Question about an accident that happened in the 2000s

Okay, I’m looking for links to a story that I’m pretty sure happened in the “oughts” and it’s proving to be a Prevention Of Cruelty To Google Users thing.

In short, three female college students who lived in the upper midwest liked to go out in the country with a dog, in their truck, and stargaze, and one night, they didn’t come back, although a text did come through after “something” happened. Several days later, a helicopter saw what appeared to be fresh tracks headed directly into a remote farm pond, and sure enough, when they drained the pond, there was the truck, with the women and their dog inside, dead from drowning. The officer at the press conference restrained himself from saying that the women had been trespassing, but in any case, the woman who had the dog was also buried with it.

I keep getting links to the Springfield Three and Susan Smith, and can’t seem to find this story.

Dopers?

I apologize if anyone here was personally involved and this reopens any old wounds.

This one?

I’d never heard of that case before, what a tragedy. So many vehicular drownings occur because the occupants instinctively try to force the doors open when the vehicle is still mostly filled with air, which they can’t due to the water pressure. Then they panic and don’t think to roll down the windows before they short out, or to wait for the vehicle to mostly fill with water and then open the door.

I had to create an account to read anything beyond the headline, but that gave me enough information to say that the answer is no.

They weren’t escaping anything, except maybe city lights.

The headline refers to them trying to escape the Jeep while it was in the water, not that they were running from something. According to the article they were out stargazing.

It would be a hell of a coincidence if there were two instances from the 2000s where three female college students in the Midwest and their dog drown in a farmer’s pond while trapped in their vehicle.

Now that I have the year, and that it was a Jeep, not a pickup, I found the story. TYVM!

This story isn’t gated, and Dickinson, ND is about as upper Midwest as it gets.

That’s the exact story @The_Other_Waldo_Pepper found.