When North Vancouver mother Erin Wood delivered a powerful victim impact statement last month in a Washington State courtroom, the daughter her husband never met was also in the room.
Wood and her baby daughter, Sierra Grace, travelled to the United States to tell a judge in person about the devastating loss of her 33year-old husband Brian Wood last year.
The young widow spoke at the sentencing hearing for two women convicted of killing Brian in a horrific car accident.
Erin Wood was seven months pregnant last September and travelling in the family station wagon with Brian when the crash happened on Whidby Island.
The driver of the other vehicle, Jordyn Weichert, was taking off a sweater and had asked a passenger, Samantha Bowling, to steer when their SUV went out of control and crossed the centre line, crashing into Wood's car.
Wood swerved at the last moment, taking the impact and avoiding a head-on collision that likely saved Erin and their unborn child.
Brian Wood was killed at the scene, along with two passengers in the SUV.
In an affidavit filed with the court, an investigator said officers found a variety of drugs and paraphernalia from the SUV at the scene and believed the occupants were impaired
when they crashed into the Woods.
Erin Wood said it was important for her to be at the sentencing to talk about the impact of Brian's death, both on herself and on her noweight-month-old daughter.
"I have a really hard time knowing that my daughter will grow up without a father, especially knowing what an amazing father Brian would have been," she said. "He was just so excited to be a father. He really wanted a baby girl. That's what he got. He never knew that."
Wood said it was also important for her daughter to be in the court. "She is one of the most victimized of everyone there," she said. "I feel very blessed and fortunate to have loved Brian and to have known him and she'll never get that pleasure.
"I wanted her to be there to represent the full loss that has happened."
Weichert, the driver of the SUV, was sentenced to eight years in jail after being convicted of three counts of vehicular homicide.
Bowling, the front-seat passenger, pleaded guilty to three counts of vehicular homicide and was handed a five-year jail term.
Wood said no sentence will bring her husband back, but she is glad the two women will be serving jail sentences that will force them to reflect on what happened.
She added she was disappointed, however, that drug charges against the women couldn't be pursued because of legal issues.
Although neither Erin's or Brian Wood's family lives in Canada, Wood said she's had an amazing group of friends on the North Shore who have helped her to cope as a grieving single mother.
"It's daunting to raise a daughter alone without the support of family," she said. "My friends have really become my family in a lot of ways.
"My goal is to be able to stay and live as much of a life as possible of what Brian and I had wanted," she said. "We felt strongly that we wanted to raise our children on the North Shore."
She added she's grateful for all the support she's had from the North Shore community.
Wood said she'll be going back to work in November when her maternity leave is over and she's looking forward to renewing social contact with her colleagues.
Now a little over eight months old, Sierra Grace is an active, delightful child who looks just like her father, said Wood.
"They look almost identical. She has the same eyes and the same nose and the same eyebrows."
Wood said she's already started telling her daughter about her dad and will continue to do so as she gets older and more able to understand. "I'll tell her all about his joy of living, his sense of humour, his passion for his work and what a wonderful friend he was," she said.
"He was always the optimist and taught me a lot about that. He always expected the best."
jseyd@nsnews.com
