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It-- It was shocking.
It's-- It's something that you can't believe
it's happening in front of you.
All I knew was it was very dangerous.
We need to close that scene down as soon as we can,
so we're not losing evidence.
We still didn't really know what occurred.
Put your hands
straight up in the air.
I'm trying to get as much of the truth as possible.
It's really happening.
This case had far-reaching consequences.
She felt something wrong was happening,
and she was trying to correct it.
Welcome to Crime Beat, I'm Antony Robart.
Tonight, a dramatic scene in the middle
of the busy Trans-Canada Highway,
as it cuts through the city of Calgary.
As a shocking altercation between a pedestrian
and a heavy-duty pickup truck escalated,
dozens of witnesses were left wondering why.
Here, now, is Nancy Hixt, with "A Fatal Decision".
On a warm spring morning in June of 2015,
Calgarians were soaking up the sunshine.
But the mood was quickly darkened
by a chaotic turn of events.
Just after 11 a.m. on Sunday, the 7th of June, 2015,
I was called by one of my officers to be notified
that there had been a serious injury collision.
And it appeared to be domestic-related.
A female struck by a vehicle,
some sort of shouting, some sort of disturbance.
It happened in a busy commercial area,
in front of numerous witnesses.
It was shocking.
It's something that you're-- you're just...
...you can't believe it's happening in front of you.
Emmett Yang was driving when it all unfolded.
This F-350 came booming out of the parking lot,
and I had to swerve to miss him.
And, pulled in front of him.
He came out of the Home Depot parking lot fast.
Overshot the first lane,
and tried to pull into the middle lane right away.
And at that time,
a woman was screaming as she was chasing the truck.
And there was a red light.
We were all stopped at the intersection.
Everything was happening very quickly.
And in the background,
Emmett heard another woman yelling.
There was a very distinct voice,
and I remember seeing her scream,
"Get down, get down, get off the truck,
you're going to get hurt."
And she repeated similar words
at least three times, screaming them.
I was watering plants at Home Depot.
I just saw this big truck drive in a pretty aggressive manner
out onto 16th Avenue, facing west.
And then I saw this woman running behind.
But he did stop before he got into-- onto the roadway,
so I was able to get his licence number.
And-- And then once he turned out,
I could see a woman running.
She went right out onto the roadway without stopping,
without looking.
She just ran out,
and she pounded on the passenger-side window.
The vehicle stopped almost in front of me.
Everything kind of just closed in on that scenario.
As soon as she stepped onto the roadway,
I said, "Come back here."
I was really screaming at her.
I said, "Come back here, I've got his license number."
I said-- but, like, screaming in a way
that I really wanted to get her attention.
She didn't look at me. I'm sure she didn't hear me.
At this time, I knew that things
were really not gonna go well.
She actually took a step onto the bumper,
and then hoisted herself up onto the hood of the truck.
Now, this is a-- a really big truck,
and so she had to-- it-- it was a--
I couldn't-- I couldn't process the physicality of it all.
I just really could not process what I was seeing.
She was climbed up on the hood to try--
and hinder him from moving.
I remember consciously thinking,
"No, don't do that. Don't do that."
I saw the truck lurching,
trying to scare her off of the hood of the truck.
It lurched three, four times.
And I turned as soon as he accelerated and moved,
because I knew there was no positive outcome
that could happen as a result of what I was witnessing.
She lost her footing, um...
and this part is definitely in slow motion.
I saw her go under the front wheel of the truck.
And then milliseconds later,
I saw her go under the-- the dual wheels in the back.
And the truck lurch up,
and her on the ground, rolled over, eyes shut.
And-- And I don't know if it was blood
coming out of her mouth, but it-- to this day, I can see it.
Witnesses watched in disbelief.
The offending truck fled the scene.
He darted, right away.
He-- He hit the gas, traffic had broke.
He immediately went into the right lane,
and turned very fast onto 19th Street.
I just thought, "No, no." And... I followed him.
I-- I don't know why.
And I, like, just hit the gas.
Like, I put my car sideways
around-- onto the turn onto 19th Street.
And then he started picking up speed.
And we were probably in excess of 120 kilometers an hour
in a 50 zone.
I remember, like, grabbing my phone
to try and take a picture of the licence plate.
And I just couldn't, we were just going too fast.
I-- I can't do that.
But I do recall that we were just passing people.
Like, he went into oncoming traffic.
I-- I pulled out slightly, and crossed the yellow
a little bit to keep up.
And... I-- I don't know why.
I just kept on following.
There was a bunch of cars parked on the side, here.
And...
the-- the truck almost took out a row of cars here.
We-- We must've tried to take that corner doing about
40 or 50 kilometers an hour.
We were driving erratically through this area.
It's nice out. Kids are playing on the lawn.
And I just thought, I'm going to hurt somebody.
I'm going to hit a kid.
And uh... yeah, it was a-- I-- I just backed off.
And then the adrenaline started fading off.
And I just realized, I-- what am I doing?
I'm-- I'm a dad, I'm not Batman.
The driver of the heavy-duty pickup was gone.
And the victim was badly injured.
Several witnesses rushed to her aid,
while others called for help.
And I kept thinking, "Don't move her."
Leave her. Just leave her where it is,
until the ambulance gets here.
I-- I just kept--
I wasn't looking there, because I didn't--
I didn't ever see her on the ground.
I never looked. I just couldn't look.
But I just kept yelling at people.
And, you know, people were just, I don't know,
people were just in-- in shock.
I mean, it was a... it was a shocking situation.
Welcome back to Crime Beat.
A shocking scene on a major Calgary thoroughfare
left witnesses horrified,
and a woman clinging to life in hospital.
It was initially believed to be a domestic incident,
until investigators discovered surveillance video
that told a much different story.
Here, again, is Nancy Hixt with "A Fatal Decision".
EMS and police responded
to multiple 911 calls,
and found a woman badly injured
in the middle of 16th Avenue,
the TransCanada Highway,
as it cuts through the city of Calgary.
The woman, unconscious but breathing,
was rushed to hospital.
The pedestrian had sustained
life-threatening injuries,
and we still didn't really know what occurred,
other than the fact that she'd been run over by a vehicle,
and that the vehicle had fled the scene.
Officers closed the major thoroughfare,
and taped it off as a crime scene.
With a hit and run, it's even more imperative
for us to close the roadway,
because another vehicle driving over there
can pick up a piece of the suspect's vehicle,
can be caught up in treads of another vehicle's tires,
or whatever it may be.
So, we need to close that scene down as soon as we can,
so we're not losing evidence.
The immediate area is fairly commercial.
There's petrol stations there, or gas stations,
restaurants, fast food places, what have you.
North Hill Mall is just to the south
of the collision location.
There's a fire hall very nearby.
So it's a fairly busy area.
Each witness was interviewed.
Police canvassed businesses for CCTV,
as the Collision Reconstruction Unit
gathered evidence from the scene.
We had a fairly distinctive scuff mark
on the roadway which indicated the Dually tires.
The marks that we saw, or that we identified,
were consistent with an acceleration mark.
It wasn't a braking mark.
So, this was a vehicle that the driver
had stamped on the accelerator.
The wheels started spinning before it started to move,
and we had this very clear path of travel,
initially on the roadway.
The initial information we had was that it was a large...
F-350 type vehicle with Dually wheels.
So, the side-by-side wheels on the back of the vehicle itself,
and we had a plate for the vehicle.
That vehicle came back as stolen.
So, it became even more imperative
to try and find this vehicle as soon as possible.
We can't do anything until we have the vehicle.
So, we're out, we're doing what we call a grid search,
checking all the roads in the immediate vicinity,
looking for this particular vehicle.
The victim had suffered skull and neck fractures,
a bruised lung, and severe injuries to her legs.
She was clinging to life in hospital.
So, we established fairly quickly
that the pedestrian was Maryam Rashidi,
who was an employee at the Centex gas station.
That's when police discovered new evidence
that proved this strange and senseless incident
wasn't a domestic dispute after all.
Because we were able to get the manager
to come down to the gas station itself,
we were able to get hold of the CCTV footage fairly quickly,
and that told us the story.
It showed the truck coming into the gas station.
It showed, if I remember correctly,
the passenger getting out of the vehicle,
filling the vehicle up with gas,
and then, basically, them leaving.
We established that this had actually been a drive-off,
theft of petrol from a nearby gas station,
and it appeared that she was trying to stop them
from fleeing the scene.
I recall the video showing Maryam
rushing out of the gas station,
the actual office itself,
running up to the vehicle,
and basically chasing it out of the gas station forecourt.
Surveillance cameras then lost
both the truck, and Maryam Rashidi.
The pedestrian was in hospital,
she-- under care, in the intensive care unit.
So, again, I couldn't speak to her.
During the course of the theft of the petrol,
they filled up with something like $113 worth of diesel fuel,
and basically drove off once they-- they filled up.
Police believed she was trying to stop a gas-and-dash.
Certainly when I spoke to her husband later,
there was some sort of feeling that if the vehicle got away,
her pay would be docked by the amount
that actually went missing.
This was completely untrue.
Speaking to the manager, he goes,
"It's-- it's the cost of doing business, we get drive-offs."
Bilking, and to make-off without payment
back in 2015, was fairly common.
That was before you had to go in and pay for your fuel,
before you could get gas.
So that, in itself, wasn't...
For somebody to-- to be stopped by that attendant
and then with no regard for them,
try to shake them off the front of the vehicle, and drive off,
and-- and leave that person lying on the ground,
that was-- that was unusual.
Concerned that valuable
forensic evidence would be lost,
the race was on to track down the truck and the driver.
We took the unusual step of releasing photographs
of the driver and the passenger from the vehicle,
and had them shared amongst the media fairly quickly.
She was trying to stop a thief from speeding away.
Now she's in hospital, and the man is on the run.
Police are looking for a copper-coloured
Ford F-350, with dual wheels in the back,
and Alberta licence plate EUX 378.
The suspects are described as 20 to 25,
with a slim build.
The driver had brown hair, the passenger had blonde hair.
A member of the public actually contacted the police,
and said that a vehicle had been abandoned
at the back of their house.
This is that big, huge puzzle piece that we need
in any hit-and-run investigation.
I ensured that the vehicle
was forensically photographed at the scene,
where it was found, with lots of detail,
because once it starts to move,
I may lose evidence from the vehicle.
The truck was towed for further examination
by forensic crime scene's investigators.
It was scoured for possible prints and DNA.
In this particular instance, tire marks were important.
The actual tread pattern from the vehicle, we photographed,
and later when we went to see Maryam,
we seized her clothing,
we actually had the tread pattern
from the tires on her clothing.
So, we had that extra... piece
that puts that vehicle there,
and being the one that ran her over.
On top of that, we had a scuff mark on the bumper
of the vehicle which had--
well, it wasn't a scuff mark,
it was an imprint of her clothing
actually on the bumper.
And when we did the match-up there,
we were quite happy that this definitely was the vehicle
that did the drive-off,
and that Maryam had some sort of contact with,
which led to the collision itself.
That's when the case took a devastating turn.
The victim of a hit-and-run
at a gas station has now died.
Maryam Rashidi passed away earlier this afternoon.
The sad thing is, this is over $113.
A wife, and a mother of a 6-year-old boy
is dead over $113 in unpaid gas.
That's a pretty harsh reality for this family,
who came to Canada just a few months ago,
to build a brighter future.
She was the best thing that I had.
She was a kind mom.
She was very responsible.
We wanted to begin a better life,
and we wanted to find a better job,
but unfortunately, we lost both of them.
Maryam and her husband Ahmad moved to Canada
in late 2014 from Iran.
They were both engineers,
and landed jobs in the oil and gas industry.
But a downturn in the economy left them both laid off.
Miriam took a job at the gas station to make ends meet.
The day she was run over,
she was working her fourth shift.
Right now, I'm worried about our-- my son.
Because he asks me, "Where is mom?"
And why-- "Why my mom died?"
I don't know what to-- what should I tell him.
His only solace was that her death
would give others a chance to live.
They decided to-- to do a body--
a body organ donation at the third day
that Maryam was in coma.
And today I received a call from hospital.
They-- They told me that...
Maryam's organs was wonderful,
was okay for doing donation.
I'm glad that six people can survive.
It's enough for me, and I think, for Maryam.
It's... enough for-- yeah.
It make me happy.
So, once we found out that Maryam Rashidi
had passed away, this ramped up our investigation
from basically a simple hit-and-run investigation
into a fatality investigation.
And with the circumstances surrounding the whole incident,
we started looking at the possibility
of manslaughter charges or even murder charges,
dependent on what evidence we gathered,
and also, after consultation with the Crown.
As traffic collision experts
work to recreate what happened,
they put together a detailed timeline.
So, this whole incident happened within
half a block to a block.
We start off at the Centex gas station.
The offender drove through the Home Depot parking lot,
and exited onto 16th Avenue,
where the emergency gate is for the fire department.
My world is in seconds.
When I deal with a collision,
a collision is over and done with
in about an eighth of a second,
and that's from the initial contact,
and vehicles separating.
This is-- a hit-and-run like this,
this happened in seconds.
Think about a vehicle pulling into a forecourt,
guy getting out, filling with gas,
putting the nozzle back into the pump, and driving off.
Maybe a minute.
Her reaction is to come and stop them.
Add another 30 seconds to getting onto the hood,
And then the collision.
So, everybody's life has changed in a minute and a half,
two minutes, and that's what this entire thing was.
The case became high-profile,
and there were renewed calls
for pay-before-you-pump legislation.
Like, make it mandatory for everybody
to prepay or pay at the pump.
All employees should be trained for safety, for safety.
This wasn't the first time there'd been a drive-off.
If I recall correctly, there'd been one in B.C.
where a gas station attendant had been killed.
And certainly this one involving Maryam
was the impetus, in certainly Alberta,
to make it a requirement to fill--
to pay before you fill up.
If you are restricted to obtaining fuel
only when you prepay, then gas-and-dashes can't occur.
It might be a stolen credit card,
but at least there's a payment.
But when you're able to take fuel without paying for it,
it encourages gas-and-dashes.
If the Centex gas pump had required prepayment,
then this wouldn't have occurred, either.
The push for change would take time.
Yeah, then we have him driving away.
But at that moment, the service priority
was to identify the driver of the truck.
That's when the release of CCTV images to the media
led to a break in the case.
We were able to identify Joshua Mitchell.
As I recall, Mitchell was known to us,
a petty criminal, essentially.
The identity of the suspect
was corroborated by fingerprints
on a large McDonald's cup
found in the driver's-side centre console
of the stolen Ford F-350 truck.
So, from that point, we were then trying to identify
where those people were located.
So, inquiries were made to identify home addresses,
places that they frequented,
and officers were sent to those locations
to track those people down.
The passenger was found first.
I think he understood the severity of what was happening,
and was affected by what had happened.
And he said to us that, yes, it was Joshua Mitchell,
and that he was prepared to stand up in court and say that.
Police got a tip that Joshua Mitchell
had been couch-surfing,
and ended up at this northwest Calgary home.
My friend asked if he could stay here for a bit
because he had nowhere to go because he got kicked out.
And my mom said it was okay for him just to, like,
stop by, and have a place to sleep.
They said they were shocked to find
their home surrounded by police,
with Mitchell refusing to come out.
I find that really stupid, to be honest.
Like, the fact that he could just stay in the house,
and, like, not have told anybody,
is-- just puts, like, a lot of other people at danger.
It was a volatile and unpredictable situation.
The TAC team, K-9 and negotiators
were brought in as a standoff ensued.
Folks, get up by your house, please.
Thank you.
And that's why we use negotiators,
right, to get a peaceful solution to what's going on.
This went on for hours, until finally...
Come out, keep your hands pressed in the air.
Put your hands straight up in the air!
Mitchell came out, and gave himself up.
Keep going. Stop.
Keep your hands straight up in the air.
Walk backwards towards me.
Keep walking!
I was advised later on in the evening,
about nine o'clock,
that Mitchell had surrendered himself.
But based on the time of day, it was reasonable
that they'd be put down for rest period,
and that we would interview them early the next morning.
Joshua Mitchell was charged
with criminal negligence causing death,
hit and run causing death,
and dangerous driving causing death.
Well, we've learned that the accused
in this case, Joshua Cody Mitchell,
was out on bail for a charge of dangerous driving
when Sunday's fatal gas-and-dash happened.
Despite Mitchell's criminal history,
news of the arrest provided some comfort
to Maryam's family.
I was able to tell him that
we had two people in custody,
and the fact that we had the vehicle,
the fact that the investigation was progressing very well.
This is 11 years after the event, now.
And it still sort of, like, wells up a little bit,
you know, the lump at the back of the throat,
thinking about what happened that day.
Because it was so preventable.
Mourners filled a Calgary funeral chapel
just days after the violent gas-and-dash
killed Maryam Rashidi.
We were sad and angry that such a beautiful life
has been taken away for such a cruel act
by some young people.
Maryam's husband spoke through a translator.
"To God we belong, and to him we shall return.
My son Koroosh and I would like to express
our heartfelt gratitude for your presence here.
She's not here to make it to the end.
The journey we both began four years ago.
Maryam was only 36 years old.
We challenged all the barriers to immigrate
to Canada with enthusiasm and passion."
Her father spoke to the room
on the phone from Iran.
Still struggling to comprehend that his mother was gone,
their six-year-old son didn't attend the funeral.
He thinks dying is temporary.
Actually, he knows his mom's died.
But yesterday he told me,
"I will come back, and my mom will become alive."
Among the mourners were the police officers
who had investigated her death.
As Maryam was taken to her final resting place,
police turned on their lights and sirens.
They provided an escort for the procession,
and a special showing of support for the family.
In the meantime, with Joshua Mitchell in custody,
investigators hoped an interview
might elicit a confession.
I don't think I've met you before.
I've probably done over 50 accused homicide interviews.
Detective Rey Bangloy does undercover work,
so, we aren't showing his face in the interview.
But I knew he was 20 years old, lived in Calgary,
had a history of kind of minor offenses,
but mainly property crimes, and stealing vehicles.
So, I knew the victim was Maryam Rashidi,
who had only worked at Centex Gas for a short time
after being laid off from an engineering job
in the oil and gas industry,
and that about $113 was stolen in a gas drive-away
from the stolen Ford truck.
The interview continued for hours.
He was respectful. He...
You could tell he was a little bit standoffish,
maybe a little bit nervous.
Obviously he knows that he was there for serious offenses.
So, again, it's just trying to create that environment
where he's, you know, willing to tell the truth.
But it did seem like, you know,
that childhood really kind of scarred him,
and I'm trying to get as much information from him
and being able to use that with the interview,
because obviously Ms. Rashidi had a family,
and it was a very emotionally-charged event.
Making him feel comfortable
in the interview is important.
Him being able to trust me was another thing.
So, when asking him questions,
you don't want him to hold back.
What were his true feelings about it?
What were his true thoughts about it?
And he got pretty explicit.
Mitchell reverses, and she ends up jumping onto the hood,
trying to shake her off,
and is trying to, you know, get her to stop.
He did say that he was contemplating using bear spray,
but given the time frame and the traffic flow,
he was just-- he wasn't able to react.
Instead, he just chose the way of just taking off,
and hoped that she would fall off.
That's ultimately the goal, too,
is just to try to find out what his mindset was.
And in this case, I think we got to the truth on that,
that he was just trying to get away.
It was a bit of an adrenaline rush,
and as for his mindset,
I think he was just happy he got away.
And then it was only 'til afterwards
that he heard in the news that she ended up dying,
is when I think they kind of panicked.
He cried a few times, and teared up.
Detective Bangloy suggested that Mitchell
write Maryam's family an apology.
In the letter, he said,
"It shouldn't have happened.
We tried to avoid injury to anyone."
He said, "I can't live with myself
knowing what I've done to your family."
Still, Maryam's family wondered
if there would be justice for her death.
Welcome back.
A crime spree that began with the theft of a vehicle
ended with a deadly gas-and-dash.
Witness accounts, surveillance video,
and forensic evidence all pointed to one person.
But was this an unintentional killing or was it murder?
Here, now, is Nancy Hixt
with the conclusion of "A Fatal Decision".
Maryam Rashidi and her husband,
Ahmad Nourani Shallo,
came to Calgary from Iran
to build a better life for their son.
But just months after they arrived,
she was killed as she tried to stop a gas-and-dash.
He speaks about his mom,
and, yeah, he says to me, "Dad, I miss Mom."
Charges against Joshua Mitchell
were upgraded to second-degree murder.
And in April of 2017, he stood trial.
The defence had offered a plea to manslaughter,
but the Crown rejected it
on the basis that there was a compelling argument
that the requisite intent for murder was present.
There couldn't really have been more evidence
other than if the truck itself had a dash cam video recorder,
because we had video of the crime being committed,
the theft of the fuel, and the truck being driven away.
We had witnesses providing information
as to what occurred on 16th Avenue
and what Maryam Rashidi did.
We had evidence from inside the truck
as to what was being said and the mindset of Joshua Mitchell.
And so we had everything that we needed,
and therefore, a very compelling case
to put before the jury.
One by one, witnesses described
the chaotic and devastating scene to jurors.
Two or three times he lurched,
and then she lost her footing.
It was just such a big vehicle, it was so big.
It could only end one way, yeah.
The passenger in Mitchell's stolen truck
was also a key witness in the trial.
He provided some background
on going into the Centex,
but most importantly, he spoke about what was said
between him and Mitchell in the truck after the theft,
and he also spoke about what he could hear
the victim, Ms. Rashidi, saying outside of the vehicle.
He saw the look of fear on her face,
and he could also relate to the jury
what it was that Mitchell was saying to her,
you know, "Get off the truck", so that he could get away.
So he provided, if I can put it this way,
he provided colour commentary
for what occurred once the theft had been committed
up to and including the time Maryam Rashidi was run over.
Mitchell's own confession
was played in court.
It wasn't probably as the prosecution wanted,
that his attempts to knock her off the vehicle
showed an intention to harm her.
I think it was quite the opposite.
It showed an intention, look, I don't want to harm you,
so I'm trying to get you off this thing.
Defence conceded Mitchell stole
the Ford F-350 truck
he was driving when Maryam Rashidi was run over.
He was very proud of having that particular stolen truck.
It had a lot of power,
and he spoke a lot about how powerful the truck was,
and he certainly drove it that day in a way
that suggested he knew how much power it had,
which made his use of that vehicle as a weapon
all the more aggravating.
He also admitted to the theft of $113 worth of fuel,
and the charge of hit and run,
but defence insisted it was manslaughter, not murder.
However, the prosecution told jurors
Maryam's death was no accident,
and said Mitchell had the power
of life and death over her,
and he chose death.
But the jury had a very difficult decision.
The jury could easily find that Joshua Mitchell,
by driving the way he did, intended to cause bodily harm,
knowing that death was a likely result,
and was reckless as to whether or not death ensued,
because he was clearly going to get her off the vehicle
no matter what the consequences.
Conversely, the jury also had a compelling argument
that he wasn't really trying to hurt her.
He just wanted her to get off the vehicle,
and that's what they would have struggled with
in the jury room,
the Crown's theory of intent and the defence's theory
that this was an unintentional event.
And I think because he was still a young man
and really looked like a young man in the prisoner's dock,
that would have weighed heavily on the jury.
He certainly wasn't a hardened criminal,
nor did he look like a hardened criminal.
The jury is now at a hotel for the night.
They deliberated for nearly six hours
after hearing closing arguments from
both the Crown and defence.
They are tasked with deciding
if the death of Maryam Rashidi was manslaughter or murder.
Ten and a half hours later,
they reached a verdict.
A Calgary man has been convicted of manslaughter
in a fatal gas-and-dash case.
Joshua Mitchell admitted stealing $113 worth of gas,
and running over and killing a gas station attendant.
Tonight, her widower says justice has not been served.
Nancy Hixt is live at the courthouse,
and Nancy, the Crown wanted second-degree murder.
The jury, though, found Mitchell
guilty of the lesser charge.
Gord, several of the jurors were in tears
as the decision was delivered today.
This was quite obviously a very difficult
decision for them to make,
and in the end they found
that this was manslaughter, not murder.
That comes down to intent,
and the jury didn't believe Mitchell
intended to kill Rashidi.
Rashidi's husband was devastated to hear
the verdict, and told Global News...
I think people mistakenly believe
that being a juror is easy.
It's really hard when you have to sit
in judgment of a fellow citizen,
and it was clearly very difficult for
this jury to do what they did.
Mitchell again apologized to Maryam's family,
and said if he could trade places with her, he would.
Her brother and mother had traveled from Iran
to attend his sentencing,
and heard his expression of remorse firsthand.
We couldn't be for the trial before here,
but we did all the best to come here for this day
to show Maryam that we support him, and...
and we wanted to be for her here.
The court imposed a sentence of 11 years,
consisting of 10 years for the manslaughter,
concurrent sentences for the lesser offenses,
and one year consecutive for the hit and run,
and then a lifetime driving prohibition.
Mitchell appealed,
and the driving prohibition was reduced to 10 years.
So that he would have some hope of rehabilitation in the future
and some hope of getting on in society.
And it just seemed to me that he was likely
going to be someone whose shadow
would never darken a courthouse door again.
A graveside service was held following the trial,
on Mother's Day of 2017.
She felt something wrong was happening,
and she was trying to correct it.
Yeah, it happened right around here.
Maryam's death continues to impact
the witnesses and police officers who investigated
the deadly hit and run.
I think about it every time I drive by.
I'll look in the parking lot,
and I can sometimes see the truck,
driving through the parking lot quite fast.
I look at things a bit differently now.
At first glance, this looks like,
you know, this is a horrible thing.
That person should, you know, justice should be served.
I don't know, I found a bit of compassion,
I think, for the offender.
I really did, and I think there is room for both.
I think there is room for... compassion for both.
Yeah, sorry, it's really emotional.
In our office, we had the front page of the Sun,
which showed Maryam with the title,
"She died for $113."
It serves as a constant reminder
for the team that I lead.
That's why we do what we do.
We can speak for the victims.
We can speak for the family.
We can answer the who, what, when, where,
hopefully the why for the families.
But no one was more impacted
than her husband and son.
They left Calgary shortly after she was killed.
He said it was simply too hard to be in the city without her.
Ahmad eventually remarried.
His new wife became a mother to Koroosh.
But this case took another devastating turn.
They had planned to return to visit Maryam's grave.
But on the drive from B.C. to Calgary,
on the Trans-Canada Highway near Golden,
Ahmad, his new wife, and Koroosh were involved
in a tragic car crash.
Exactly two years after losing his mother,
Maryam's little boy witnessed his father's death.
Again, you've got family who come
to Canada for a better life.
And both parties, or mom and dad, husband, wife,
are killed in two separate collisions.
Losing one parent in a traffic collision is-- is horrific.
But then to lose both parents?
Yeah, it's-- the whole situation
is just, it's horrible.
I mean, it really is horrible.
Since the death of his father,
Koroosh and his stepmother
have built a new life together.
She continues to honour what Ahmad and Maryam
had always wanted for their son,
to be raised in Canada.
A law requiring motorists
to pay before they pump
came into effect in Alberta in 2018,
three years after Maryam Rashidi was killed.
Joshua Mitchell was released on day parole in 2020.
Six months later, he was granted full parole.
Maryam's son is an honour student,
and graduates from high school in 2027.
Thank you for joining us tonight on Crime Beat.
I'm Antony Robart.
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