15-year-old Nathan Wehrle of Cambridge and 16-year-old Taryn Hewitt of London were pronounced dead at the scene after a head-on collision on October 5.
Kate Bueckert/CBC
CTV reported that Waterloo Regional Police was contacted at 9:30 a.m. by someone reporting a possible assault and abduction of a female outside of a pizza parlour. Police soon discovered a car similar to the one described as being driven by a male with a female passenger. Once in pursuit, they chased the couple for 20 minutes before the car crashed into a transport truck. The two were pronounced dead at the scene while the transport truck driver remained shaken but uninjured.
CBC contacted Wehrle’s friend, who chose to remain anonymous. The friend told them Wehrle “had previously been involved in car theft and joyriding.” He added that Wehrle had allegedly sent him a text message saying that he and his girlfriend “stole the car together.”
Wehrle’s sister, Chloe, admitted that her brother was involved with auto theft during his life but that he wasn’t involved in any other crimes, most notably ones involving kidnapping. “I just want everyone to know my brother would never do something like that,” she said. “Ever since he was a kid he would just spend all of his birthday money on his friends. There was nothing else that he would rather do than to just make somebody else happy.”
The Ontario Provincial Police have since taken over the investigation. Chloe hopes to get some answers regarding what happened that day: “I just need some answers. Something to help.”
The Special Investigations Unit was brought in to investigate the case. CTV News spoke with Insp. Michael Haffner for more information. He told them, “Because this primary investigation does involve members of our organization, we’ve asked the Ontario Provincial Police to conduct an independent investigation.”
“We have the utmost confidence in our own members to conduct the investigation, but felt that — due to the circumstances — from an accountability and a transparency perspective an outside agency would be better suited,” he told CBC.
The footage was provided to the police from the pizza parlour but it hasn’t been made public.
Click ‘Next Post‘ to read another story and feel free to share on Facebook.
