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The *****y, handsome, 17-year-old bike enthusiast was out with his two buddies on Oct. 28, 2012 when they hopped on their bicycles to go for hot dogs on a drizzly, dark night around 1:30 a.m.
“I know they should not have been out there that late,” his father said. “But they are good kids.”
Brandon was struck from behind by an SUV and killed while his friend Richard McLean, 16, was seriously injured with a broken pelvis and other bones. His other pal Jake Roberts, 16, was knocked off his bike but sustained only scratches.
Now the driver of the SUV, Sharlene Simon, 42, a mother of three, formerly from Innisfil, is suing the dead boy for the emotional trauma she says she has suffered. She’s also suing the two other boys, as well as the dead boy’s parents, and even his brother, who has since died. She’s also suing the County of Simcoe for failing to maintain the road.
Even the family’s lawyer is in shock.
“In all of my years as a lawyer, I have never seen anyone ever sue a child that they killed,” Barrie lawyer Brian Cameron said. “It’s beyond the pale. I just couldn’t bring myself to tell them on the phone.”
After a face-to-face meeting Tuesday, the parents and step-parents left his office almost staggering in disbelief.
“I’m devastated, I’m in shock,” said Brandon’s mother, Venetta Mlynczyk, a dental assistant who is drowning in sorrow. “She killed my child and now she wants to profit from it? She says she’s in pain? Tell her to look inside my head and she will see pain, she will see panic, she will see nightmares.”
Her voice shaking with emotion, the mother recalls her last words with her son.
“I said I love you … he said, ‘I love you, too, mom,’ and off he went with his friends,” Mylnczyk said. “At least I have that … but for this woman to be so selfish, to claim she is the one suffering but we are the ones living the nightmare … her children are still living.”
“It blows my mind,” Brandon’s step-mom, Lisa Tessier, said. “We are all devastated. This is so cruel.”
In a statement of claim filed with the court, Simon is claiming $1.35 million in damages due to her psychological suffering, including depression, anxiety, irritability and post-traumatic stress. She blames the boys for negligence.
“They did not apply their brakes properly,” the claim states. “They were incompetent bicyclists.”
Simon’s lawyer did not respond to a request for comment from the Toronto Sun Friday.
Brandon’s father shakes his head.
“They’re kids!” he gasps. “And they have a right to make mistakes ... it was a wet, dark road — what about slowing down?”
He insists the reflectors on the bikes would have been visible.
