Major case updates: what happened next [1]

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
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**Kristi Lee** (0:24)
Hi everyone, and thanks for listening. We'll be back with a new case-based episode in September, but today it's time for the long-awaited Major Case Updates. For each case, I'll give you a high-level recap of the details, almost like a mini-episode, so you don't need to remember the original episode or even have listened to it before we get to what's happened since. There's been some major developments. An end to the criminal justice process and the lush and white way fatal car crash in Newfoundland, and the murders of three members of the Harrison family in Ontario. We'll also close the book on the cases of family annihilator Jon Rallo, as well as Peter Beckett, the New Zealand man tried twice for the drowning death of his Canadian wife, Laura Letts. The saga of Kelly Ellard, one of the killers of 14-year-old Reena Virk, took a sharp turn in the last year or so. We'll also report on more convictions connected to the historic abuse allegations at Legacy Christian Academy in Saskatchewan. In this two-part series, we'll also go through a summary of the Hockey Canada trial and the conclusions that I reached, which you might like if you didn't listen to our series from last summer and want to know, or you just need a reminder. I'll also go through what the five players in the Hockey Canada trial have been doing since the Not Guilty verdicts last year, and how the public just learned of another text exchange between two players, and why it was redacted from the court record. I also want to share a little bit about the mental toll that covering this trial took on me and has affected everything since. It's something I didn't have a full realization about until recently, but it feeds into why our episode releases have been a bit more inconsistent than usual. I know some of you have been wondering about that, and why it's also been two years since we last did Major Case Updates. We'll circle back to Kevin O'Leary's proposed Utah Data Center and how he unexpectedly backed down and apologized. I'll also respond to some feedback from the Mushroom Murders case from Australia, which was of course a different format to what we usually do.
So all that and more is coming up and you can find the full list of cases and approximate timestamps in the show notes. Whether you're listening to the ad-supported or the ad-free version of this episode, thank you for being here and for your ratings, reviews, feedback and positive messages. I really appreciate it. And with that, it's on with the show.
We finally have a conclusion in the lush and white way of a fatal car crash in Newfoundland. Here's what happened. At about 4 a.m. one morning in 2019, Jon and Sandra Lush were driving their daughter Suzanne to the airport, along with her boyfriend at the time, Josh Whiteway, and their pet cat. The couple were catching a flight back to Calgary after a week home in Newfoundland visiting their families.
On the way to the airport, there was torrential rain. Not only was the road slippery on the Trans-Canada Highway near Gander, but visibility was quite poor. All was quiet inside the car. From the back seat, Suzanne Lush noticed a pair of headlights in the distance on the other side of the road. As the vehicle came closer, she noticed it was veering off course over the center line directly in their own path. Within seconds, there was an earth-shattering bang as the pickup truck collided with their car head on at high speed.
Suzanne's parents, Jon and Sandra Lush, took the brunt of the impact and were killed immediately. The car burst into flames, and Suzanne and her boyfriend Josh Whiteway were rushed to hospital with serious injuries. They would learn that their cat was killed as well.
Back at the crash, first responders found only one person in the pickup truck, 20-year-old Nicholas Villeneuve. From the passenger seat, he told police that the driver of the truck had run off. They didn't believe him. His speech was slurred. He was the owner of the pickup truck, and he was wearing an admissions bracelet from a music festival he had just left. Nicholas Villeneuve was taken to hospital with minor injuries. In the ambulance and at the hospital, he was questioned by an RCMP officer. During this time, he admitted he had been drinking and consented to giving a blood sample. That sample would show he was nearly twice the legal limit to drive, even though it had been almost two hours since the crash when he gave that sample. The black box in his pickup truck showed that it was speeding just five seconds before the airbag deployed, doing 123 kilometers in a 100 zone. Villeneuve's DNA would be found on that airbag, concrete proof that he was the driver. He was charged with eight counts related to impaired driving causing death and bodily injury, as well as dangerous driving.