Drunk driver in fatal 2019 Whitehorse crash found guilty of impaired driving causing death

The drunk driver behind the wheel of a 2019 crash in Whitehorse that left two teenagers dead and another person injured has been found guilty on three impaired driving charges. 

Territorial court judge Peter Chisholm delivered his verdict in a Whitehorse courtroom Tuesday morning.

Anthony Andre stood trial last year on two counts of impaired driving causing death, one count of impaired driving causing bodily harm and three counts of driving with a blood alcohol level at or exceeding 80 milligrams. 

The charges were related to a single-vehicle crash on Hamilton Boulevard just before 6:30 a.m. on May 13, 2019, that killed 18-year-olds Stallion Smarch, from Whitehorse, and Faith Lynn Papineau, from Watson Lake. Another passenger was seriously injured and had to be medevaced for treatment, while Andre and a fourth passenger walked away physically unharmed.

Andre, as Chisholm noted in his oral decision, admitted at trial that he had twice the legal blood alcohol limit when he got behind the wheel that morning. However, defence lawyer Malcolm Campbell had argued Andre's intoxication hadn't been the cause of the crash; the real trigger for the vehicle leaving the road, he claimed, was that one of the passengers had gotten into a verbal argument with Andre and slammed his head against the window. 

Chisholm, however, rejected that version of events. While the two surviving passengers who testified during the trial offered conflicting accounts of the moments before the crash — the passenger who allegedly shoved Andre denied doing so, while the other passenger said it happened — Chisholm pointed to the "undisputed" physical evidence from the scene. 

He pointed to an analysis of the crash that found Andre's vehicle had shown no signs of the driver suddenly jerking the steering wheel — as one would have expected if Andre had been shoved — or braking before it left the road. 

Instead, the physical evidence showed the vehicle travelling in an uninterrupted direction and speed as it left the southbound lane of Hamilton Boulevard near Falcon Drive, where the road makes a slight curve to the left. The vehicle entered the unpaved median, slammed into a light standard and came to a stop in the northbound lane. 

While Chisholm couldn't pinpoint an exact moment when Andre's action or inaction caused the crash, he said it was clear that no external factors, including weather conditions, mechanical failure or interference with the driver, could be blamed for what happened. 

He found Andre guilty of two counts of impaired driving causing death and one count of impaired driving causing bodily harm. 

The Crown stayed the three other charges against Andre. 

A sentencing date has not been set yet.