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Carlo Spadafora in this family picture with his wife, Erica Cadieux who was killed when she was struck in Beaconsfield.
Sleepy driver acquitted in woman's death
Victim, Beaconsfield resident Erica Cadieux, 34, was mother of two girls
SUE MONTGOMERY
The Gazette
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Carlo Spadafora in this family picture with his wife, Erica Cadieux who was killed when she was struck in Beaconsfield.
After more than two years of controlling her emotions, Yolande Cadieux could contain herself no longer.
With tears streaming down her face, she crossed the courtroom floor yesterday, stood in front of the woman who killed her daughter and said, “You should be ashamed of yourself.”
Diane Lauzon, overcome with emotion herself after having just been acquitted of dangerous driving causing the death of Erica Cadieux, 34, stood speechless.
It was a poignant end to a trial that pitted Lauzon, 45, a mother of three, against the family of Cadieux, a mother of two girls, killed while walking her 18-month-old daughter in a stroller.
Bianca, now 4, was unharmed but Cadieux died of massive head injuries. Her other daughter was at home with a relative.
Quebec Court Judge Robert Sansfaçon ruled yesterday that Lauzon was “momentarily inattentive” when she drove her SUV onto a Beaconsfield sidewalk in January 2006 and hit Cadieux. But in that moment, he said, Lauzon didn’t realize she was not fit to drive and therefore didn’t intend to commit a crime.
She faced a maximum prison sentence of 14 years if convicted.
During the trial, which began in June but adjourned for the summer until yesterday, several people testified that after hitting Cadieux, a distraught Lauzon said she shouldn’t have been driving because she was too tired.
But Sansfaçon didn’t allow testimony from ambulance personnel, police and firefighters about Lauzon’s fatigue to be entered as evidence, because it was unreliable. “She experienced a terrible shock,” the judge noted in rejecting the testimony in June. “The parties underlined the difficulty of interpreting whether she was in touch with reality.”
Dr. Louis Côté, an expert on post-traumatic stress, testified as a defence witness in June. He said Lauzon was in a state of elevated stress and disassociation, and it was possible she didn’t know what she was saying.
Lauzon testified yesterday she had gone on a two-day trip to Las Vegas to celebrate her sister’s birthday. She took a late-night flight home on Jan. 26, arriving in Montreal early the next day.
Her husband met her at the airport, drove her home, then went to work. Lauzon said she felt relaxed and rested and decided to do some errands. Driving west on Lakeshore Rd., she said, she saw a stroller, then saw a body on the ground, but was at a loss to explain what happened.
She said she wasn’t drinking, eating, speeding or talking on her cellphone while driving.
“It’s horrible and I’m very sorry,” she said. “Despite all the precautions, things can go wrong.
“I have no other explanation.”
Cadieux’s husband, Carlo Spadafora, said he was disappointed with the verdict but is determined to lobby for a law that would make it illegal to drive while knowingly impaired by lack of sleep.