Boyfriend Of Yale Grad Who Died Facing Charges

A man is facing charges in the crash that killed his girlfriend, a recent Yale University graduate who died days after urging her peers to "make something happen to this world" in her final column for the student newspaper.

Michael Gocksch, 22, of Centerport, N.Y., has been summoned to Orleans District Court on July 5 for a hearing on charges including motor vehicle homicide by reckless operation, state police said Thursday.

If probable cause is found, a criminal complaint would be issued and an arraignment scheduled, police told the Cape Cod Times.

Gocksch was driving when Marina Keegan, 22, of Wayland, died in the May 26 rollover on Route 6 in Dennis. The couple had graduated from Yale days earlier.

State police said at the time that speed wasn't a factor and both were wearing seatbelts. Keegan's father has said Gocksch fell asleep at the wheel.

A message was left Friday at the Gocksch home.

Keegan's column, headlined "The Opposite of Loneliness," drew hundreds of thousands of hits on the Yale Daily News website and was spread across the Internet after her death.

The column addressed the anxiety that came with the feeling of losing the web of friendship in college. She said what she wanted out of life was "the opposite of loneliness," and encouraged classmates by saying "the best years of our lives are not behind us."

The couple was heading to Wellfleet on Cape Cod for a birthday dinner for Keegan's father. Gocksch was hospitalized after the crash with minor injuries and discharged later that day.