Man who killed woman in crash gets day parole
KITCHENER — Eight months after being sent to prison for killing a Kitchener woman in a high-speed crash, Jeffrey Pitts has been granted day parole.
Pitts, 44, was sentenced to three years in prison in February for dangerous driving causing the death of Sheila Nunn. He got day parole last week.
Nunn, 49, mother of one, was a passenger in her own car driven by Pitts when it went out of control at 2:30 a.m. on Dec. 14, 2014, on Frederick Street near River Road in Kitchener. The Lexus mounted a curb, slid across three lawns, hit a mature tree, became airborne and struck a house at 783 Frederick St. The car, which was destroyed, came to rest on its roof on the front steps of the house.
Data from the car’s black box revealed Pitts was driving 135 km/h five seconds before the crash on a street where the speed limit is 50 km/h. Pitts’s speed dropped to 94 km/h just before the crash. He did not hit the brakes.
A charge of impaired driving causing death was dropped because blood was taken from him at the hospital four hours before he was given a phone to call to his lawyer, Nunn’s father, Lyle Nunn, said in February.
“Your blood-alcohol level was determined to be 107 milligrams per 100 millilitres of blood,” the Parole Board of Canada wrote in a report last week. The legal limit is 80 milligrams.
“You said that this was not a normal thing for you,” the board wrote. “You now recognize that you had other choices such as calling a cab or walking.”
Pitts, who worked as a massage therapist in Kitchener, told the board he and Nunn were on a date and he tried to impress her by speeding after having “some” alcohol. He estimated he had six drinks.
“You told the board that you are not a risk taker/thrill seeker despite a pattern of this type of behaviour in your provincial offences record.”
Pitts was convicted in 2001 of driving with more than the legal limit.
He told the board he has attended Alcoholics Anonymous meetings in prison since June.
“You said that you go to AA meetings for a chance to grow and to understand the magnitude of your offence. You said that you do not need alcohol to cope, but it has altered your ability to make safe decisions.”
Four out of five similar offenders will not commit an indictable offence within three years of release, the board said.
“Your accountability, motivation level and reintegration potential are assessed as high.”
Offenders on day parole typically live in halfway houses to prepare them for full parole. While on day parole, Pitts can’t drink alcohol or contact Nunn’s family members. Full parole was denied.
Nunn began her career as a funeral director in Waterloo Region. She went on to become the administrative inspector for the Board of Funeral Services in Toronto, later became the chief executive of Funeral Plans Canada, and then started her own company, Nunn Shannik Preneed Solutions.
More than a dozen friends and family members read victim impact statements on the day Pitts was sentenced.
“I am haunted every single day by the painful absence of her generous spirit, wisdom, voice and laugh,” her best friend, Susan Chilton, said on sentencing day.