Residents wake to a Buick at their door

Staff

Published Tuesday, February 28, 2006

By Joseph Marks, Tribune staff writer

William Stapleton of 805 Richway Drive in Albert Lea woke up to what sounded like an explosion Sunday morning. At first he thought the furnace or water heater had exploded in the basement. To his wife, Donna, it sounded like nothing so much as a plane crash.

“It really sounded like an explosion,” she said. “The whole house shook.”

After finding nothing wrong in the basement, Stapleton stepped outside thinking perhaps a transformer had exploded. What he found there is nothing he'd ever considered. A car, later identified as a white Buick by police, had gone over the curb and run smack into his home, knocking down the railing, chipping corners off the cement stoop and smashed through a front window before landing against the Stapletons' front door.

A witness said the car, which police identified as belonging to a 21-year-old Albert Lea man, was traveling at a high rate of speed when it ran the curb. Stapleton suspects the car went airborne crossing his driveway based on its skid marks.

Police found the car later in the morning, which led them to the driver. He admitted to driving the car and said a steering problem had pulled him toward the house. The driver has not been charged, but the case has been forwarded to a prosecutor to determine possible charges.

Stapleton, who was waiting for an insurance adjuster Monday morning, said the insurance people had told him on the phone it was uncommon for a

car to hit a house.

“That's excitement you don't need on a Sunday morning,” he said.

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