Sentencing hearing begins for Calgary man who caused crash that killed 9-year-old girl

It was Boxing Day in 2024, and nine-year-old Victoria Desjardins was in her family’s car wanting to be home to play with the new Lego she got for Christmas, when Duane Nepoose barrelled through a red light in a stolen minivan.

The van plowed into the car at a Calgary intersection, and Victoria died soon after in hospital.

In court Wednesday, her mother spoke to Nepoose and didn’t hold back.

“I am broken. I am mad. I am sad. I am lonely and I have hate,” Amanda Reitmeier, reading her victim impact statement, told Nepoose as he sat in the prisoner’s dock.

“I am not OK. I am hanging on the rail.

“What hurts the most is (Victoria) didn’t even want to go (out that day).

“She wanted to stay at home and build her Lego she got for Christmas.

“Try to hear our words,” Reitmeier told Nepoose. “Try to understand the actions you have caused… The grief, the pain and the family that was once whole is now empty, broken because of an action you chose that day.”

The victim impact statements came on the first day of a sentencing hearing for Nepoose.

The 31-year-old admitted to charges of dangerous driving causing death, dangerous driving causing bodily harm, robbery and fleeing a police officer.

Reitmeier and her daughter Madison Desjardins were seriously injured in the crash.

Several rows in the courtroom were taken up with Victoria’s relatives and friends. One by one, they made their way to the front to have their say.

“I felt like it was my fault,” said a statement for Madison that was read into the court record. She said the family had been heading to an appointment for her that day.

“It was my appointment. It breaks my heart when my mom says it was her fault because she was driving. I’ve never blamed her for anything,” she said.

“I wish I had a time machine to go back in time. Losing my best friend is the hardest thing I could ever imagine, and I’m now figuring it out — she was my best friend.”

Ray Duncan said not even sleep can dull the pain of losing his granddaughter.

“I wake up with the nightmare of not being able to see my granddaughter climbing up the monkey bars, digging in the garden, hoeing weeds, planting plants and digging for worms for fishing,” he said.

“There isn’t a day goes by that I don’t start crying.”

“I have a broken heart that will never be fixed,” added the girl’s grandmother Marlene Duncan.

Crown prosecutor Todd Buziak asked the court to impose a sentence of between 9 1/2 and 10 1/2 years, along with a lifetime driving and weapons ban.

He said psychiatric reports describe Nepoose as a high risk to violently offend again. Buziak called Nepoose “a bomb waiting to go off.”

Court heard Nepoose has a previous criminal record. His lawyers are to make sentencing arguments when the hearing resumes at a later date.