Markham woman pleads guilty to fatal hit-and-run
Victim’s wife ‘haunted’ by thought that 911 call could have saved her husband’s life
The Markham driver who hit a 54-yearold father of three and fled the scene, leaving him to die in the roadway, pleaded guilty Wednesday.
Alexandra Forrestall, 26, admitted to failing to remain at the collision that killed cyclist Safet Tairoski of Markham about 8:20 a.m.on June 15.
The hearing, conducted over Zoom, showed Forrestall, sporting bleached blond hair and red glasses, crying in parts, especially as Tairoski’s three children, wife and brother read their victim impact statements.
It was a sunny and dry morning on Carlton Road in Unionville when Forrestall, who was headed to her babysitting job in Stouffville, struck Tairoski from behind while he cycled on the road’s painted shoulder.
“She looked in a mirror and thought Mr. Tairoski was dead,” Crown Bradley Juriansz read from an agreed statement of facts.
“She didn’t stop or offer assistance.” Tairoski suffered traumatic injuries to his face, skull, back and pelvis.
Forrestall kept driving about 20 minutes to the Tim Hortons in the area of Highway 48 and Aurora Road.
Once there, she called police and reported that someone had collided with her white Toyota 4Runner in the parking lot.
“She sent pictures of the vehicle to a few people … saying she was a victim of a hit-and-run,” Juriansz read.
Forrestall continued to her work, before telling her employer that she needed to return to Tim Hortons to speak with the police about the hit-and-run.
“After her arrest, she gave a statement to police; she became emotional and admitted events to police,” Juriansz said.
The Crown said the aggravating circumstances for Forrestall, who has three speeding convictions, include the fact that Tairoski died, that she chose to leave and her attempts to “obstruct” the eventual investigation.
The mitigating circumstances include her early plea and her remorse.
Juriansz requested a sentence of between six and eight months, along with two years’ probation and a three-year driving prohibition.
Tairoski’s wife, Anna, said Tairoski was not only the family’s breadwinner, which has left the family struggling to pay the bills, but also her “soul mate, protector.”
“I am constantly haunted by the thought that a 911 call could have saved him,” she said, calling Forrestall “deceptive and dishonest.”
“My children have been stripped and cheated of a lifetime of memories with their father due to a reckless, careless and negligent act of a stranger who displayed no concern for a human life, except for her own,” she said.
Tairoski’s middle son, Michael, who turned 22 on the same day as the hearing, which was also the day his father would have turned 55, told of his “everlasting nightmare” when he was awoken by his mother’s screams.
Tairoski’s daughter, Amanda, called Forrestall a “heartless monster” who left her father to die.
Forrestall’s lawyer, Seth Weinstein, said “devastating collateral consequences” include the former Bill Crothers Secondary School student having her early childhood education diploma suspended in light of her crime.
Weinstein added that Forrestall has been in emotional turmoil since the collision and, in the past, has self-harmed and suffered suicidal thoughts.
He asked for a conditional sentence of five months’ house arrest, along with two years of probation and a one-year driving ban.
Forrestall expressed her sorrow in her apology to Tairoski’s family.
“My therapist tells me seeing what I saw in those moments was just too much for me to mentally or emotionally comprehend so, in trying to protect me from myself, I just slipped from reality,” she said.
“I am so, so sorry. I hope one day you can find it in your hearts to forgive me … to know how deeply sorry I am.”
Justice Edward Prutschi will sentence Forrestall on March 4.