Canadian True Crime - The Lush and Whiteway Families

Episode Date: March 1, 2021

In 2019, Josh Whiteway and Suzanne Lush were ready to return to Calgary after spending a wonderful week with their families in Lewisporte, NL. But on the way to the airport, they would be involved in a tragic crash that would change their lives forever.PLEASE NOTE: This episode referrs to a “car accident” or “accident” a few times, but we’ve since been informed that “accident” should not be used when it comes to impaired driving. According to MADD Canada, the crashes, deaths and injuries caused by impaired driving are not “accidents”. They are 100% preventable. Please keep this in mind as you listen.Look out for early, ad-free release on CTC premium feeds: available on Amazon Music (included with Prime), Apple Podcasts, Patreon and Supercast. Full list of resources, information sources, credits and music credits:See the page for this episode at www.canadiantruecrime.ca/episodes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Canadian True Crime is a completely independent production, funded through advertising and direct donations. The podcast contains coarse language, adult themes, and content of a violent and disturbing nature. Listener discretion is advised. Just an additional content warning. This episode includes some graphic descriptions of a fatal car crash. Please take care when listening. The province of Newfoundland and Labrador is made up of two areas, Newfoundland and of course Labrador. The region of Labrador is on the mainland of Canada and borders the northeast of Quebec.

And while Labrador is the larger of the two areas of the province, it's more sparsely populated with only 8% of the population. Southeast of Labrador is the island of Newfoundland. Now while the province of Newfoundland and Labrador is known for a diversity of indigenous cultures, including First Nations and Inuit, the European settlers on the island included a large number from Ireland. As a result, the province has been described as being the most Irish place outside of Ireland. Newfoundland and Labrador is also known for giant, spectacular icebergs that break off from glaciers in Greenland and Arctic Canada

and flow through what's known as iceberg alley, where they're seen off the coast of Newfoundland. One of the most well-known icebergs from the area is the one that caused the Titanic to sink in 1912. Newfoundland was the closest landmass to the ship's final resting place about 650 kilometres off the coast. In Newfoundland's north is the town of Gander, home of a heartwarming story to come out of 9-11. When the towers were hit, 39 planes were diverted from the US to Gander, in Newfoundland. Until the airways were clear, the residents of Gander banded together and took in some 17,000 airline passengers and somehow found a way to make being stranded feel more like

staying with family. Today's episode took place in that same area. On July 7, 2019, the RCMP in Gander received a call. It was around 4 a.m. and someone had seen a vehicle. fully engulfed in flames on the Trans-Canada Highway. Officers arrived a short time later to a chaotic scene. According to the CBC, it was, quote, a grotesque entanglement of death and inferno lighting up the pitch black highway

in the midst of a torrential downpour. Gander, Fire and Rescue and Paramedics had arrived there first, and the RCMP learned there was a head-on collision between a pickup truck and an SUV. In the SUV were four people from Lewisport, a town about 60 kilometres northwest of Gander, and three of them were from the same family. In the front was a married couple. They were killed on impact.

In the back seat was their adult daughter and her boyfriend, who survived the accident but had been rushed to hospital with serious injuries. The collision was so serious. serious that it closed down the highway for several hours, causing significant traffic backlogs. The following day, the RCMP released an update. It read, The driver and lone occupant of the pickup truck, a 20-year-old man from Gander, was transported to hospital. A blood demand was made and a sample collected for analysis to determine if impairment was a factor.

The media release ended by saying an RCMP traffic analyst had attended the scene and the investigation was ongoing. I'm Christy, an Australian who's called Canada home for more than a decade and this is my passion project. Join me to hear about some of the most thought-provoking and often heartbreaking true crime cases in Canada. Using court documents and news archives, I take you through each story from people.

beginning to end, with a look at the way the media covered the crime and the impact it had on the community. This is Canadian true crime. 27-year-old Josh Whiteway and his girlfriend, 29-year-old Suzanne Lush, had just finished a week-long visit back to Newfoundland, back home to see their families. Both were originally from the town of Lewisport, and while they knew each other casually as they were growing up, they didn't connect as friends until later. In 2015, Josh graduated from university in Newfoundland and moved to Calgary to start a career as an engineer. The following

year, he was back visiting his family and met up with Suzanne. They started talking and hanging out, a relationship blossomed, and Suzanne moved to Calgary to join Josh in 2017. The couple shared many interests and loved being active. Josh was a lifelong athlete who loved hockey, bike riding and anything that combined activity with nature. Suzanne shared his love of the outdoors and together they loved to hike the rocky mountains and travel. Suzanne was also mad about cats. After about two years living together in Calgary, the couple adopted a big, stocky cat called Ozzy, who Josh thought looked a bit like a bobcat with a beautiful fluffy coat and a long bushy tail and chunky legs and paws. Because Josh and Suzanne lived in Calgary, they would head back home to Newfoundland

several times a year, typically in the summer and again for Christmas. For their visit back in the summer of 2019, Suzanne and Josh decided to bring Ozzy back home with them. They were there for a week and had a wonderful time catching up with their families and introducing them to Ozzy. Suzanne's parents, Sandra and John, took the couple for a boat trip near Exploits Island, a beautiful natural island that was originally settled in the 1800s and used to be a big community until most of the population eventually resettled to the coast of Newfoundland. The four had a wonderful time cod fishing and enjoying the natural scenery together. The night before they were due to return to Calgary,

Josh caught up with some old camping buddies at the cabin of a family friend. He couldn't stay late though because their flight was at 8.30 the next morning and it was a four-hour drive from Lewisport to the airport in St John's. Suzanne's parents, Sandra and John, were going to drive them. John was retired and loved to play poker and spend time outside, particularly boating, fishing and snowmobiling. Sandra was still working as an office manager and spent a lot of her spare time volunteering at the local church.

They'd been married for 39 years and were very much looking forward to celebrating their milestone 40th wedding anniversary the following month. They had a lot to celebrate with two adult children, Suzanne, of course, plus her older brother Chris, who had two children of his own, grandkids that John and Sandra loved to spend time with, and they lived right across the road from their school.

Needless to say, the two grandkids spent a lot of time at Nan and Pops. Always there for their family, John and Sandra were driving Suzanne and Josh to the airport, and they'd all agreed that they needed to leave by 3.45 a.m., that meant early nights for everyone. When Josh arrived back from his cabin visit at 9.30pm the night before, John and Sandra were already in bed, sensibly making sure they would get enough rest for the driver ahead. The next morning, the five of them set off as planned,

John and Sandra in the front, and Josh, Suzanne and Ozzie the cat in the back. On the way to the airport, there was torrential rain. Not only was the road slippery, but the visibility was quite poor, so John made sure to take extra care when driving, especially on the highway. Before long, Josh fell asleep in the back of the car. But things can change in an instant. There was a pickup truck on the other side of the road

that was straying off course and had not corrected itself, veering over the centre lane and over to the passing lane. Suzanne saw the headlights coming straight towards their car. There was an earth-shattering bang as the pickup truck hit their SUV head on, and then nothing. From the back, Suzanne said, is anybody okay? The only response also came from the back. Josh said, I am, but that was it. They both knew they had serious injuries, but the impact caused the car to ignite

under the hood. The fire started to build and spread and Josh and Suzanne knew they had to find a way to get out. The doors of the SUV were still locked after impact. Josh screamed at Suzanne's father John in the front to open the door, but there was no response. Josh managed to find the manual lock and plied it up with his fingers, so the door unlocked, but it was now jammed. And Suzanne couldn't get her seatbelt off, so Josh reached over and, and then, and she was locked over. and helped her out. Then he reached up as far as he could and pushed until the jam door came open enough for Suzanne to get out.

Then Josh tried to get out as well, but he was halted by a terrifying realization. His legs didn't work. He couldn't move. He couldn't do a thing except to sit there in a burning car, unable to move, watching the flames creep towards his legs. The fire grew so quickly it was as though everything inside the car was extremely flammable.

When Suzanne realized her boyfriend couldn't move, she gathered all the strengths she had despite her own extensive injuries. Seconds felt like minutes, and Josh felt Suzanne's arms slide under his armpits as she prepared to yank him out of the car. He looked down at his legs and vividly remembered saying, Holy fuck my legs are on fire. With every moment causing intense pain, Suzanne pulled Josh out of the car and onto the wet ground beneath.

But his pants were still on fire. Suzanne was almost running on empty by this time and about to collapse, but she mustered all the strength she had left and flagged down a passerby, who heroically dragged Josh across the road and used rainwater from the road to extinguish the fire on his legs. But for Suzanne, she knew her parents were gone. After surviving the impact and pulling her boyfriend out of a burning car, she had seen the flames engulfing the bodies of her parents.

She knew there was nothing she could do. 65-year-old John Lush and 63-year-old Sandra Lush had been killed on impact, the month before they would have celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary and just a day before John's birthday. Ozzie the Cat also did not survive the crash. It was complete and utter devastation from all sides. The fire service and paramedics were first on the scene to a burning SUV turned inferno that rose 30 feet into the air.

The first ambulance left with Josh. By that point, he'd started to get disoriented and didn't know if he was going to live or die. He had no clue to the extent of his injuries. Suzanne watched from the scene of the crash as her boyfriend was rushed to hospital. She had no choice but to sit and wait for the second ambulance next to a burning SUV with the bodies of her parents trapped in the car. side. By the time Josh and Suzanne had been rushed to hospital, the RCMP had arrived and had turned their attention to the other car involved in the collision, the pickup truck. According to reporting by CBC, Newfoundland and Labrador, 20-year-old Nicholas Villeneuve was in the passenger seat of the pickup

having his injuries tended to by paramedics. At first, he told the RCMP officers that he was just the passenger and the driver had run off. But it was obvious what was really happening. As the sun was preparing to rise over a morning of devastation, he was still wearing the admission bracelet from the bar he'd just been partying at. As CBC put it, his slurred words rolled over a split in his tongue. Nicholas Villeneuve had some injuries, nothing major or life-threatening, but because of the force of the crash he was taken to hospital for observation. An RCMP officer rode with him in the ambulance, asking him questions about what happened as paramedics continued to treat him.

They arrived at the hospital at around 4.30 in the morning, and the officer stayed with him in the hospital room between visits from doctors and nurses. Just over 30 minutes after they arrived, Nicholas remained in his hospital bed and the officer. officer read him the standard police caution, the speech about his rights to remain silent when questioned by police. Nicholas said that he understood. Twenty minutes later, the officer cautioned him for the second time, which he read from a card

as this was a more specialized warning. Nicholas Villeneuve again replied that he understood and told the officer that he had been drinking. The officer asked him to sign a consent form to give a blood sample, which he complied with. The sample was taken and sent for testing. When 27-year-old Josh Whiteway got to hospital in Gander, he was still conscious but fading fast. He remembered talking to his mum and another family friend for a brief moment. He still had no clue as to the extent of his injuries,

although he mentioned to his mum that he couldn't feel his legs and he couldn't breathe normally. The next thing he knew he was rushed off for emergency surgery on his bowel and stomach. The impact of the crash was so great that his seatbelt sliced through his stomach to the point where his bowels had fallen outside of his body. His stomach had essentially blown apart, and the impact had created a void or empty space in his stomach, which was now at massive risk of infection and potentially death. Surgeons removed dead bowel tissue and tried to root his intestines back to their normal position,

but there was too much damage. They ended up having to perform a colostomy, a procedure that diverts the colon or large intestine over to an opening through the abdomen or stomach. After the surgery, Josh was airlifted to St John's Hospital for continued treatment and was put in a medically induced coma. As if having an obliterated bowel and stomach wasn't enough, Josh had also suffered extensive burns. Although the fire had started from the bottom of his legs and moved up,

the converse shoes he was wearing must have protected his feet, so the burns only started just above his ankles. But they extended up to his mid-th-th-thigh, and they were fourth-degree burns, which meant the burns went through both layers of the skin through to the deeper tissue and muscles. Josh would have three skin graft surgeries where good skin was taken from his upper thighs

and moved to the burn site. It would be a long journey back to health. And while Suzanne was dealing with the shock and devastation of having to live through the horrific car accident that took the lives of her parents and cat and had left her boyfriend in a coma with life-threatening injuries, she also had to deal with her own injuries and recovery.

Suzanne had suffered a broken ankle and wrist. Her sternum or breastbone was also broken, along with eight of her ribs. Her aorta, the blood vessel that pumps blood to the heart, had sustained permanent damage, and she was covered in cuts, bruises and burns, with a massive seatbelt burn going across her chest. She was grieving,

sad, stressed and lonely, and left with images burned to her brain that would likely stay with her for the rest of her life. But now she had to be strong, for herself and for Josh. In the meantime, the RCMP had started gathering evidence to prove that the fatal car crash was not just a tragic accident. It was the result of criminal activity. Nicholas Villeneuve's attempts to lie about being the passenger in the pickup truck were quickly disproven after analysis of DNA on the driver's airbag was a match to him. The black box in the pickup truck showed that the 20-year-old was speeding. Five seconds before the airbag deployed, he was going 123 kilometers on a highway with a speed limit of 100. The results from the blood sample showed that Nicholas Villeneuve was intoxicated and

well over the legal limit to drive, and those samples had been taken two hours after the crash. There was also the evidence of his behaviour. He was allegedly slurring his speech, and he was still wearing that bar admission bracelet. He had also admitted to the RCMP officer at the hospital that he'd been drinking. There were also reportedly several witnesses at the bar he'd come from, who saw him extremely intoxicated just before he left and suggested to him that he not drive. Pictures had also surfaced of him taken that night at the bar that corroborated their stories. He didn't listen. But as if this wasn't enough, an analysis of his cell phone showed that he was active on his phone just before the crash.

His text messages allegedly revealed that he was heading to purchase drugs. The case against Nicholas Villeneuve seemed to be cut and dry. Back at the hospital, while Josh remained in his coma, Suzanne had had surgery on her sternum and ankle and was discharged after two weeks. Days after that, Josh started to wake up, and when he felt a tube down his throat, his involuntary reaction was to violently try to yank it out. At times his parents had to hold him down, which led to a decision to bring him out of the coma and off the breathing tube.

Then, for the first time, he would learn the full extent of what had happened to him. The fourth degree burns to both legs and a burn on his right hand. The extensive damage to his stomach and bowels. He'd broken all ribs on his left side, as well as his left shoulder and right clavicle. But to him, worst of all, was learning he'd suffered a break in his spine at the T-12 area, at the level of the belly button. This damaged his spinal cord and rendered him unable to use his legs. Josh, a man known for being an athlete, an avid outdoor explorer and traveller,

was now a paraplegic. And as a result of the inactivity in his legs, he suffered blood clots which travelled to his lungs, causing an emergency situation. Doctors inserted an IVC filter to prevent further clotting in his lungs, but he would later undergo a procedure where a long rod was inserted into the jugular vein in his neck, all the way down to his groin to remove the filter, all while he was conscious. The doctors still had to operate on Josh's back,

but because his stomach had suffered such extensive injury, They couldn't flip him onto it to operate. So he had to wait for a month until his stomach had healed to a point where the back surgery was possible. For four weeks, he laid on his back staring straight up at the ceiling. After Josh's back surgery, he felt like he was laying flat on two pieces of wood and described it as being very painful to exist. So to help with the pain, he was put on three-hourly injections of a high-powered, opiate pain medication called dilaudid.

He eventually had both shoulders operated on at the same time. Two screws were put in his left shoulder and a plate in the right. He had to wait nine weeks before his arms could bear weight. So not only could he not feel or move his legs, but he also couldn't move his arms. He couldn't so much as scratch his nose or even lift a cup of water to his mouth. Josh couldn't even get himself to the edge of the bed to transfer to a wheelchair. They had to roll him on his side, stuff a harness underneath, and then use a small crane to lift him into the wheelchair. They did this for nine weeks.

He said he lost all his strength, along with 35 pounds. All in all, it took a move to a hospital in Calgary and more surgery, a total of about 300 staples and a lot of titanium to fix Josh up. And as he recovered from all of his injuries and surgeries, he dealt with a never-ending list of tests. There were also problems that continued to come up periodically, like infections from his burns and wounds. He realized that he was left not being able to feel touch or temperatures normally.

He couldn't feel his feet at all, and he had to have a catheter every time he needed to empty his bladder. Josh endured a lot of pain. And he'd developed a dependency on that strong drug that had been given to him to help him out with that pain. When it was time to start weaning himself off it, it was a struggle, and he experienced severe withdrawal symptoms so intense

that visitors were only planned around specific times so that he wasn't in withdrawal when they showed him. showed up. It took him about three months to successfully wean off the drug. Josh would say that it left him with a great appreciation for others who found themselves in similar situations and how hard it is to be able to get out of it. During this time, Josh's physical struggles were not the only struggles he experienced. He wondered about Suzanne and he wondered about their future. He worried about his future. What was he supposed to do with his life now that he was a paraplegic? Throughout it all, Suzanne stayed by his side, trying to stay positive for him,

dealing with her own recovery and physical therapy and the long-term effects of her own injuries. And of course, grieving the loss of her parents while not having them there for support when she most needed it. Also, she knew that when Josh was eventually released from hospital, They would need to find a new place to live in Calgary that was accessible for someone with a wheelchair. The pressure and stress on Suzanne was immense. Josh would write about how being paralyzed feels. Do a little exercise, he wrote. First, make a fist and put it on a table, making sure all your fingernails are touching the table.

Then stick your ring finger out of the fist and put it on the table. Then try to lift. that finger up. You'll find that no matter how hard you try, you will not lift that finger off the table. It's exactly the same for Josh, except that's his legs. Josh spent five months in hospital before he was able to return home. His legs had been burned so badly that they weren't even fully healed yet, but by that point he was able to clean and dress them himself. He found it extremely difficult to adjust to living paralyzed, but he took things day by day and realized it was doable over time.

But there were other issues that continued to crop up. He suffered another blood clot in his leg, which landed him back in emergency, and he learned he'd need to take bloodthening medication for the rest of his life. He'd been on a range of medications and was finally able to wean himself off three more, leaving him on only two. The blood thinner and a medication for chronic nerve pain called Lyrica. He needs it.

Even with the physical and mental aspects of living life sitting in a chair, Josh says the nerve pain is the worst part of it all, a lingering pain that doesn't seem to get better. It wakes him up every two hours when he's trying to sleep. And mentally, the pain causes him to lose the ability to think and concentrate, and sometimes he even loses the desire to do physical activity, something he loved so much, because of the pain that it causes him. He says even rolling his wheelchair over tiles or the slightest touch or vibration is enough to trigger the nerve pain and make him buckle over. And Suzanne

battled ongoing challenges of her own. After ongoing therapy to correct her broken ankle, she deals with constant wrist pain and the long-lasting effects of a damaged aorta. Both physically and mentally, the lives of both Josh and Suzanne had changed forever. So the evidence showed that on July 7, 2019, Nicholas Villeneuve left the bar he'd been drinking at before 4 a.m. He was well over the legal limit to drive, but he decided to drive his pickup truck after a night of partying. He sped down the highway in torrential rain, which resulted in a slippery road and poor visibility. And he made things exponentially worse by checking his cell phone as he drove. Nicholas Villeneuve literally did all the things you're not supposed to do

when driving. So, of course he crashed, it would have been a miracle if he didn't. And initially, after all that carnage he caused, he pulled the cowardly move of trying to lie to officers by saying he was the passenger, not the driver. After the police gathered all the evidence they needed, Nicholas Villeneuve was arrested in Gander in November of 2019, almost five months after the crash. By that time, he'd turned 21, and despite causing a crash that killed two people and left two others with life-threatening injuries, he never so much as lost his driver's license for a day. For the deaths of John and Sandra Lush, Nicholas Villeneuve was charged with two counts of impaired operation of a conveyance motor vehicle causing death. And for the life-changing

injuries sustained by Suzanne Lush and Josh Whiteway, he was charged with two counts of impaired operation of a conveyance motor vehicle causing bodily harm. So, while Josh Whiteway had been in hospital the entire time, Nicholas and his driver's license had been free until his arrest, and even then, he was almost immediately released from custody with several court-imposed conditions. Commenters on social media noted that Nicholas was granted the luxury of spending the 2019 holiday season with his family, after his actions had robbed the lush and Whiteway families from enjoying the same with theirs. And what made things worse was that he never so much as issued an apology

to the families for the devastation and terror he had caused. Josh and Suzanne and their families, what was left of them anyway, were confronted with multiple stories from people who allegedly saw and heard Nicholas Villeneuve going on with his life as though nothing had happened. From where the family stood, he just didn't seem to care at all. Nicholasville Nerves charges were upgraded to four counts of impaired driving, two causing death, two causing bodily injuries, and he was also charged with four cases of dangerous driving on the same basis.

While it was reassuring for the lush and Whiteway families as well as the public to see the case making its way through the justice system, behind the scenes, a nightmare was unraveling. A month before Nicholas Villeneuve was due to appear in court, his lawyer, Rosell and Sullivan, had filed an application claiming the police had violated his rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Before we get into her argument, here's what the Charter states. If you are arrested or detained as an adult, you must must be told why you have been detained and why the police are investigating you. You have to be told immediately that you have the right to remain silent when questioned by police

and the right to a lawyer. You have to be told about legal aid and your right to free legal advice and you must also be allowed to speak privately to a lawyer of your choice as soon as possible if you ask to do so. Now, as you'll remember, an RCMP officer wrote rode in the ambulance with Nicholas as he was transported from the scene of the crash to the hospital. They arrived at the hospital at 4.30 a.m. Nicholas was taken to a room and an officer came in and resumed questioning. Nicholas wasn't read his rights until 33 minutes later, at 503 p.m. His lawyer argued that in effect, he was detained in the hospital room for that 33 minutes without hearing his rights. and it wasn't just a conversation, it was direct and focused questioning by the RCMP,

all illegal under the Charter. And there was more. Not only was the officer late to read Nicholas his rights, but he didn't do it properly as directed under the Charter. While Nicholas was told that he had the right to remain silent while being questioned by police, he was not told what had happened that night, namely that two people had died, nor was he told that he had the right to speak with a lawyer. And what this means, according to his lawyer, is that when he gave his consent to have the blood samples taken

and when he admitted he'd been drinking, he had not been properly informed of his rights. Based on this, Judge Mark Linnahann ruled that some of the evidence could not be used by the Crown in making its case at trial. Excluded was the blood samples that proved he was over the limit. Same thing when it came to his admission that he'd been drinking. Also excluded was evidence based on the search warrant obtained for his pickup truck and all the evidence that came from it, including the driver's airbag, the black box and the cell phone evidence.

This was the evidence that proved that Nicholas Villeneuve was the driver, He was speeding and torrential rain, and he was checking his phone. Judge Mark Linahan told the court that the RCMP officer's failure to think of the rights of Nicholasville Nerve was a serious breach of his duty as a peace officer, and inclusion of that evidence would, quote, bring the administration of justice into disrepute. He went on to say that, quote, the public must have confidence that those. those who are charged with the enforcement of laws do so while keeping their minds on the rights of all citizens.

So, the key pieces of evidence in the prosecution's case had been excluded. The Crown would need to re-evaluate their case and what was left of the evidence before the hearing. The hearing was held on February 2, 2021. Crown Prosecutor Amanda Hiscock told the judge that given the exclusion, of several key pieces of evidence, there was no reasonable chance of securing a conviction, so the Crown had decided not to call any evidence. The judge was left with no choice.

Because of a technical mistake made by an RCMP officer at 5 in the morning after attending a horrific, chaotic crash, all eight charges against Nicholas Villeneuve were dismissed. As CBC News put it, When one man walked free from the Gander courthouse on Monday, another watched and disgust from his wheelchair. Josh Whiteway and Suzanne Lush were ready to fight back. While the acquittal was a shock to everyone,

the Lush and Whiteway families had been given a heads up that it was coming. On the Friday before the hearing, the Crown prosecutor had called them and told them what was happening and had given them the news that there would be no evidence called. The families were infuriated. This was scientific evidence. These were facts, and now it was all being casually discarded. On the day of the hearing,

the families were able to mobilize their supporters who gathered outside the courthouse to confront Nicholas Villeneuve as he left after the hearing. The crowd held signs with photos of John and Sandra Luff, as well as Suzanne Lush and Josh Whiteway. The signs read, Justice demanded for the Whiteway and Lush families. They have rights too, a right to live.

The crowd yelled at Nicholas to look at the signs at the pictures. According to CBC News, the 21-year-old said nothing and didn't appear to look at the crowd or any of their signs. He then got into a truck and was driven away by his mother. Meanwhile, the local community had been following the case closely and flooded the comments section of news outlet social media posts with their outrage. One commented that it was all focused on the rights of the guilty, not the innocent. Another commenter shared their opinion that when Villeneuve got behind the wheel

knowing he was impaired, he essentially gave up his rights. But opinions aren't legal judgments, and it was the legal. legal judgments that counted. As well as the public, impaired driving activism groups were also outraged. The head of the Newfoundland and Labrador chapter of MADD, or Mothers Against Drunk Driving, spoke to CBC about the verdict. Patricia Hines Coates had been outspoken about the issue since she lost her stepson, Nick Coates, in 2013, after he collided with a drunk driver.

She said she understood the level of devastation the families were feeling, which is why she and MADD had been working closely with the government to ensure acquittals because of loopholes like this did not happen again. She acknowledged that charter rights are important, but they also need to be altered to be more inclusive. Quote, impaired driving is still rampant in our province, in our country. It has to stop. If you choose to use drugs, if you choose to use alcohol, then that's your choice, but don't get behind the wheel.

Driving is a privilege, it's not a right, and we all need to be accountable for what we're doing. No one from the Lush and Whiteway families had spoken publicly at that time, but Josh Whiteway decided enough was enough. It was time to come forward. He spoke with CBC News about his anger over the whole thing. quote, how do you throw out evidence, facts, it's not like they thought they could smell beer or they found a beer can in the back seat. This is serious evidence. Josh went on to say that there was no disputing who was responsible. Quote, we know he was severely impaired. We know he was speeding. We know his cell phone was

active around the time of the accident. These aren't opinions, these are scientific facts. and for it just to be thrown away, based on his rights being violated, is just disgusting. As for possibility of appeal, from the time of the hearing, the Crown has 30 days to file one, but Josh wasn't optimistic it would make any difference. Outraged, he decided to write a long statement and posted it to his Facebook account. He wrote about all the challenges he and Suzanne had to face, the horror of the accident itself and the images that would forever be imprinted on their minds. Suzanne's parents dying in the blaze, the injuries they sustained,

and having to stay positive and active in their own recoveries as they dealt with their grief and looked towards a future that would be very different to what they'd imagined. Josh wrote that even though they still struggled daily, no one seemed to care about their rights. It was Nicholasville Nerves' rights that were violated. It seemed to be his rights that were the only rights that anyone cared about. Quote, because he wasn't told his charter of rights properly, all of the evidence from his body, from his vehicle and from his phone have been thrown away.

Because of a technicality, he walks away from this murderous act, a free man. At this point, Josh put the word man in quotation. marks because, quote, he is not a man, he is a scared little boy running from his mistake, showing absolutely no remorse or regret. Josh called it a flawed justice system, but took care to say that it wasn't the police officer's fault. The officer arrived at a chaotic, horrific scene with death and injury and a car engulfed in flames. Quote, nobody is perfect and nobody knows what they would have done arriving at that scene. It should never come down to one person having to do everything perfectly and in perfect sequence

to get some justice. Josh said that he didn't understand how any judge can look at the facts, not the opinions, the facts, and say there should be no repercussion because the criminal's rights were violated. Josh spoke about John and Sandra Lush who lost their lives in the accident. quote, what about their rights, the right to exist without someone killing you or running into you and leaving you near dead on the side of the road? Who is protecting the public here? What message does this send to the people of our province?

Josh then spoke about how after all the Whiteway and Lush families had been through, the judgment made them feel like they were the ones backed into the corner. He then spoke about something very important. important in the justice system, legal precedence and the history of leniency when it comes to drunk drivers in Canada. He said the problem is that when deciding on sentencing, judges refer to past cases to make judgment on new cases. Josh had hoped that their case would have some effect on precedence. He wanted people to know what can happen when someone chooses to drink and drive. But instead, he was horrified by the thought that the judgment in his case

could be used down the line for future drunk drivers to escape consequences due to mistakes by police or prosecutors. Quote, do you know what that means? Until there is a major systemic change, our case will just be stacked up with the others and used in the next case and the next case and the next case. At what point does common sense and real life kick in? How do we shake the system so this never happens again? Josh's Facebook post had a significant impact. In the first 24 hours, it was shared more than 6,000 times. Many people reached out to him to share their experiences

losing loved ones in highway crashes and drunk driving incidents. He quickly learned that this experience wasn't uncommon, while common sense and concrete evidence should result in a conventional. it doesn't always work that way. Quote, if you're a decent citizen here, you can see that this is all wrong. I just want this to stop here. I don't want anyone else to have to go through this and to come out with the same outcome as we did. Josh and Suzanne decided to fight for change to the justice system.

The group decided to petition to the Attorney General to review the case for an appeal. Their goal was to get the case. back to a trial where the evidence can actually be used and possibly set a new precedent when it comes to crimes committed by drunk drivers. The group arranged peaceful protests at six locations across Newfoundland and Labrador, scheduled to take place on February the 10th. But due to an outbreak of COVID-19 in the province's capital, St. John's, they decided to cancel that one. Instead, they asked for people to make their own signs about the case, take a picture and share it on social media.

And they did. Josh saw hundreds of signs that had been made and posted from across Canada, many from people they didn't even know. The main goal of the campaign was to get people to sign a petition and email the Attorney General asking for him to appeal the provincial court decision. They even provided example verbiage to use to make. make it easy, which read, quote, Our community's faith in the justice system is at risk.

This case deserves to go to trial. The evidence needs to be heard, and the victims deserve justice. By dismissing the facts that Mr. Villeneuve was driving under the influence of alcohol, that he was speeding, that he was using his cell phone while driving, you send a message to the people of our province that it is okay to break the law. You tell them that it is okay to drive drunk because their actions will not have consequences. You lose public faith in the justice system and you show the victims that their loss, their pain, their life is insignificant in the eyes of the court. We must make this right. You must make this right. Please appeal this decision. We demand justice.

As the case continued to get publicity, the petition received almost 10,000 signatures. It worked. On February the 10th, 2021, it was announced that Crown prosecutors had identified legal errors in the pretrial decisions that restricted the evidence the Crown was able to use. The announcement went on to say that it wasn't yet clear what the Crown will argue on appeal, and there will be no further comment ahead of a hearing. The families were told the hearing would be held in a few months. The car crash put Josh and Suzanne's future plans on hold. They eventually moved back to Lewisport, Newfoundland, to continue recovering.

I asked Josh how they got through it all, and he told me that trying to keep a positive outlook is very important. Quote, if your mind is working against you, then it doesn't matter if your physical, disabled or not, you will never be happy. He said that people often look at him and think his life is ruined and he's very unlucky, but when he looks around, he sees that he still has so much. The help of friends and family, total strangers who reach out with good wishes, and the ability to afford good wheelchairs and other equipment that most other disabled people don't have. He adds

that while some days are extremely frustrating and he might find himself looking at pictures of himself before the accident, it doesn't help him moving forward. Quote, I am so lucky to still be alive and I am here for a reason that I'm still trying to figure out. He says his future focus is on getting mentally and physically better each day, accepting his injuries and moving on. He feels that, in a way, it's like he's been given a second chance to live a fulfilled life. But it's bittersweet. Quote, I just wish more than anything that John and Sandra was still here to see Suzanne do the same. The strength that she has shown and the resilience she has demonstrated has inspired me

so much and I know her parents are so proud of her. At the time of recording, Nicholas Villeneuve has not apologised or shown. any remorse for what he's done to the lush and Whiteway families. In an interview with VOCM, Josh Whiteway described this lack of remorse as being one of the worst parts. Quote, because any decent human being would reflect and acknowledge the fact that he's made a massive mistake. Apologizing doesn't seem that hard to me compared with the things we've had to face. According to MADD or Mothers Against Drunk Driving Canada, crashes involving impaired driving are a leading criminal cause of death in Canada.

Every day on average, up to four Canadians are killed and many more are injured in alcohol and drug-related motor vehicle crashes on public roads. To learn more about impaired driving, visit MADD.ca. Josh Whiteway has a final message. He says if you see someone intoxicated getting into the driver's seat of a car, call the police, or take matters into your own hands and hide their keys. Do whatever you can to stop them driving. Quote, if you don't, then your parents or your grandparents or your daughter or your son

could be the next ones in our position. Thanks for listening and special thanks to Josh Whiteway for. all of his help and input into this episode. Josh gave quite a bit of his time to help me fill in the gaps with a lot of details that haven't made it to other media reports, and I appreciate it so much. This episode also relied on the journalism of Ryan Cook and Garrett Barry from CBC Newfoundland and Labrador, as well as VOCM.

Thanks also to Kyle and the other listeners who alerted me to this situation. Today's podcast recommendation is The Hopeful, which was selected by Apple Podcasts as the Canadian Show of the Year for 2020, but it's kind of been flying under the radar. It's a bit different to my usual podcast recommendations. Host and producer Shader tells the story of her Iranian father's immigration to Canada and explores the things we take for granted in our daily lives. The hopeful has been described as an engagement. incredible adventure, a riveting story and a beautifully inspiring tale of perseverance and strength.

Here's a trailer and if you think this might be for you, subscribe to The Hopeful right now while you listen so you can binge the whole story and see why it was Canada's podcast of the year for 2020. Hi, my name is Amir Omid Bar. I have lived in Canada for nearly 35 years. My name is Sheda, and I want to tell you the story of my dad. I was born in Iran, in Tehran, more specific, January 1, 1960. My dad left Iran when he was 22 during the Revolution. Years later, when I was growing up in Vancouver, he told me his stories of trekking over mountains to cross borders, coming face to face with death, and struggling to cross the Atlantic Ocean.

The beauty of that night was a full moon. I didn't have no water, no food or nothing. Just didn't think about it, actually. Even death. My dad's story is incredible and at times unbelievable. Everybody was curious. How did I escape? The border is closed.

I told him this story. No one believed me. It's a story about pain? It was so dark. I couldn't even see anything. I was terrified. And I said to myself, oh, my God, no one knows where I am. It's a story about love?

She gave me a French kiss on my lips. Oh my God, I never forget the kiss. I never forget the kiss. I was a long kiss as well. And it's a story about hope. The only thing I said to myself, I never forget, it's not going to stay like this. It's going to get better.

At its core, though, this podcast is about the Canadian dream. The things we take for granted that others are willing to risk everything for. It's also about life after arriving in Canada. Because for my dad and every other immigrant, that's not the end of the journey. I want to send a message to all the immigrants, all the refugees. No matter how bad he gets, you don't even know what is waiting for you. This country is the best country on earth. The Hopeful, wherever you get your podcasts.

Canadian True Crime is a completely independent production, funded through advertising and the generosity of supporters on Patreon and Supercast. Thank you to everyone who's told a friend. or left a positive review wherever you listen to podcasts. It really helps the show. If you don't like the ads, you can get early access to an ad-free version of every episode for just a couple of dollars a month. There's also a few bonus episodes, as well as a monthly debrief episode where I take you behind the scenes. Visit Canadian Truecrime.com.com slash support to learn more. A percentage of profits and all proceeds of merch sales are donated regularly

to Canadian charitable organisations related to helping victims and survivors of injustice. Thanks to the host of True for voicing the disclaimer and also to We Talk of Dreams who compose the theme song. I'll be back soon with another Canadian True Crime story. See you then.