Remains found in car in Mississippi River near central Minnesota town could be tied to 1967 missing persons case
Roy Benn was last seen in Sartell
By Riley Moser
Click here for updates on this story
Minnesota (WCCO) — There may be a break in a more than half-century-old cold case after central Minnesota authorities discovered human remains in a car submerged in the Mississippi River on Wednesday.
The Stearns County sheriff says someone fishing Sunday on the Mississippi River near Sartell spotted what looked like a car on their sonar.
The Stearns-Benton County Sheriff’s Office Dive Team searched the area and located a car in the river bottom around 10 a.m. Wednesday.
The sheriff’s office says the dive team was able to determine the car appeared to be from the 1960s era.
The sheriff’s office contacted a tow company to help remove the car, which the Sartell Police Department said was “intact but severely deteriorated, had been underwater for decades and was filled with river sediment.”
Authorities are investigating the possibility that the car could be connected to Roy Benn.
Benn lived in Sauk Rapids, but was last seen in Sartell on Sept. 24, 1967, driving a blue 1963 Buick Electra. He allegedly had been carrying a “large sum of money” when he was last seen, according to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.
Benn, who was 59 when he went missing, was declared dead in 1975. However, the case remains unsolved.
There are no other missing person cases of interest in the area that authorities are aware of, officials say.
The Sartell Police Department and sheriffs’ offices for Benton and Stearns counties will be investigating the matter further.
Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.
