Mission teenager Renee Marie Newson, 17, was killed in May 2007 when the car she was riding in hit a speed bump at high speed on 0 Avenue in Langley, rolled and sheared off a power pole. She was ejected from the vehicle and suffered severe head injuries. Driver Antonio Enrico Santini has been sentenced to jail in connection with the crash.
Photograph by: File Photo , Abbotsford Times
The man who crashed a car across the Canada-U.S. border five years ago, resulting in the death of a Mission teen, has been sentenced to two years in jail.
Antonio Santini was in court July 26 to learn his fate after pleading guilty to charges of dangerous driving causing death and dangerous driving causing bodily harm.
The charges stemmed from a spectacular crash that took place at Zero Avenue and 272nd Street in Langley on the night of May 2, 2007.
A 2002 Chevrolet Cavalier, driven by Santini, then 27, hit a speed hump at a raised intersection while racing west.
The car took flight and crashed through a power pole, snapping it into three pieces. The Cavalier then rolled several times, coming to rest in the middle of Boundary Road on the U.S. side of the border.
Renee Marie Newson, 17, was flung from the car and landed in a ditch. She was rushed to hospital with serious head injuries and later died.
The other victims, including a 15-year-old girl and a 20-year-old woman, crawled out of the mangled car in a Lynden cow pasture. They were taken to Langley Memorial Hospital for treatment and survived.
Because of the cross-border crash, and its location near the Langley-Abbotsford border, local RCMP, Abbotsford Police, Township firefighters, B.C. Ambulance paramedics, U.S. Border Patrol agents, Lynden firefighters and the Washington State Patrol all responded to the crash.
For causing the crash, Santini, now 32, received two years less a day in prison time, to be served in the provincial system.
He has also been sentenced to 18 months probation, and a five-year driving ban.
