One woman killed in Highway 7 SUV–semitruck crash near Lake Lillian

The initial call came around 2:29 a.m. near mile marker 118 in East Lake Lillian Township, Kandiyohi County. The location is about two miles east of Lake Lillian, described in the West Central Tribune’s account as southeast of town. The Minnesota State Patrol is investigating.⁠1⁠3

The woman was driving a 2019 Mitsubishi Outlander westbound. The semitruck was heading east. Those directions establish that the vehicles were approaching from opposite directions; they do not establish which vehicle entered the other’s path. No verified finding assigns responsibility to either driver.⁠1

The truck driver was Roger Michael Jennings, 41, of Cottonwood. His passenger was Jose Luis Euceda Trochez, 23, of Willmar. The Tribune, citing the State Patrol, reported that both men were uninjured and wearing seat belts.⁠1

That injury account is not consistent across the reporting. Accident News describes the truck occupants’ injuries as non-life-threatening, while the Tribune records no injuries. The discrepancy remains unresolved. The available information does not support saying that either man was hospitalized, or treating the two descriptions as interchangeable.⁠1⁠5

Accident News identifies the woman as Brittany Ann Gehrke, 33, of Cosmos, attributing the identification to the State Patrol. That name has not been independently confirmed against the official record. It should therefore be treated as a reported identification, not a verified public announcement.⁠5

The detailed Tribune account identifies her only by age and hometown and says further information was pending official identification and family notification. Its available text does not contain a dated update naming her. The secondary report supplies a name, but it does not resolve that confirmation gap.⁠1⁠5

There is also a weekday inconsistency. The Tribune and FOX 9 describe a Thursday crash; MinnesotaNow and its Rochester republication call it Wednesday, although their displayed publication dates are October 29, 2026. That date fell on Thursday. The conflicting weekday descriptions do not establish that the collision happened in a different year.⁠1⁠4⁠2⁠10

The roadway was wet, according to the State Patrol information reported by the Tribune. The same account says the crash involved an unbelted occupant. It explicitly records both truck occupants as belted and the woman as the SUV’s sole occupant, but does not separately state her restraint status by name.⁠1

Those details require care. Wet pavement is a reported condition, not an explanation of how this collision happened. Seat-belt use does not establish who caused a crash. Nor does the available account establish whether a restraint would have changed the fatal outcome.

The truck fire is documented through Kandiyohi County Sheriff’s Office incident reports cited by the Tribune. Its origin, extent and relationship to the woman’s death have not been established in the available reporting. The fact that the truck burned cannot, by itself, explain either the collision or the fatal injury.⁠1

The State Patrol was assisted at the scene by the Kandiyohi County Sheriff’s Office, Lake Lillian Ambulance, Lake Lillian Fire Department, Kandiyohi County Rescue Squad and CentraCare Ambulance.⁠1

The next substantive developments would be a confirmed public identification, clarification of the truck occupants’ condition and findings explaining the collision sequence. No date for those findings has been established. For now, the investigation remains open: one woman is dead, and the evidence made public does not yet explain why.⁠1