A little more than a month after a 41-year-old man was sentenced to four years in prison after pleading guilty in BC Superior Court to the drunk-driving death of Harrington resident Louise Landreth in June 2019, her family members are speaking out about the devastating impacts of losing their wife, mother, sister and grandmother to impaired driving.
She was a loving wife, mother, grandmother and sister.
She was a devoted and compassionate Christian, a talented and dedicated accountant and a beloved friend.
Harrington resident Louise Landreth, 69, was so many things to so many people, all of which were taken away when she was struck and killed by an impaired driver in Burnaby, BC, while visiting her son and his family in June 2019.
Nearly three years later, Roberto Francisco, 41, now sits in prison, where he’s serving a four-year sentence handed down last month after he pleaded guilty to negligent driving causing death.
But the damage left in his wake has torn apart the lives of the people who loved Landreth. It’s a pain they hope, by sharing some of their story, might make others decide not to get behind the wheel when impaired by drugs or alcohol.
“Driving under the influence doesn’t just impact the family of the victim. It impacts their community and it impacts (the driver’s) family too,” said Jocelyn Kaastra, one of Landreth’s two daughters. “It’s not just a single person that’s impacted.”
Shannon Landreth, Louise’s other daughter, described it as a “ripple effect.”
“It’s the mental-health aspect for the victims, especially ourselves who are in this circle of grievance, and our father (Doug Landreth),” she said while sitting at her aunt Ruth Kneider’s kitchen table. “He doesn’t know life without our mom and so he’s just really lost.”
According to media reports, Francisco was driving his BMW sedan at about 167 kilometers per hour along the Lougheed Highway when his vehicle jumped the curb and fatally struck Louise Landreth. The court heard several reports and saw videos from the front and rear cameras of a witness vehicle that showed Francisco was driving erratically, fast and, at times, in the wrong lane. When tested by police, Francisco’s blood alcohol was later found to be almost twice the legal limit.
Louise had gone out for her daily walk along that section of highway, where family members say the speed limit is only 50 km/h, when she was killed. Her son, Gavin Landreth, heard the crash from his home but didn’t learn of his mother’s death until notified by the RCMP several hours later.
“He was on the scene trying to find our mom because she wouldn’t pick up the phone,” Shannon Landreth said. “She was so diligent about (staying in contact), so Gavin was walking around for hours trying to find mom with that sinking feeling. The first time he approached the accident, they wouldn’t tell him anything. Then he came back with his in-laws … and they handed my mom’s phone to Gavin and he said, ‘That’s my mom’s phone.’ ”
While the grievance from Louise Landreth’s death shattered the relatively happy lives of her family, the pain was only compounded during the ensuing months and years. Her kids were left to put their mom’s affairs in order, call police investigators – often without success – to try to understand what had happened to their mother and what was going to happen to the driver who killed her, and meet with lawyers after Francisco was charged by police in November 2020.
“It was a very, very long (legal) process, which we have vocalized our frustration about,” Shannon Landreth said. “Essentially, we went almost a full year without much information about anything. We didn’t know who the person was. We didn’t know if he was being charged. We didn’t even know if he had survived the accident.”
“We were lost in the system in regards to having an RCMP victim liaison,” Kaastra added. “The case went through multiple lead investigators for various reasons of paternity leave, retirement, etc. I believe we went through four or five lead investigators.”
During that first year, Louise’s daughters were also left to take care of their father, whose health began to decline following his wife’s death. After a rough winter without “the love of his life,” Doug was forced to sell the chalet-style family home in Harrington that he, Louise and their parents had built in 1974, so he could move to Stratford to be closer to family and his doctors.
While the family finally got some answers when they started working with Crown lawyer, Mark Myhre, the court process dragged on after Francisco initially chose to plead not guilty to charges of criminal negligence causing death and impaired driving causing death.
“It happened. We’ve gone through this and it’s frustrating,” Shannon Landreth said of her family’s nightmarish experience over the past few years. “Our concern is we don’t want this to happen to other people. It’s being in the dark on top of grievance on top of legal stuff that’s completely unknown to us.”
During Francisco’s sentencing hearing, 18 members of Louise Landreth’s family read victim-impact statements to the court. They spoke about who Louise was, what she meant to them, and how her absence continues to devastate their lives.
“I will never, ever, ever wake up from this nightmare that I never asked for,” Shannon Landreth said in her statement.