Savanna Koeckeritz (obituary), Lance Koeckeritz (Facebook), Lexi Gibson (obituary)
A Minnesota father called it “mind-blowing” and “devastating” this week that the top prosecutor in Washington County is pursuing manslaughter and child endangerment charges against him for the 800cc engine ATV rollover crash deaths more than a year ago of his 10-year-old daughter and her 10-year-old best friend on the family’s Afton-area property.
Lance Koeckeritz, a 54-year-old husband and father of six surviving children, expressed his astonishment about the charges brought by County Attorney Kevin Magnuson in an interview with the Star Tribune , saying that the April 22, 2023 deaths of his daughter Savanna and her friend from school Lexi Gibson were the result of a “freak accident.”
“Us and the kids have hundreds of hours on four-wheelers. It’s the way we all grew up,” he said. “There wasn’t a lack of confidence in [Savanna’s] abilities. She was making a left-hand turn, and a wheel got caught in a divot. It was just unforeseen.”