’She would do anything for anyone’
Kendel Busse and Carmen Douglas sit together on a couch as they describe the grainy surveillance video that captured the excruciating final moments of their sister’s life.
Brett Busse is with a group of people at the Watrous town bar, where she was scheduled to work that night. It’s around 11 a.m. on Oct. 15, 2016; Kendel says her sister was drinking coffee, but the people with her were taking “shot after shot after shot.”
The video then shows Brett and 27-year-old Adam Powell get into the back of a car, while Kiel Stewart, now 30, gets into the driver’s seat and another man into the passenger seat. The car pulls onto Highway 2 toward Young, Sask.
Seven minutes later, Busse says someone reported seeing the vehicle attempt to make a pass, lose control and flip three times in the air.
“They said it was like something you only see in the movies,” Busse remarked.
Brett and Powell, who is from Alberta, died in the crash. The sisters don’t definitively know where they were going or why Brett went with the men, who were labourers she likely met while working at the bar.
Douglas said her family has connected with Powell’s family through the court process and they find comfort in knowing she was with a “good person.”
“It was so hard in court to watch her get into the car. That was one of the worst things,” Busse said.
“Especially at 11 in the morning, that time too; you always expect these things to happen late at night and it was broad daylight,” Douglas added.
The women watched the video in Saskatoon provincial court during Stewart’s trial, which began in November. He’s charged with two counts each of impaired driving causing death, driving with a blood-alcohol level over the legal limit causing death and dangerous driving causing death, plus one count of each charge causing bodily harm.
At trial, Busse learned Stewart’s blood-alcohol level was two and a half times the legal limit. However, the sisters say the defence is trying to establish that Stewart wasn’t driving when the crash happened, and that there was enough time for him to pull over and switch drivers.
His trial was adjourned to this month at the request of the defence. Then, over the Christmas break, while he was out on bail, Stewart was charged with drunk driving in Alberta. His bail conditions prohibited him from drinking alcohol and from driving any vehicle.
“I just felt sick about it,” Busse said when she found herself back in court for Stewart’s bail hearing last month. A judge revoked his bail and the continuation of Stewart’s trial was moved to June.
The sisters say they were disappointed to see a GoFundMe campaign set up for Stewart, who lives in British Columbia. The page states that Stewart was hurt in a crash and needs money for travel expenses. Busse said she believes the page is deceptive because it omits the fact that Stewart is charged in connection with two deaths.
Busse wants her sister to be remembered as more than just a crash victim, describing her as an amazing friend and incredibly funny. The description makes Douglas’s eyes well up with tears.
“She was a people pleaser. She would drop everything and lose sleep over anything that you needed. She is just that type of person.”
Brett was also a hard worker, with a part-time job at the bar on weekends and a full-time job with SaskTel.
“She was always working,” Douglas said. “What makes it sad is the amount of hours she worked hard for (compared) to the amount of hours that she actually enjoyed time at the lake or something.”
The sisters said Brett loved her customer service job at SaskTel. Coworkers even named a quiet space in their Saskatoon office after her.
When she wasn’t working, Brett travelled the world. At her funeral, someone made a map showing all the countries she visited. Her sisters guessed around a thousand people attended the service.
Busse said she wants people to know that even though her sister voluntarily got into the car, she is still a victim.
“She didn’t have any control over the rest of what happened to her.”