On Saturday, Sept. 27, 2025, it will be 10 years since Jennifer Neville-Lake’s three children and father were killed by a drunk driver.
Her husband died by suicide seven years after that crash.
Then last year, in June 2024, her eastern Ontario home burned down with the urns holding her children’s ashes inside.
“I’m here. Because that’s the reality … I am physically here. I am mentally, partially here, which is why I have assistance for many things. Emotionally, I’m all over the map. But I am physically here,” Neville-Lake told Global News.
In 2015, her three young children were killed in a crash in Vaughan, Ont., caused by driver Marco Muzzo, whose blood-alcohol content was nearly three times the legal limit in Ontario.
Muzzo had been driving home from Toronto Pearson International Airport after arriving from Miami, where he was celebrating his bachelor party.
He was speeding and ran a stop sign before his SUV T-boned the Neville-Lakes’ minivan at Kipling Avenue and Kirby Road.
Nine-year-old Daniel Neville-Lake, his five-year-old brother Harrison, their two-year-old sister Milly and the children’s 65-year-old grandfather, Gary Neville, were killed in the collision.
The children’s grandmother and great-grandmother were also badly injured.
“I guess the frustration, which has been something that my team and I have been working out, and the anger goes towards, as much as I don’t want it to, the sentence and how warrant expiration occurred in July, which means he’s done,” said Neville-Lake.
Muzzo was sentenced to 10 years behind bars after pleading guilty in 2016 to four counts of impaired driving causing death and two of impaired driving causing bodily harm.
He was first granted day parole in April 2020 and in February 2021, Muzzo was granted full parole after serving five and a half years behind bars.
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“That anger at that sentence and knowing that it’s all done … no, it’s not all done,” she said.
Neville-Lake picked up a photograph of her deceased family and showed it to Global News.
“These are finite photos. There’s no tomorrow,” she said.
Ten years since the crash, Neville-Lake described how she keeps on going.
“I’ve learned to carry my grief in a way that it’s masked better,” she said, adding, “I don’t hesitate, I don’t have those pauses where I’m lost in the memories.”
She said she has created a “survival toolbox” filled with coping strategies to get her through the day.
The children, in her mind, will remain “little” forever, but for a moment, she allowed herself to consider who they would be had they lived.
“I think of Daniel as he is away at some sort of school. I think it’s a ballet school. That’s kind of where I would have hoped he would have gone,” she said. “I tend to think of Harrison as being a very flamboyant teenager
“Milagros, I think, would have been me at the library. I think she would have been at either some sort of library or some sort like volunteer-type gig, like at the nursing home.”
Neville-Lake launched a charity in honour of her loved ones called Many Hands, Doing Good.
The website explains that the charity aims, “to nurture and inspire future generations and build a legacy in honour of Milagros, Harrison, Daniel and Gary.”
The crash that claimed the children’s lives, and that of their grandfather, had been considered one of the worst impaired driving crashes in Canada at the time.
Since then, there have been more.
“I think a lot of us felt, although there’s always been horrific tragedies historically, but I think that a lot of us thought that this would be a case that was a game-changer, that who would get into a car after consuming alcohol after you read about the tragic deaths of three children, their grandfather, and the injuries of two others?” said Steve Sullivan, CEO of MADD Canada.
“Sadly we haven’t seen impaired driving stop and it’s unspeakable that people still make those choices, those selfish and dangerous choices,” he added.
Sullivan credited Neville-Lake with continuing to help raise awareness, as painful as it is, about the dangers and consequences of impaired driving.
As for Canada’s record when it comes to drunk driving, Sullivan said more could be done to improve it.
“We are slowly making a little bit of progress, but having said that, there are still hundreds of people who are killed every year by an impaired driving crash, and thousands more injured. And you know we can’t arrest our way out of this problem,” he said.
Sullivan pointed to technology to help offer drivers options to get home safely.
“Technology is going to be, as we move into the future, a huge game-changer. There’s already a lot of technology in our cars now that has an impact in terms of, you know, preventing collisions,” he said.
Neville-Lake, who leads a quiet life, hopes others understand that what happened to her family could happen to anyone’s.
“I think part of it is that magical thinking that it’s not going to happen to me … they could be me. They could be living my life. They could being burying all of their kids a few days before their 10th wedding anniversary,” she said.
“That could be a reality.”
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