A Sherwood Park woman will be sentenced in April following a guilty verdict Monday in the case of a crash that claimed two lives on Highway 28 in September 2009.
Stephanie Rita Williams, 36, was found guilty of two counts of impaired driving causing death, three counts of impaired driving causing bodily harm and one count of refusing to provide a blood sample.
Handing down his verdict Judge Peter Ayotte said he found Williams, who took the stand in her own defence, completely unreliable and had no doubt she had been impaired when her vehicle slammed into an oncoming van.
"I must say immediately that I neither believe the accused nor do I find that her evidence raises a doubt in my mind."
The accident happened on Sept. 27, 2009 on Highway 28, just south of secondary highway 642 after Williams and her passenger Dustin Desjarlais, 27, left a slo-pitch tournament in Morinville.
Williams was headed southbound when her vehicle drifted into the northbound lane and slammed into a minivan head-on. Desjarlais was killed, as was Joneson Chiang, 34, a passenger in the minivan. Three other passengers in the van were injured.
Following the verdict, Desjarlais' father Andy said the verdict does not end his family's pain.
"She showed no remorse. She took the lives of two people," Andy said. "She is not walking away from it, she is going to pay to for it, but it is never going to be enough. I would rather have it the way it all was before."
Desjarlais was a commercial drywaller and had a young daughter named Brooke, who was a toddler when he died.
Desjarlais' mother Betty sat with two pictures of her son and his daughter throughout the trial. She said no sentence could bring her son back and she wants to see tougher sentences in cases of impaired driving fatalities.
"Justice to me is not going to be really done because I am not going to get my boy back," Betty said. "Nobody wins here. I am not happy with the justice system. I think there should be more punishment when someone drinks and takes a life."
Trial issues
At trial, Williams' defence lawyer Paul Moreau raised two primary issues with the case against her, both of which Ayotte rejected.
Moreau argued Williams might have been in shock when she didn't respond to the officer's demands to provide a blood sample, which happened shortly after she was transported to hospital.
Williams responded to doctors and nurses when asked medical questions but completely ignored the officer's demand.
Ayotte said Williams was deliberately avoiding providing a sample and was clearly worried she was impaired.
"By her conduct, Ms. Williams evidenced a clear intention not to comply with the demand made to her," Ayotte said. "I am satisfied that her refusal arose from a fear of impairment and that an adverse inference should be drawn therefrom."
At the trial Shannon Williams, a former friend of Stephanie's who is not related, testified about the number of drinks Stephanie had that day. She put Williams' number of drinks at seven and said many of them had been doubles. She said she confronted Williams before she left and told her she was drunk.
Williams testified she consumed only three-and-a-half drinks and recounted several specific details about the ball tournament and arguments she had with Stephanie. In a contrast Ayotte found troubling, Williams said she had no recollection of the crash and had a large gap in her memory around it.
"She would have me believe that she remembers in great detail the events of the day up to the time she drove away from the tournament site in her vehicle but nothing thereafter."
Both women agreed they had had a few drinks that morning after their first game. Ayotte didn't believe Williams would have slowed down drastically after that.
"It is simply not credible to suggest that a person would go to a bar at 10:30 a.m., have two drinks after having played one game and then have only one-and-a-half more for the rest of the day."
He also said Williams seemed to focus on making negative comments about Shannon, which made her testimony less believable.
"It was clear that she was more intent on casting Shannon Williams in as bad a light as possible than in addressing the substance of the latter's allegations."
The case was set over so a presentence report can be prepared. Court will reconvene on April 11 for sentencing. Though the length of the sentence is unclear, Williams will be incarcerated and Ayotte suggested she should be jailed immediately, pending the formal sentence.
At Williams' request, and with the Crown prosecutor's consent, she was given until next Monday to get her affairs in order.
