A 23-year-old motorist was drunk when he crashed his pickup truck near Duluth in the middle of the night early this month and killed his two passengers from the Twin Cities, according to charges.
Darren A. Tenney, of New Richmond, Wis., was charged this week in St. Louis County District Court with two counts of criminal vehicular homicide in connection with the crash on Sept. 9 that fatally injured Madison Joy Warren, 23, of Oakdale, and Joseph David Trowbridge, 23, of Woodbury.
Tenney was booked into the county jail and remains held in lieu of $200,000 bail ahead of an Oct. 24 court appearance. A message was left with his attorney seeking a comment on the allegations.
The charges say that Tenney's blood alcohol content was measured soon after the crash and measured 0.117%, nearly 1½ times the legal limit for driving in Minnesota.
According to the criminal complaint:
A call to 911 about 2:45 a.m. sent a sheriff's deputy to County Road 8 east of Floodwood, about 45 miles west of Duluth, where he saw a pickup "completely split in two after striking a tree," the charges read. Based on the truck's severe damage, it appeared Tenney left a curve in the road while speeding.
The impact of the crash threw Trowbridge from the pickup, while Warren remained pinned in the wreckage. Both died at the scene, according to emergency responders.
An unconscious Tenney was found part way out of the pickup's cab through the front windshield and suffering from "an obvious head injury," according to the charges.
Once he came to, Tenney's speech was slurred, and he went back and forth about whether there were three or four people in the pickup. Numerous beer cans were in the wreckage.
Court records show that Tenney's driving record includes a past conviction for having open alcohol in a vehicle.
Trowbridge graduated from Mahtomedi High School in 2018 and served in the Navy from 2018 to 2023, according to his online obituary.
Warren also graduated the same year from Mahtomedi High School and then from the University of Wisconsin-River Falls with a degree in marketing communications, her online obituary read.
