Migrant worker found; autopsy planned for Savanna man, 80
THOMSON – Police found a 27-year-old migrant worker in a cornfield at 12:30 p.m. today, nearly 24 hours after he fled the scene of a fatal crash on state Route 84.
Montero Badera-Aguilar was taken to Mercy Medical Center in Clinton, Iowa, with non-life-threatening injuries, state police Lt. John Biffany said this afternoon, adding that charges are pending.
Deputies were called to Route 84 just north of Three Mile Road, between Thomson and Savanna, around 2 p.m. Wednesday.
Earl "Junior" Lashelle, 80, of Savanna, was driving a van and apparently crossed over the center line and hit Badera-Aguilar's Pontiac Firebird head-on, deputies said. Both cars were totaled.
Lashelle, who was not wearing a seat belt, was taken to Mercy, where he was pronounced dead. An autopsy is planned.
Witnesses told deputies Badera-Aguilar waved a knife before leaving, but he did not threaten anyone. He ran into a cornfield near Krazy Acres Funland. Biffany did not know where he was found.
Badera-Aguilar does not have a driver's license, and there was "evidence at the scene that there was drinking in the car," but police don't yet know if he had been drinking, Biffany said.
