MEDICINE HAT, AB — A family friend of the man involved in the Crescent Heights crash earlier this week is speaking out.
Cody Michell has been charged with dangerous driving, hit and run and one count of dangerous driving causing death.
Michell was arrested near the scene of the collision on Monday.
A truck and trailer had been stolen from Bassett Crescent NW on Monday afternoon.
Police say the driver took off and reached speeds of around 100 km/h.
The truck collided with a van at 12th Street NE and Division Avenue before crashing into a Toyota Camry on Parkview Drive.
The driver of the Camry, an 18-year-old woman, was killed.
Michell is currently in custody, waiting for his next court appearance.
Jane McKay knows Cody Michell has made a lot of mistakes.
Police here have said they are familiar with him.
Court documents show he pleaded guilty to an assault charge last month and spent one day in jail.
He also has a criminal history in Camrose. He’s been charged with shoplifting and causing a disturbance while intoxicated.
McKay knows about his past, but wants people to remember that he’s also somebody’s son.
“Cody has gone a different way in the last five years than you would want anybody’s kid to go. He’s got into drugs and that has really changed him,” she said. “He just got hanging out with the wrong crowd and doing the wrong drugs and I’m hoping that now that he’s in jail, maybe the jail system can help him.”
McKay said she can understand how the family of the woman who was killed is feeling.
She said she her daughter was only three years old when she was hit by a car and died.
But McKay said she never knows the right thing to say in a situation like this one.
She says when her daughter died, people told her that ‘time heals everything’, but she says it hasn’t.
“It’s very sad,” she said. “I can’t imagine. I can’t imagine investing 18 years into a girl and then having something like that immediately take her.”
McKay believes the judge will be harder on Michell because of his criminal history.
His next court appearance has been scheduled for September 26th.
