Repeat impaired driver sentenced to five years for killing best friend in December crash
Kane Anignostis Burrows, 20, also fled police at high speed eight months later while driving under the influence, leading to another major collision.
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A 20-year-old Calgary man has been sentenced to five years in prison for killing his best friend in an impaired-driving crash on December 23, 2024, and a second high-speed drunk-driving incident eight months later.
Kane Anignostis Burrows struck a parked crane off Glenmore Trail S.W. while racing through the city in his mother's stolen BMW convertible despite 20-below-zero weather. His passenger, best friend Zachary Legault, died. Another friend, Kristjan Kuqali, was badly injured.
Justice Shane Parker told Burrows before sentencing that he must never drink again. "You're getting there. You now know and accept you can't ever have one drink," Parker said.
The judge rejected Burrows' description of the incident as an "accident." "It is offensive to use that term for both horrific incidents," Parker said. "Behind the wheel drunk is a bullet to the head of anyone near a roadway."
Burrows was already under a driver's licence suspension at the time of the fatal crash—a suspension that came from an October 2024 Immediate Roadside Sanction for impaired driving. In March and September 2024, he had received fines for failing to obey traffic control devices, and in May he was convicted of careless driving with a one-month suspension.
Nine months after killing Legault, Burrows fled police at high speed while impaired, triggering another massive crash. Crown prosecutor Kay De Boer argued for 5½ years; defence counsel Alain Hepner sought four years, pointing to psychological assessments showing Burrows has insight into his alcoholism, which began at age 13.
