Duluth lost one of its own in the early hours of Saturday morning when 23-year-old Keyshawn Michael Beckom was killed in a crash that nobody who loved him will ever be able to make sense of. He wasn’t behind the wheel. He wasn’t doing anything wrong. He was simply a passenger, and now he’s gone — leaving behind a hole in the hearts of everyone who knew him.
It happened around 3:45 a.m. on May 16 along Highway 2 near Culver Township in southern St. Louis County, close to milepost 236. A Jeep Grand Cherokee, heading eastbound, drifted out of its lane and crossed into oncoming traffic before gradually veering off into the north ditch. What happened next was nothing short of devastating — the vehicle slammed into a power pole with such force that it snapped the pole clean in half. The Jeep eventually came to rest facing the opposite direction, all four tires on the ground, like the road itself didn’t know what had just happened on it.
Keyshawn was pronounced dead right there at the scene. First responders from the Minnesota State Patrol, St. Louis County Sheriff’s Office, Fond du Lac Police Department, Culver Fire Department, Cloquet Ambulance, St. Louis Fire, and Life Link all rushed to the wreckage — but for Keyshawn, there was nothing anyone could do.
The man behind the wheel, Lee Arthur Green, 24, also of Duluth, walked away with non-life-threatening injuries and was taken to St. Louis Hospital for treatment. Investigators say alcohol is suspected as a contributing factor in the crash. The roads were dry. The weather wasn’t the problem. The choice to get behind that wheel was.
That’s the part that cuts deepest for the people who loved Keyshawn. At 23 years old, he had his whole life stretched out in front of him. He had people who needed him, people who laughed with him, people who are now left trying to figure out how to move through a world he’s no longer in. His family didn’t get a warning. They didn’t get a goodbye. They got a phone call before sunrise on a Saturday morning that changed everything.
There’s a certain kind of grief that comes with senseless loss — the kind that doesn’t just hurt, it angers. Because this didn’t have to happen. A young man didn’t have to die on a dark stretch of highway in southern Minnesota before the sun came up. Keyshawn Michael Beckom deserved more than that. He deserved to see his next birthday, his next chapter, his next morning.
To everyone who’s carrying his memory right now — his family, his friends, his community — Duluth is grieving right alongside you. Keyshawn Michael Beckom was only 23 years old. Gone far too soon. Never, ever forgotten.
