A Mînî Thnî (formerly Stoney Nakoda) First Nation woman maintains her innocence despite an apparent confession to RCMP, recorded eight months after the vehicle she was in struck and killed a motorcyclist west of Calgary.
The video was entered as one of the final pieces of evidence Thursday, which marked the fourth day of testimony in the trial for Deirdre Snow.
Dierdre Snow, 31, faces five charges related to impaired driving causing death and bodily harm, and public mischief.
She admits to being impaired on August 19, 2022, but insists that she wasn’t driving when the SUV she was in slammed into a motorcycle along Highway 1A near Morley Road in Cochrane.
The collision killed the motorcycle driver, 53-year-old Canadian Forces veteran Samantha Wylie from Fort Saskatchewan. Her family said they had never previously seen the video, but had knowledge of the interrogation watched in court Thursday.
Samantha Wylie, 53, from Fort Saskatchewan was killed in a collision in 2022.
Supplied to Global News
The video was taken April 6, 2023 after DNA evidence linked Snow to the driver’s seat.
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That’s when charges were withdrawn against Snow’s cousin, 35-year-old Kendra Bigstony, also from Mînî Thnî First Nation.
On Tuesday, Bigstony testified that she Snow and three friends had spent the day drinking at Ghost Lake before they attempted to make their way home that evening.
“Dierdre was driving and the three others were in the back,” Bigstony told the court. “The next thing you know I just remember this big bang. It trembled throughout my body.”
Court watched video evidence taken immediately following the crash by a witness showing Bigstony screaming as she saw Wylie’s body and the wreckage from the crash.
When she was asked why she allegedly ran from the scene before police arrived she told the court, “I was scared because someone just died… I was just trying to come home.”
A responding RCMP officer testified that Snow had originally said someone else’s name when asked who had been driving the SUV they were in. It was only later, when he returned to the ambulance where she was being treated and asked her a second time, he said, that Snow said Bigstony was behind the wheel.
In the interrogation video, Snow tells RCMP she asked Bigstony to take over driving after their friends were dropped off, something Bigstony denied in questioning.
Cochrane RCMP Cpl. Kyle Ashe repeatedly told Snow, “We all know you were driving.”
He insisted “the family needs closure.”
“They deserve that,” said Snow.
Almost two-and-a-half hours into the interrogation, Cpl. Ashe asks, “when you blackout and you come to, where were you sitting?”
“In the driver’s side,” answered Snow. “I remember opening the driver’s side door.”
Defence questioned the officer about his tactics, and about whether intimidation and heightened emotions may have played a role in her response.
Closing arguments are scheduled for Monday.
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