For the first time since Valdemir and Fatima Avila were killed by a speeding, suspended driver who rear-ended their car, the couple’s daughter laid eyes on Artur Kotula in person and had a chance to address him in a courtroom in advance of his sentencing.
“Artur has robbed me of peace and happiness. My family’s days are filled with emptiness that can’t be replaced,” Ashley Avila told the court on Thursday, in tears.
“There are so many days that I just want to pick up the phone and call then. I am not at peace with the way my parents died. It haunts me every day.”
It was Oct. 12, 2021, around 4:50 p.m. when Kotula’s 2013 BMW 320i struck the 2003 Red Toyota Matrix that Valdemir and Fatima Avila, 71 and 69, were travelling in.
The agreed statement of facts say the couple was sitting at a red light at the intersection of Parkside Drive and Spring Road when the BMW slammed into the Matrix, causing a chain reaction crash with three other vehicles.
Another couple sitting in their car in front of the Matrix were also injured.
Artur Kotula, who is from Burlington, 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, court heard that Kotula’s BMW was travelling at 124 km/h just five seconds prior to the crash, and 101 km/h at the time of impact. The posted speed limit on Parkside Drive at the time was 50 km/h.
Kotula testified in his own defence, and told the court he blacked out as he drove down Parkside Drive. However, Superior Court Justice Suhail Akhtar rejected his evidence, finding it inconsistent and contradictory. Akhtar found Kotula was “fully conscious” before the collision.
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An emergency room doctor also testified that three days before the deadly crash, he advised Kotula, who had come to hospital by ambulance, that his driver’s licence was being suspended due to an alcohol abuse disorder.
The physician testified he told Kotula not to drive. On the stand, Kotula said he didn’t remember the conversation with the physician.
Ashley wept as she remembered the day her parents were killed.
“My father had just come home from a long day’s work, filled with the satisfaction of a job well done,” she said in court on Thursday.
“What was meant to be a simple trip to Costco for a prescription turned into a nightmare that I will carry with me for the rest of my life.”
Her parents, she told court, both immigrated to Canada from Portugal in the 1970s with her grandparents for a brighter future.
Speaking about her father, Ashley said he was a roofer who never wanted to retire because he loved what he did.
“It is heartbreaking that he never got to step back, to enjoy the fruits of his labour and the peacefulness 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 out three other victim impact statements, including one written by Lauren Holfeuer, who called 911 and rendered first aid to the couple.
Holfeuer wrote that just seconds before the crash, she had walked through the intersection after visiting High Park. She heard what sounded like an explosion behind her.
“If I had only been a few seconds later, I would not be writing to you today,” Holfeuer said.
She wrote she has flashbacks about the crash and now avoids the intersection.
Goldenberg also read out 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 people who had been injured, and gave CPR to Valdemir Avila.
“I feel lucky only two people died. It was a stroke of luck there were no pedestrians at the corner of Spring Road and Parkside Drive,” Carolen wrote, saying he suffers from re-occurring nightmares about the deadly crash.
The sentencing hearing will continue in February. Kotula has been in custody since his arrest on Nov. 19, 2021.
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