A 22-year-old woman from Lennox Island has pleaded guilty to two charges of impaired driving causing death, eight months after a single vehicle crash killed her close childhood friend and a member of that friends’ family.

Angelina Marina Jacqueline Bernard appeared in Summerside provincial court in person Monday as her trial was scheduled to start. She wore a white sweater and dress pants with shackles at her wrists and ankles. Bernard has been in custody since her arrest last August.

The trial did not go ahead, instead, Bernard changed two of her prior not guilty pleas to guilty. 

The court heard the facts for two separate incidents of impaired driving for which Bernard is now awaiting sentencing.

The first was four months before the deadly crash.

On February 19, 2025, someone called police to report that a video was posted online in which Bernard could be seen with an alcoholic beverage while driving. 

RCMP were able to catch up with Bernard and caught her going 103 km/h on a route in the Lennox Island First Nation where the posted speed limit was 40 km/h. 

Bernard admitted she had been drinking and then failed a roadside breathalyzer. 

The facts read in court said she became irate when the officer tried to put her under arrest, but she was eventually taken to an RCMP detachment where she refused to provide a breath sample for the official screening device police would use to lay charges.

She pleaded guilty to charges of dangerous driving and refusing to comply with a breath demand in May 2025, but her sentencing was adjourned to July so a Gladue report could be prepared. 

A Gladue is a type of presentence report for Indigenous offenders that looks at the specific harms caused to that person through the legacy of colonization and residential schools.  

Refusing a breath demand carries many of the same penalties as impaired driving, including mandatory jail time and a one-year driving suspension. Bernard had a prior conviction for this same charge in 2023.

Fatal incident

Because Bernard had not yet been sentenced for her February 2025 refusal charge, she was technically still able to drive on June 27 last year when her driving caused a single vehicle collision that killed her two passengers.

The court heard that on that day, Bernard was with her childhood close friend, Karissa-Jo Mary Elizabeth Bernard, 22, and Karissa’s uncle, Kevin Joseph Labobe, 54.

The room was silent Monday as the 25 observers packed in the courtroom watched CCTV footage of some of the last moments of Labobe and Karissa Bernard’s life.

The court heard the group had stopped at the liquor store in Tyne Valley around 7:20 p.m., and then watched as Labobe’s wife’s Grand Cherokee pulled into the back parking lot of the bowling alley, driven by Karissa Bernard.

The footage showed the two young women in shorts and matching straw hats, posing and taking pictures in the parking lot before going inside the bar, where they each ordered a shot and a mixed drink.

Labobe could also be seen coming and going from the bar before the group got back in the vehicle around 7:40 p.m., again with Karissa in the drivers’ seat. 

The vehicle did not move, and then Karissa and Angelina could both be seen getting out to walk around the SUV, switching spots, with Angelina Bernard now driving the Jeep as it backs out and pulls out of the parking lot.

About ten minutes later, RCMP were notified the vehicle was off the road in East Biddeford and was on fire.

The first handful of people to come across the scene included a volunteer firefighter who lived a few doors down and other drivers who stopped. 

They all later spoke to police, with one noting when he looked in the car “no one was sitting where they would normally be sitting” and he could not tell who was driving based on the way the occupants were thrown around the cab.

Witnesses described that Angelina Bernard was responsive, while the other two did not seem to be. All three were removed from the burning Jeep and people at the scene started CPR on Karissa and Labobe.

They were both later pronounced dead at the scene. The court heard Karissa Bernard died from trauma to most of her body and likely was not wearing a seatbelt. Labobe died from chest trauma but had bruising consistent with having had a seatbelt on. 

Angelina Bernard was taken to hospital and her blood was taken. RCMP later sought orders to seize that drawn blood, and forensics showed Bernard’s blood alcohol level was 226 mg of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood. 

That’s just under three times the legal limit. 

Bernard’s deceased passengers’ blood alcohol levels were both higher than hers.

The case has been adjourned for a few weeks so the Crown and Defense can discuss a possible joint submission on sentencing. It will also provide family members and loved ones of the deceased time to submit victim impact statements.  

Bernard was originally facing four charges for impaired driving causing death.

The Crown stayed two after her guilty pleas.