The family of a newly-wed couple who both died in a suspected impaired collision in Mississauga, Ont., over the weekend are mourning the premature end of a young love story.
Jonathan Lopez and April Viernes had been married in a civil ceremony in January and were preparing for a destination wedding next February.
The pair were driving back to Viernes’s North York house late on Saturday night when they were killed in a fatal four-vehicle collision.
“We both lost someone very special,” Jonathan’s brother Michael Lopez said, speaking alongside April Viernes’s brother, Ronirick John Viernes.
“They both loved each other; they were each other’s first loves. Our hearts are just shattered.”
Just after midnight on Sunday, police were called to the fatal, fiery crash on the Queen Elizabeth Highway, near Mississauga Road. Ontario Provincial Police said a car rear-ending another at the end of an area of congestion started a chain reaction involving four vehicles.
Two of the four vehicles were “consumed by fire,” according to police. The two people inside one of the two cars died in the crash and resulting fire.
“A phone call came in and said it was OPP and my heart sank,” Michael Lopez said. “The first thing I asked was, how’s Jon? … I could hear my mother crying in the background and I already knew.”
The young couple had been preparing for a destination wedding in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic in February. Viernes’s family had recently moved to Canada from the Phillippines. Their brothers said he worked as a security analyst and she was a registered nurse.
“I am receiving a lot of phone calls from her colleagues, and I don’t even know them … and they’re saying my sister is really a gift for everyone because she worked so hard for our family,” Ronirick John Viernes said.
“We just came here three months ago.”
The day before the crash, the couple had been preparing for their wedding and helping to move new furniture. Their trip to North York was a regular routine, the brothers said.
“We brought all this stuff for the wedding, she ordered it from the Philippines,” Ronirick John Viernes said. “Because of the wedding stuff, we had a lot of baggage because she was preparing so much — they were preparing for that big day.”
A 32-year-old driver charged in connection with the crash had escaped his vehicle before it was consumed by flames. He was arrested by police.
The man was identified by police as Andy Persaud from Mississauga and charged with impaired driving causing death and two counts of dangerous driving causing death.
A GoFundMe has been setup for the family.