Trial begins for man charged in fatal crash

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This article was published 23/08/2023 (1114 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The trial for a man charged in connection with a fatal car crash near Rossburn that killed two people nearly four years ago is underway in King’s Bench this week.

Paul Elwood Houle pleaded not guilty to two counts of dangerous operation causing death and one count of dangerous operation causing bodily harm.

The single-vehicle car crash occurred on the night of Dec. 4, 2019, when four people from Waywayseecappo First Nation, including the accused, were in a westbound truck on Road 144 West, about three kilometers east of Waywayseecappo, when the truck left the road and rolled several times.

Kimberly Sutherland, 45, and her nephew, 31-year-old Kyle Brandon, were killed. Anthony Sutherland, 50, was injured in the crash.

The trial by judge, which is scheduled for the rest of the week, began on Tuesday morning with the Crown’s first witness, Rossburn fire chief Kelly Sloan.

Sloan testified that he and his crew responded to the crash scene and that a woman (Sutherland) in the back seat on the passenger side of the truck was deceased and partially outside of the vehicle that was in the ditch. One man was found outside of the truck in the ditch.

Sloan said that the fire crew had to use the jaws of life to get the occupants out of the truck. He said he didn’t see if any of them had seatbelts on, but did say that Houle was taken out of the truck from the driver’s side.

The Crown’s second witness was a good Samaritan who was driving with his friend into Rossburn that evening.

He testified that, as they drove down the road, he noticed a truck upside down in the ditch. He called 911 and ran to the truck. He testified that it was hard to see inside the truck, though he did say that he remembered seeing a woman in the back seat whose head was outside of the truck’s back window.

He said that he and his friend tried unsuccessfully for about half and hour to get the doors off the truck. He said that the fire department arrived around 10 p.m. He said that he didn’t see anyone in the driver’s seat and that the person in the ditch was a man.

The Crown’s third witness was Anthony Sutherland. Sutherland, who lives in Waywayseecappo, testified that he had no memory of the accident.

He told the court about his injuries from the crash. He’d woken up in the Winnipeg hospital with half a dozen broken vertebrae, broken ribs and punctured arteries. He said that he had to learn how to walk again and still uses a cane.

He testified that his wife’s license hadn’t been renewed and Brandon didn’t drive.

The Crown also heard from Sutherland’s 17-year-old son, who testified that Brandon, Anthony Sutherland, Kimberly Sutherland and Houle were drinking since the afternoon in the house that he lived in with his father.

He said that he watched from his parent’s bedroom window as all four got into a truck that evening. Kimberly and Brandon got in the backseat, Anthony got in the passenger seat and Houle got into the driver’s seat, the 17-year-old said.

The court also heard the testimony of the manager of the Parkway Co-op Gas Bar in Rossburn, who pumped $10 of gas into the truck that evening around 8:30 p.m.

She testified that Brandon got out of the truck and returned to it from the passenger side, though she was not sure whether he was in the front or back of the truck. She said she took $10 from the driver, which she later learned, after RCMP officers showed her a photo, was Houle.

Video surveillance from the gas station was played during the proceedings and depicted a silver truck driving up to the gas station pumps, the gas bar manager receiving money from the driver and the truck leaving the gas station.

The Crown’s case wrapped up for the day with the testimonies of two Russel RCMP officers, Const. Jessica Joiner and Const. Daniel Girardin. Joiner testified on cross examination, by Houle’s defence lawyer Greg Sacks, that she spoke with the gas bar manager before showing her a single photo of Houle, who the manager identified as the driver.

Girardin was at the crash scene that night. He said that he found beer cans around the truck and smelled alcohol. He sent the driver’s side airbag for forensic analysis. Blood from three different people was found on the airbag, one of which was a match for Houle, he testified.

Sacks’ cross examination of Girardin focused on how officers came to identify Houle as the driver during their investigation. Sacks asked the officer why the gas bar manager was only shown one photo instead of photos of a handful of individuals (otherwise known as a ‘photo lineup’).

“Generally speaking it is preferred to just showing someone a single photo,” Sacks asked. “And the reason for that would be that the individual viewing that photo, there might be some motivated reasoning on their part, viewing just a single individual?”

Girardin agreed.

The trial is scheduled for the rest of the week and is expected to conclude on Friday.

» gmortfield@brandonsun.com

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