{"id":4783,"date":"2025-08-06T19:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T02:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.infonews.ca\/?p=7305442"},"modified":"2025-08-06T19:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T02:00:00","slug":"south-okanagan-woman-charged-with-impaired-driving-causing-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.infonews.ca\/inwheels\/news\/4783\/south-okanagan-woman-charged-with-impaired-driving-causing-death\/","title":{"rendered":"South Okanagan woman charged with impaired driving causing death"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A South Okanagan woman has been charged with impaired driving following a fatal car crash last summer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Vanessa Reis Lameiras is said to have had meth in her system when the Ford Explorer she was driving crossed the centre line on Highway 97 near Oliver.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Alexander LaFortuner was hit head-on and killed in the collision that took place at about 8 a.m. July 31, 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Lameiras was scheduled to appear in a Penticton courtroom Aug. 6, having been charged almost a year after the crash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The 30-year-old was charged with dangerous driving causing death, drug or drunk driving causing death, and having methamphetamine in her system while driving and causing death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Following the fatal crash, the RCMP said a 1992 white Ford Explorer crossed the centre line and struck a vehicle travelling southbound head-on. Police at the time wanted to speak to witnesses who may have seen the driving behaviour before the collision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to her Facebook account, Lameiras is in a relationship with prolific offender Andrew Hardenstine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Hardenstine has more than 60 convictions under his belt and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/infotel.ca\/newsitem\/penticton-rcmp-officers-lie-in-court-evidence-tossed-in-prolific-offender-case\/it109190\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">made recent headlines when weapons charges were thrown out of court&nbsp;<\/a>because RCMP officers breached his Charter Rights and tasered him 10 times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Lameiras is scheduled to be back in court Aug. 20.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">None of the charges have been proven in court.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The fatal crash happened last summer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":292,"featured_media":4784,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"guid":"","source":"","byline":"","published":"","updated":"","_infotelid":"","_prepressid":"","_multisite_post_sync":null,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[492,493],"tags":[],"region":[206,207,208,209],"class_list":["post-4783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-topnews","region-kamloops","region-kelowna","region-penticton","region-vernon"],"blocksy_meta":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/staging.infonews.ca\/inwheels\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/inwheels-hd-mediaitemid110119-5333.jpg","post_modified":"2025-08-06T19:00:00","post_modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T02:00:00","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.infonews.ca\/inwheels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.infonews.ca\/inwheels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.infonews.ca\/inwheels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.infonews.ca\/inwheels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/292"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.infonews.ca\/inwheels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/staging.infonews.ca\/inwheels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4783\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.infonews.ca\/inwheels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.infonews.ca\/inwheels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.infonews.ca\/inwheels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.infonews.ca\/inwheels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4783"},{"taxonomy":"region","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.infonews.ca\/inwheels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/region?post=4783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}