Stella Quinn Crawford, from the Eckville area, passed away at the age of three in an impaired driving incident. (Supplied)

By Alessia Proietti

'What are people not getting?'

Lasting impacts: Impaired driving incident takes life of local three-year-old

Sep 21, 2023 | 5:51 PM

The Crawfords peeked in the rear-view mirror to see their three-year-old twins Stella and Felix sleeping in the back seat. An ordinary Saturday night, driving home after a day playing in a local dog park, left them with a permanent scar when their car was hit by a drunk driver.

On Monday, 41-year-old Curtis George Miller pleaded guilty to impaired driving causing death and bodily harm, receiving a five-year prison sentence.

On April 15, 2023, Dakota Milburn and Jesse Crawford were driving to their acreage just outside Eckville, west of Sylvan Lake, after playing with their twins and dog at a Red Deer dog park. With the kids having fallen asleep on the drive, Scott Milburn, grandfather of the twins, says the family decided to take the long way home.

Turning left at an intersection, he says the parents saw a pick-up truck heading their way, but both had stop signs. The say the driver did not stop, T-boning the car, with Dakota and Stella on the passenger side.

Even with the help of STARS air ambulance, Stella was pronounced dead at the scene, 12 days before her fourth birthday. Dakota faced extensive back injuries.

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STELLA

Scott says Stella was a special child who loved animals.

“Absolutely adorable. Between her and her twin brother, she was the leader and she made him know it. She was a girly-girl,” he said. “She loved lip gloss. She found more uses for lip gloss than one would imagine for the body.”

“She loved music; she was dancing from the day she could walk. Good sense of humour. She was loving.”

In a full courtroom, Scott said 16 of 22 impact statements were read by their authors over several hours, bringing tears to even the judge.

Scott, the twins’ grandfather, says everyone wore the shirts seen above in the Red Deer courtroom on Monday for the guilty plea of impaired driver Curtis George Miller. (Supplied)

Scott’s wife Susan described the physical and mental distresses the death caused, including self-harm practices.

Scott described himself being in constant fear of family members commuting or from the sound of a phone call.

Living in Okotoks, he shared the grief felt as grandparents who only got to see their grandchildren once a month and couldn’t imagine the pain felt by a parent. His daughter, as a practical woman, he says, was overjoyed with the news of having twins.

“They’re used to putting two kids to bed at night, giving them kisses, and used to waking up the two kids every morning, and that just came to an abrupt end,” he said, noting their shared bedroom has since been transitioned for one.

“My whole body and soul aches just to be able to hold her hand one more time or to have her hold my face in her little hands as she tells me she loves me. It’s more than just the physical loss of my baby, it’s the loss of who she would have been as a person and all the experiences that will no longer happen,” Dakota wrote, describing the feelings of misplaced guilt the parents find themselves in.

Jesse Crawford and Dakota Milburn with their twins Felix and Stella. (Supplied)

Felix, who had only ever spent one night away from Stella, at first did not understand why his twin sister wouldn’t be returning home with them, Scott says. He went through periods of behavioural distress to speaking of the death matter-of-factly.

“The first day he went to pre-school, Dakota picked him up and he started crying on the way home, bawling his eyes out and stated that he missed Stella. It was the first time he showed more the emotion rather than the acting out,” he said.

‘IMPACTS NOT JUST THE VICTIMS’

But Scott says there were two other people in court that day: the wife and mother of the defendant.

“It’s tough because I want to make this about Stella, because that’s what it’s about, but there was quite a bit of empathy, even though they didn’t realize it, for Miller’s mother and wife,” he said, adding he and his wife provided them comfort.

“Something like this impacts not just the victims, but the families of the accused, and he’s got kids of his own.”

“You feel bad for them; they’re victims as well, even though we will never get to see Stella again and their kids will get to see their dad, and he will eventually get out and get on with his life. It’s not the family’s fault that he chose to drink and then get behind the wheel.”

Scott shared his anxieties for his daughter and son-in-law running into the defendant on daily affairs, and for Miller’s family who may receive undue blame from residents in the smaller town.

Scott said he was relieved that Miller took full responsibility for the preventable incident, so the family did not have to endure a trial. However, he says his family cannot forgive, nor get over that he may spend less time in jail than Stella did on earth.

Memorial that Scott made for Stella at the accident site. (Supplied)

Miller himself wrote an apology statement that had to be read in court by his lawyer as he broke down in tears, Scott said.

Scott added that no one ever thinks a tragedy like this can happen to them.

“What are people not getting about drinking and driving in this day and age?” he asked, adding the same question for drugs and other forms of impaired driving.

“If anybody does not understand the implications of driving impaired in any way, they shouldn’t have a driver’s license. Here’s a case in point; this guy now, with a clean record, 41-years-old, his own family, I’m sure he’s not a bad man, but made a really major bad decision and he owned up to that decision. Now he is a criminal, and he will have a criminal record the rest of his life. It will affect travelling for him, it will affect every aspect of his life.”

A GoFundMe page was created for the Crawford family as well as a GiveSendGo page.

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