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Two men died after crashing a car they had reportedly stolen from a Lyft driver early Tuesday morning, according to St. Cloud police and the Sherburne County sheriff's office.

At 1:12 a.m., a 46-year-old Lyft driver reported to police that two riders had stolen his vehicle. The driver said he had responded to a ride request from the two men and drove them around for a while because they did not seem to know where they were going.

On the 2300 block of Minnesota Boulevard Southeast, one of the men reached up from the backseat and grabbed the steering wheel, causing the vehicle to nearly veer off the road. When the Lyft driver pulled over and stopped the car, the same man reached over the seat again, grabbed him and threatened to kill him.

The Lyft driver got out of the vehicle and called police. The man briefly went after the Lyft driver, but the man then got into the driver’s seat of the car and sped away on Minnesota Boulevard.

The Lyft driver was not injured.

A Sherburne County sheriff’s deputy who was parked on the side of County Road 8 clocked the vehicle going 112 miles per hour as it drove past him. The deputy, who was unaware the vehicle had been stolen, tried to catch up to it, but the vehicle crashed into trees near the intersection with 38th Avenue.


One of the men had been ejected from the vehicle and was pronounced dead at the scene. The second man was taken to a nearby hospital, where he was also pronounced dead. They have been identified as 42-year-old David Isaacs of St. Cloud and 46-year-old James Parkos of Sauk Rapids. Authorities believe Isaacs was the driver.