Magda Konieczna

Crash kills Bishop Mac grad

appeared in The Mercury May 30, 2006

A tragic traffic accident north of Toronto, which police suspect was caused by street racers, is hitting home especially hard locally.

Lisa and Rob Manchester were enjoying a rare night out together Saturday, celebrating their 13th wedding anniversary.

Their seven-year-old daughter Katie and Rob's cystic fibrosis -- a disease that kills many of those affected in childhood -- meant the two seldom spent an evening away from their Richmond Hill home.

The accident that killed them Saturday night has left behind relatives and friends -- many of them in Guelph, where Lisa grew up, and in Rockwood, where her parents live -- struggling to come to terms with the senselessness of it all.

"They rarely went out like they did Saturday night," said Lisa's father, Jack Coté. "It was an occasion -- a fatal one."

The Manchesters went out for dinner to celebrate their anniversary, then decided to go to a friend's place to watch the Stanley Cup semifinal hockey game.

"They're both very enthusiastic about the hockey," Coté said.

It was when they were turning east from Yonge Street onto Stouffville Road, just a kilometre south of their home, that they were hit by one of two vehicles witnesses said were racing up Yonge Street at close to 140 km/h.

Both Manchesters were killed instantly.

"It was two beautiful people wiped out and their daughter left without parents," Coté said sombrely.

The accident came just days after Prime Minister Stephen Harper said his government will make street racing a Criminal Code offence, with repeat offenders facing jail terms. In some ways, that made Saturday's crash seem all the more tragic, Coté said.

But Coté was careful not to jump to conclusions about what happened, since the case is yet to come before the courts.

One of the drivers, 19-year-old Marco Gasparro, was charged with two counts of dangerous driving causing death and criminal negligence causing death.

Another driver remained in hospital yesterday in critical condition.

Coté said the couple's seven-year-old daughter was staying with an aunt's family.

"She is a mature seven-year-old," he said. "She's adjusting very well."

A funeral mass for the Manchesters will be held Friday at 11 a.m. at Our Lady of Annunciation church in Richmond Hill. Visitation is Thursday in Aurora at Thompson Funeral Home from 3 to 5 and 7 to 9 p.m.

Coté said police came to the Rockwood-area home where he lives with his wife Delores early Sunday to deliver the tragic news.

"The provincial police called and they were unbelievable -- considerate and professional in their announcement," Coté said.

"They were so kind and showed a lot of class with such a tough announcement. They said it was the toughest job they had."

He went to see his granddaughter yesterday, and went to the intersection where his daughter's life was taken away in that senseless flash.

"It was swept clean and washed down," he said. "There had been some (flowers) left there previously by a friend."

Lisa's high school principal from Bishop Macdonell in the late 1970s was shocked to hear of the accident.

Larry Kelly said he hadn't seen Lisa in years. But he remembers her as a polite, active, smiling girl, a good student, and a very positive person.

When he realized he'd known the woman whose photograph was attached to the tragic story in yesterday's newspapers, he pulled out his yearbook from 1980, the year Lisa graduated from Bishop Mac.

"'Lisa was a friend to many during her four years at Bishop Macdonell,' " he read from her yearbook write-up.

"It's so senseless," he said. "And to leave the young child behind -- but it was good she wasn't with them."

Saturday's accident was the second fatal crash attributed to street racing in the Toronto area this year.

Taxi driver Tahir Khan was killed in January after two teens were allegedly racing Mercedes Benzes in one of Toronto's most affluent neighbourhoods.

Police reported that at least 31 people in the Greater Toronto Area have been killed in accidents suspected to be caused by street-racers since 1999.