The mother of three children killed in a crash in Vaughan Sunday says she is "devastated" and that the impact of the event "hasn't sunk in yet."
“So far it’s been like a dream – very surreal, as if you can catch glimpses of the children out of the corner of your eye, or you hear them,” Jennifer Neville-Lake said in an interview with CP24 Monday afternoon.
“It just doesn’t seem quite real yet – I can’t believe they’re never coming back.”
Neville-Lake said that she found out about the accident while watching TV.
She turned on the news after hearing about the crash from a friend who she was on the phone with. She immediately saw something she recognized.
“I saw a picture of the van come up on CP24, just a quick shot,” she said. “I said, ‘that’s my van.'”
Police were called to the intersection of Kirby Road and Kipling Avenue for a three-vehicle collision shortly after 4 p.m.
At the scene, police located a 65-year-old deceased man. He has since been identified as Gary Neville - Neville-Lake’s father.
Three children were rushed to hospital with life-threatening injuries.
In a release issued Monday, York police confirmed that all three had succumbed to their injuries.
The children have been identified as nine-year-old Daniel Neville-Lake, his younger brother Harry, 5, and two-year-old sister Milly.
“It’s like the worst nightmare – as a daughter, as a parent to have to go through,” Neville-Lake said of the crash.
She hasn’t been able to see her dad or son Daniel yet, she added.
Harry and Daniel attended St. Joachim Separate School in Brampton, according to a spokesperson with the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board. Daniel was in Grade 4, while Harry was in senior kindergarten.
The boys were set to go on their first camping trip together this weekend, their mother said.
“It was an all-section camp for beavers and cubs and scouts,” Neville-Lake said. “I was going to go with (them).”
Neville-Lake and her husband, Edward Lake, described their children as active, participating in dancing and swimming classes, and enjoying hobbies including playing board games, gardening, and drawing.
“All the happy thoughts are of them doing things in the backyard, going for strolls through the park, having lots of activities at school or after school, small functions,” Lake said.
A crowdfunding page has been set up to assist the family. It had raised more than $50,000 by 2 p.m.
A 29-year-old man arrested at the scene now faces multiple charges in connection with the fatal crash.
The suspect, identified as Marco Muzzo of King Township, appeared in a Newmarket court on Monday morning.
He faces 18 charges including four counts of impaired driving causing death, four counts of dangerous operation of a motor vehicle causing death, and two counts of impaired driving causing bodily harm.
“It’s hard to watch two families be destroyed over something stupid,” Edward Lake said. “And the choice was his.”
None of the charges have been proven in court.
Muzzo was remanded into custody and will appear in court again Friday for a bail hearing.
Anyone with the information is asked to contact police at 866-876-5423 ext. 7704 or Crime Stoppers at 800-222-TIPS (8477).
