A 27-year-old Coquitlam man is facing a single charge of driving without due care and attention in a collision that killed a 13-year-old girl on Mariner Way last year.
Police said Kousha Vahabi Adl has been charged under the B.C. Motor Vehicle Act in the incident and is expected to appear in Port Coquitlam Provincial Court in June.
“It’s the job of the police to do a thorough and impartial investigation,” said Coquitlam RCMP Cpl. Michael McLaughlin in a press release. “This investigation included appeals for witnesses, video review, collecting and reviewing technical data, and a subsequent collision reconstruction where we shut down the road. Police forwarded the results to the BC Prosecution Service for review and ultimately this single charge was approved.”
The collision occurred around 3 p.m. March 25, 2019 when a black BMW 328 hit a Dodge Charger at the intersection of Mariner Way and Riverview Crescent in Coquitlam.
The impact caused the BMW to spin into a group of pedestrians waiting in the crosswalk, killing the 13-year-old Deborah Seol, a Grade 8 student at Montgomery middle school, and injuring a young boy. The two children struck were part of a larger group of young people between the ages of six and 17 who were heading to Hickey Park.
Collision reconstruction experts spent months investigating the crash. Two months after the incident, the road was shut down to allow for a partial re-enactment of the accident using police vehicles.
