Arrest in road rage death
The cousin of a Niagara Falls woman killed in a multi-vehicle crash which may have been triggered by road rage wants “the full extent of the law” to come down on the driver responsible for the 22-year-old’s death.
“I want him to be an example to other people … to drive safely and to keep control of your emotions,” Brandy Sommer Wood said Thursday morning, hours after a suspect turned himself in to police.
“I hope I never have to meet another mother who has to go through this.”
The arrest came nearly two weeks after the crash on the Queen Elizabeth Way in Mississauga that claimed the life of Nicole (Nikki) Turcotte.
“This shouldn’t have happened in the first place and a family is dealing with a lifelong period of grief that will never go away,” said OPP Sgt. Kerry Schmidt.
“A young, beautiful 22-year-old woman’s life is lost.”
On Jan. 27, according to the OPP, a car driving in the middle lane of traffic merged into the left lane and hit the brakes. The driver behind that vehicle slowed to avoid a collision, which triggered a chain-reaction crash.
Turcotte was a passenger in a car driven by her boyfriend. A second woman in the car, a 19-year-old Niagara Falls resident, suffered critical injuries and remains in hospital.
“She was loved,” Sommer Wood said of her cousin. “She made an impact on this world and we have lost her. She would have done so much more with her life … now she’s gone and my aunt is beside herself with grief.”
Turcotte, a graduate of Stamford Collegiate, was in her final semester of a photography program at Humber College.
The college plans to honour Turcotte in the near future with an exhibition of her work.
Charged with dangerous driving causing death, dangerous driving causing bodily harm, failing to remain at the scene of a collision causing death and failing to remain at the scene of a collision causing bodily harm is Yasir Baig, 32, of Mississauga.