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“I will not walk away. I will not walk at all.”
Brandi Keenatch wrote those words to Wylie Vermette — the man who sped down a Saskatoon street and crashed into the vehicle she was a passenger in.
Keenatch’s partner Natalie Gardipy, sitting beside her in the backseat of the SUV, died. Keenatch’s injuries included fractured ribs and a fractured spine. She is paralyzed from the waist down.
Vermette, 25, was in Saskatoon Court of King’s Bench on Thursday for sentencing after he pleaded guilty to dangerous driving causing death, as well as dangerous driving causing bodily harm to Keenatch and another passenger in the vehicle, whose wrist was fractured.
Keenatch sobbed as her aunt read aloud the victim impact statement her niece had written.
“I never imagined I would have to explain to a courtroom how my life was taken from me, while I’m still alive,” Keenatch wrote.
The crash happened at 6:13 p.m. CST on June 11, 2024, at the intersection of Quebec Avenue and 39th Street East.
Three videos from cameras mounted outside a business on that corner were filed in court, as well as dashcam footage from a witness’s vehicle.
They show Vermette’s truck turning onto Quebec Avenue and quickly accelerating, with black exhaust smoke billowing from a pipe that came straight up out of the hood.
The grey SUV with Gardipy, Keenatch and two other women in it stopped at an intersection, advanced forward — and then Vermette’s truck smashed into it.
Wylie Vermette pleaded guilty to dangerous driving in the crash that killed Natalie Gardipy and severely injured her partner Brandi Keenatch. A surveillance camera captured the moments before the crash.
A police collision reconstructionist calculated that Vermette’s speed was 128 km/h when he started braking, and 103 km/h at the time he struck the SUV.
According to the agreed statement of facts filed in court, his unregistered truck was made with parts from multiple trucks.
A Saskatchewan Government Insurance safety officer’s report said the truck didn’t meet regulations in many ways, including that it was “chipped,” allowing it to accelerate faster. It had tinted front-side windows, no muffler and no functioning emergency brake.
On top of that, the rear brakes were inoperable. But even if they had worked, Vermette wouldn’t have been able to stop in time due to his speed.
Members of Gardipy’s family also spoke in court about the effects of losing her. She was 22 years old and had a two-year-old son when she died.
Her mother, Marcella Kyplain, said losing Gardipy shattered her world in ways she can’t fully describe.
“Natalie was so much more than a name in this case. She was full of life, full of love, and full of potential,” she said.
“Every day, I wake up and I feel the weight of her absence.”
Cheyanne Charles, the father of Gardipy’s now-four-year-old son, spoke about how their child will never get to know his mother, as a result of Vermette’s “blatant recklessness.”
She won’t be there for all of her son’s milestones, and he only knows that she’s “an angel that watches over him now,” Charles said.
2-year sentence recommendation
The Crown and defence jointly recommended Vermette serve a sentence of two years in custody, minus five days credit for his time on remand, followed by two years of probation.
Crown prosecutor Shaela Verma noted that Vermette has no criminal record, but his driving record is a different story.
She said his driver’s abstract was “like looking at a roadmap for how he got to this point.”
It has nine infractions for speeding, including three where he exceeded the posted speed limit by more than 35 km/h.
Vermette’s lawyer Brian Pfefferle said that when Vermette decided to plead guilty in January, it was on the eve of a trial where they had experts lined up to testify about a number of “triable” issues.
But he said his client wanted to take responsibility.
“It’s a reminder that speed kills,” Pfefferle said outside court. “People that suffer these incidents live with the consequences for the rest of their lives.”
He said Vermette understands what he did and that he, too, will live with it for the rest of his life.
Justice Daryl Labach said he needed some time to consider the case. He is scheduled to give his decision on June 19.
