By Bre McAdam

Saskatoon teen involved in deadly crash gets 3 years

Jan 9, 2015 | 6:01 AM

An 18-year-old girl has been given the maximum three-year sentence under the Youth Criminal Justice Act for her role in a deadly joyride that killed two Saskatoon teenagers and severely injured another.
 
The girl’s identity is protected by a publication ban because she was 17 years old when it happened on May 5. She and the 21-year-old driver, Cheyann Peeteetuce, were drunk when they stole a truck and ran a stop sign at the corner of 22nd Street and Avenue M South to evade a police cruiser. 

J.P. Haughey and Sarah Wensley, both 17, were killed while driving to track practice.
 
Court heard, through an agreed statement of facts, the girls stole the truck from the Royal Bank on Avenue C after a man said he unknowingly left his keys inside while his window was down. 

Later that night, a police officer noticed the truck and started following the girls for several blocks without activating his sirens and lights. When he did, the truck immediately sped off in a cloud of smoke.
 
The officer stopped when he saw the girls run a yield sign at the intersection of 21st Street and Avenue M, but the truck continued, running a stop sign at the 22nd Street intersection going around 90 kilometres per hour. According to the facts, the youth told Peeteetuce to “just go” in order to get away from police.
 
A different car initially hit the truck, which then t-boned the teen victims’ car, pushing it across several lanes of traffic and into a nearby house.
 
Haughey and Wensley died instantly. A third teen, Kara Mitsuing, survived but was left with a broken femur, knee and pelvis. She also told the court how she was left with haunting memories of a truck suddenly barreling towards her, and the loss of two friends.
 
“I will always live for them,” she said during her victim impact statement. Her mom told the court how her daughter has feelings of guilt, questioning why her friends died but she survived.
 
“It’s a rollercoaster for me. I’m just trying to get by it and think of the positives. I’m not here for anyone besides Sarah and J.P.,” Mitsuing said outside the courthouse.

When asked what she thought of the sentence, Mitsuing said it “wasn’t reasonable.” 

Haughey’s parents, Marilou and Alex, agree. They told reporters that it’s time to change the law so that punishments better fit the crimes.  
 
During her victim impact statement, Marilou looked directly at the woman who played a role in her son’s death, her voice trembling as she described losing her only child and best friend. The 18-year-old briefly looked back, wiping tears from her eyes.
 
She told the court that her son’s death hurts so much “sometimes I want to run away and hide.” She stopped reading from her statement, turned to Judge Albert Lavoie, and pleaded for justice.
 
“I am here to fight for J.P.’s justice, and I will fight until the end of my life,” she said. It was a sentiment she repeated outside the court house in disappointment, after the sentence was handed down.
 
Both the Crown and defence had asked for a three-year sentence that would include one year of youth jail, open custody and community supervision followed by another year of probation. Lavoie accepted the joint submission, giving the girl a one-year credit for time spent in custody.
 
Wensley’s father David declined to comment on the sentence outside the court house. However, he told the court that he lost a “beautiful young woman who always made me so proud,” tearfully explaining how he had to tell her younger siblings that their sister Sarah is now an angel.

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Defence highlights life of young offender

“She was like a puppy out on her own,” defence lawyer Lori Johnstone-Clarke said about the 18-year-old woman who pleaded guilty to several charges in December.
 
Clarke described the woman’s life of abandonment and “train-wreck” of a childhood. Court heard she was taken away from her drug and alcohol-addicted parents when she was two years old, living in foster care until the age of 10. She then bounced around to different family members before finding refuge in a gang after her father died four years ago.
 
While on probation, Clarke said her client will live on the Yellow Quill First Nation with her grandmother and has no desire to live in Saskatoon. She’s prepared to remove negative people from her life and has a goal to go back to high school.
 
“I hurt a lot of people because of my actions,” the woman wrote in a letter to Clarke. 

Although some of her comments to police, referring to the victims’ families, such as “they’ll get over it” seemed to show a lack of remorse, Clarke insisted that her client is genuinely sorry and knows she is responsible for the crash.
 
She was a product of poverty and of parents who had the inability to take care of her, Lavoie said.
 
“We hope that you in fact change, but it goes much further than that. You must become a healthier and better person,” Lavoie told the young offender.
 
“The only question is whether the shock of what you did gives you the inner strength to in fact change.”

news@panow.com

On Twitter: @princealbertnow