Log in & Sign up
You are not logged in.
Most Commented
Diane Lauzon leaves the court house Monday. She is on trial in the death of Erica Cadieux in Beaconsfield. (TOWNSEND)
'I shouldn't have been driving'
Neighbour recalls words of motorist after woman killed on Beaconsfield Blvd.
SUE MONTGOMERY
The Gazette
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Diane Lauzon leaves the court house Monday. She is on trial in the death of Erica Cadieux in Beaconsfield. (TOWNSEND)
There was the body of a woman, blood coming from her nose, and a baby crying in Diane Tomiuk’s Beaconsfield driveway on Jan. 27, 2006.
As Tomiuk called 911 from her kitchen, a hysterical woman came into her house, screaming that she was the one who did it.
“I shouldn’t have been driving, I have kids of my own, I fell asleep,” Tomiuk, testifying in Quebec Court yesterday, recalled the woman saying.
Tomiuk was one of the first witnesses at the opening of Diane Lauzon’s emotionally charged trial for dangerous driving causing the death of Erica Cadieux, a mother of two young girls. Police ruled out drugs and alcohol as factors in the accident, but said sleep deprivation may have played a role.
Cadieux, 34, was struck from behind as she walked her 18-month-old daughter, Bianca, in a stroller along the sidewalk of Beaconsfield Blvd. Bianca survived, but Cadieux died later in hospital.
Bianca is now 2 and her sister, Olivia, who was at home with a family friend at the time of the accident, is 3.
On one side of the courtroom yesterday sat Cadieux’s husband, Carlo Spadafora, her parents, sisters and inlaws, some of whom have travelled to Montreal for the trial, which is expected to last a week.
On the opposite side, sat Lauzon, 45, also a mother, flanked by her husband, sisters and friends. Throughout the day, Lauzon often sobbed, as did members of the victim’s family.
Tomiuk testified that she didn’t really have a conversation with Lauzon that winter day, but rather the woman was “totally bonkers,” on her knees and pounding the floor.
Tomiuk’s neighbour, John Atkin, told the court that he was sweeping snow off his driveway when he heard a loud noise and saw a dark SUV sideways to Beaconsfield Blvd., its rear higher than the front of the vehicle.
Then he heard yelling and screaming, so he walked toward Tomiuk’s, where he saw Cadieux lying, bloody. After calling 911, he said he noticed a baby lying under Cadieux and with Tomiuk’s help, lifted the woman off the child.
“The woman had no shoes on; one was in the snowbank, there was skin showing on her back and it was a very cold day,” Atkin testified. “The stroller was in pieces. One wheel was in the yard and there were bits of plastic everywhere.
“There was a lot of blood and her breathing was very shallow,” he said. “The situation didn’t look good.”
Atkin said there was shouting, screaming and crying, “like someone was being hurt,” coming from Tomiuk’s house.
After the day’s testimony, Spadafora said he had to be there for his wife and hopes the trial will result in concrete changes.
“There has to be a change to (driving) laws, where fatigue is mentioned,” he said, referring a 2003 New Jersey law that makes it illegal to knowingly drive while impaired by lack of sleep.
New Jersey’s Maggie’s Law originated in 1997, after a 20-year-old woman was killed when a driver crossed three lanes of traffic and hit her car head on. The driver admitted he’d been awake for 30 hours and had also been using drugs.
Spadafora said he’d like to see a similar “Erica’s Law” in Canada.
Driving while drowsy is not an offence under the Quebec Highway Code.
If convicted, Lauzon could receive anything from a suspended sentence to 14 years in prison.
The trial continues today.