A woman from the Mini Thni First Nation, located just west of Calgary, was sentenced to three and a half years in a federal penitentiary and faces a driving prohibition for her role in a horrific crash that killed a Canadian Forces veteran in August of 2022.
Deirdre Snow, 31, was sentenced in a Calgary courtroom on Friday after a jury found her guilty in April on a charge of driving with a blood alcohol limit over .08 causing death.
The crash killed Samantha Wylie, 53, of Fort Saskatchewan, Alta., who was riding her motorcycle along Highway 1A near Morley Road, west of Calgary, when the two vehicles collided.
Snow was the second person charged in Wylie’s death. Charges were dropped against a passenger in the vehicle after DNA evidence proved Snow was the person in the driver’s seat at the time of the crash.
While Snow had admitted to being impaired, she insisted she wasn’t driving and had maintained her innocence, despite an apparent confession to the RCMP, recorded eight months after the crash and entered into evidence during the trial.
Prior to the sentence being handed down, the adult children of Samantha Wylie were given the opportunity to read victim impact statements.
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“On Aug. 19, 2022, I arrived at the scene of an accident, unaware of the fate that had already been sealed,” said Wylie’s daughter, Haley Perrault.
“It was August. The night should have been warm, alive with the last breath of summer, but instead the air was unnaturally cold, like even the season itself had recoiled from the violence of what had just happened,” said Perrault who looked directly at Snow.
Wylie’s son Eric told Snow how the crash has impacted every part of his life, from small and routine to major milestones.
“I got married without a mother-and-son dance. I have a daughter she will never get to meet,” said Eric Perrault of his child, who is just a few months shy of her first birthday.
Haley Perrault also has a daughter her mother never got to meet. Haley was eight and a half months pregnant when Wylie was killed. Perrault’s daughter just turned three years old.
The siblings say they want Snow to get help for substance issues, and noted that federal institutions provide ample opportunity for recovery during incarceration.
They also want the case to serve as a cautionary tale — how the impact of one single act can leave dozens of lives shattered.
Snow’s sentence includes a five-year prohibition on driving that will follow her release from prison.
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