Crown prosecutors seek 12-year sentence for driver who killed Ross Chafe, Kelly Blunden
Chafe, Blunden and a third victim, Paul Pierre Jr., were killed on May 21, 2015
On May 21, 2015, Ross Chafe and Kelly Blunden were out for a ride on Highway 99, just north of Pemberton, B.C., when they were struck and killed by a drunk driver. Another man, a passenger in the car that hit the two riders, was also killed in the collision.
Now, as legal proceedings continue with respect to the 2015 collision, Crown prosecutors are calling for a sentence of 12 years to be thrown at the driver responsible.
It’s a sentence, prosecutors say, that fits the nature of the driver’s crime. The accused, 45-year-old Samuel Michael Alec from Lillooet, B.C., pleaded guilty in February to three counts of impaired driving, each connected with the deaths of the two riders and the passenger, 52-year-old Paul Pierre Jr. With a blood-alcohol content the day of the collision measured at three times the legal limit, Alec, the court heard, drove across the centre line, striking Chafe and Blunden head on. The two cyclists died instantly.
Amid the legal case surrounding the tragedy, the court has heard the effect upon the victims’ loved ones. To Stewart Blaser, a friend of Chafe and Blunden who was with them on the day of the crash, that effect has been nothing short of devastating.
Blaser, the court heard, was riding with Chafe and Blunden, but fell several hundred metres behind them in the moments before the crash. First to find them, Blaser described the shock of their deaths, something that continues to affect him nearly two years later. “I want to curl up in a ball and cry,” Blaser told B.C. Supreme Court, describing the moment he found the site of the collision itself. “I recall walking towards the accident scene to check on my friends.”
“It was so horrific that I had to turn back,” he said. “It made me sick.”
