Post card campaign demands tougher penalties for drivers who kill

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – A mother, who doesn’t think the woman responsible for her daughter’s death was adequately punished, has launched a post card campaign targeting Canada’s Justice Minister.

Debbie Dyer says she’s handed out more than two thousand cards over the past two weeks, so Jody Wilson Raybould should have received some of them by now.

“And hopefully, she’ll respond back. By now they should be filtering in to her office.”

“What would you like to see done?”

“You know, I mean, it’s not very fair to compare, but the police officer that was killed in Langford and he gets four years. The circumstances may be a little bit different because I think he was drinking and driving, but he still broke the law.”

Dyer’s 19-year-old daughter, Beckie, and her 21-year-old boyfriend, Johnny de Oliveira, were killed in a 2010 Pitt Meadows crash caused by Andelina Hecimovic — when she sped through a red light on Lougheed Highway.

She was eventually convicted of dangerous driving causing death.

In June, the nurse was sentenced to 90 days to be served two days a week in jail, as well as 120 hours of community service and she’s been banned from driving for three years.

Dyer says that’s not enough.

“The girl that killed Becky and Johnny gets 90 days intermittent. I’m not quite sure how that factors into having justice served. You killed somebody! You know, one person got a 15-hundred dollar fine. How is that a deterrent for killing your loved one?”

Dyer says she hasn’t heard yet from Wilson Raybould, but she’s hoping she’ll come to an October 22nd fundraiser at Fox’s Reach in Maple Ridge.

Proceeds will go to the Beckie Dyer Bursary fund, the Ridge Meadows Victim Services volunteer program and the Make a Wish Foundation.