collision on Oct. 22 in Monticello Township on County Road 37 near County Road 12, the Sheriff’s Office said in a search warrant affidavit filed in Hennepin County District Court.

The driver and two other people in the SUV survived their injuries, according to the affidavit, which the Sheriff’s Office filed to collect Johnson’s medical records at HCMC as part of its investigation.

According to the affidavit:

Deputies arrived at the crash scene and spoke with the car’s driver, Christian Kabunangu, of Brooklyn Park, who said he was heading west on County Road 37 and found himself behind two vehicles traveling below the speed limit.

“He was late for work, so he decided to pass them,” the affidavit read. Kabunangu said he saw the oncoming SUV and estimated it was about a half-mile down the road.

As he attempted to pass one of the slower vehicles, he explained, the other driver “sped up, preventing him from getting back into the westbound lane,” the filing continued.

As the Honda drew near, he swerved to the left, but the SUV did the same and they collided.



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University of Minnesota researchers find that native plants can beat invasive buckthorn on their own turf.

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If the invasive buckthorn that is strangling the life out of Minnesota’s forest floor has a weakness, it is right now, in the shortening daylight of the late fall.

With a little help and planning, certain native plants have the best chance of beating buckthorn back and helping to eradicate it from the woods, according to new research from the University of Minnesota.

The sprawling bush has been one of the most formidable invasive species to take root in Minnesota since it was brought from Europe in the mid-1800s. It was prized as an ornamental privacy hedge. All the attributes that make buckthorn good at that job — dense thick leaves that stay late into the fall, toughness and resilience to damage and pruning, unappealing taste to wildlife and herbivores — have allowed it to thrive in the wild.

It grows fast and thick, out-competing the vast majority of native plants and shrubs for sunlight and then starving them under its shade. It creates damaging feedback loops, providing ideal habitat and calcium-rich food for invasive earthworms, which in turn kill off and uproot native plants. That leaves even less competition for buckthorn to take root, said Mike Schuster, a researcher for the university’s Department of Forest Resources.

When it takes over a natural area, buckthorn creates a “green desert,” Schuster said. “All that’s left is just a perpetual hedge, with little biodiversity.”

Since the 1990s, when the spread became impossible to ignore, Minnesota foresters, park managers and cities have spent millions of dollars a year trying to beat it back. They’ve used chainsaws and trimmers, poisons and herbicides, and even goats for hire. The buckthorn almost always grows back within a few years.

It’s been so pervasive that a conventional wisdom formed that buckthorn seeds could survive dormant in the soil for up to six years. That thought has led to a sort of fatalism: even if the plant were entirely removed from a property there would be a looming threat that it would sprout back, Schuster said.

But there is nothing special about buckthorn seeds. They only survive for a year or two.



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