For the first time since Valdemir and Fatima Avila were killed when a driver suspended for speeding crashed into the back of their car, the couple’s daughter laid eyes on Arthur Kotula in person and had the opportunity to address him in a courtroom before his sentencing.
“Artur stole my peace and happiness. My family’s days are filled with emptiness that cannot be replaced,” Ashley Avila told court Thursday, in tears.
“There are so many days where I just want to pick up the phone and call. I am not at peace with the way my parents died. This haunts me every day.
It was on October 12, 2021, around 4:50 p.m., when Kotula’s 2013 BMW 320i collided with the red 2003 Toyota Matrix in which Valdemir and Fatima Avila, 71 and 69, were traveling.
The agreed statement of facts says the couple was sitting at a red light at the intersection of Parkside Drive and Spring Road when the BMW struck the Matrix, causing a chain reaction with three other vehicles.
Another couple sitting in their car in front of the Matrix were also injured.
Burlington native Artur Kotula was found guilty of two counts of dangerous driving causing death and two counts of dangerous driving causing bodily harm last November after a two-week trial. Ashley watched the proceedings via zoom.
During the trial, the court heard that Kotula’s BMW was traveling at 124 km/h just five seconds before the crash, and 101 km/h at the time of impact. The posted speed limit on Parkside Drive was 50 km/h at the time.
Kotula testified in his own defense and told the court he lost consciousness while driving on Parkside Drive. However, Superior Court Judge Suhail Akhtar rejected his testimony as inconsistent and contradictory. Akhtar found that Kotula was “fully conscious” before the collision.
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An emergency room doctor also testified that three days before the fatal crash, he informed Kotula, who had come to the hospital by ambulance, that his driver’s license was suspended due to drug abuse disorder. ‘alcohol.
The doctor said he told Kotula not to drive. On the stand, Kotula said he didn’t remember the conversation with the doctor.
Ashley cried as she remembered the day her parents were killed.
“My father had just returned from a long day at work, filled with the satisfaction of a job well done,” she said in court Thursday.
“What was supposed to be a simple trip to Costco to get a prescription turned into a nightmare that I will carry with me for the rest of my life.”
Her parents, she told the court, both immigrated to Canada from Portugal in the 1970s with her grandparents for a better future.
Speaking about his father, Ashley said he was a roofer who never wanted to retire because he loved what he did.
“It’s heartbreaking that he was never able to step back, enjoy the fruits of his labor and the tranquility of his older years,” she said.
“Instead, he was taken from us in the prime of his life, leaving so much unfinished. »
Assistant Crown attorney Marnie Goldenberg read three other victim impact statements, including one written by Lauren Holfeuer, who called 911 and provided first aid to the couple.
Holfeuer wrote that just seconds before the crash, she had crossed the intersection after visiting High Park. She heard what sounded like an explosion behind her.
“If I had done it just a few seconds later, I wouldn’t be writing to you today,” Holfeuer said.
She wrote that she had flashbacks to the accident and now avoids the intersection.
Goldenberg also read a victim impact statement written by Barry Carolen, who lives on Parkside Drive. Video surveillance from his camera was evidence at trial. Carolen said he ran to the intersection after the collision, triaged the injured people and administered CPR to Valdemir Avila.
“I’m lucky only two people died. It was a stroke of luck that there were no pedestrians at the corner of Spring Road and Parkside Drive,” Carolen wrote, saying he suffered from recurring nightmares about the fatal crash.
The sentencing hearing will continue in February. Kotula has been in detention since his arrest on November 19, 2021.
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