Daniel Tschetter, the 55-year-old Cochrane cement-truck driver who was convicted of killing five people in a 2007 collision in Calgary, was granted day-parole on Sept. 19 after serving three years of his five-and-a-half-year sentence.
Tschetter, who will serve out the remainder of his manslaughter sentence in a halfway house, has maintained that he was not intoxicated at the time of the accident, despite the fact that police found him drinking from a vodka bottle when they arrived at the collision scene.
Tschetter has said that the bottle was not for him, and that he had thought it was his water bottle.
Tschetter’s truck slammed into a vehicle stopped at a red light, killing all five occupants – Chris Gautreau, 41, his 33-year-old girlfriend, Melaina Hovdebo, his two daughters, Alexia, nine, and Kiarra, six, and Hovdebo’s 16-month-old son, Zachary Morrison.
Tschetter was sentenced in May 2009 to five-and-a-half years in jail for five counts of manslaughter. His recent probation will allow him overnight privileges to stay with his family.
Tschetter’s bid for full-parole was denied, but he will be able to re-apply in six months.
Tschetter has visited Cochrane to see family several times since being granted unescorted temporary passes from prison in October 2011.
