MINNEAPOLIS – One of the most surprising outcomes of two car crashes that killed seven Minnesotans is that the drivers, Derrick John Thompson and Steven Frane Bailey, were both found guilty of third-degree murder.
That is rare, in a state where more than 400 people are killed by cars each year.
In a one-month span, Bailey pleaded guilty to crashing into a restaurant patio, killing two people, and Thompson was found guilty by a jury of killing five young Somali women after driving at speeds of nearly 100 mph. Before that, there had been four convictions for third-degree murder involving a car crash in Hennepin County in the past 10 years, according to research provided by the Fourth Judicial District…