Cassandra Suggate's family veered off the road in a high-speed crash close to where she was staying, hitting two trees and coming to rest in a rolled-over Jeep.
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Her cousin Rory Teiffel, driving at more than 240km/h before the crash, killed her brother Ryan and her 16-year-old cousin.
It took less than a minute for Teiffel to make the life-changing decision that caused their deaths, and it would have taken the same amount of time for someone to tell her Ryan was dead.
"Except they didn't," Cassandra said, in a statement read to Victoria's County Court on Friday.
"For nearly two hours I stared at a lifeless body, upside-down in an overturned vehicle. Alone. No emergency crews working on him.
"I was struggling to come to terms with what I was seeing and told myself over and over again, 'he must be unconscious'."
Her brother's death clicked when the coroner arrived at the scene at Wangaratta after 7.15pm on April 9, 2023 - Easter Sunday, not long after the family came together at church.
"(When I realised), I just wanted to crawl inside the overturned vehicle and lay down and die beside him," Cassandra said.
Teiffel has pleaded guilty to two charges of culpable driving causing death, and driving while beyond the alcohol limit.
Cassandra's brother Arron, who recalls taking off in the Jeep with Teiffel slamming on the brakes after reaching a curve in the road, managed to escape the wreck with help from members of the public.
Arron told Teiffel that he forgave him on Friday.
"Whatever your sentence may be, I pray that you get closer to Christ so that you may develop a spirit of the same that we remember Ryan for," Arron, who was 24 at the time of the crash, said in a statement.
"It is through true Christian spirit that I forgive you, because that's what Jesus would do."
Teiffel told police at the scene he thought he was going about 120km/h in the 80km/h zone.
But he was later found to be travelling at more than 150km/h three seconds before the crash, and at speeds of up to 245km/h in the minutes leading up to it.
The driver's 16-year-old brother Denver Teiffel did not survive the collision, dying in hospital several days after.
Teiffel, 25, thinks about the devastating deaths of his brother and cousin every day, and said he would strive to do everything he could to right his wrongs, his barrister Peter Morrissey SC told the court.
The young man had boasted to his family members about the Jeep's performance before the crash, the court was told.
Teiffel voluntarily revoked his bail to start serving time behind bars ahead of his sentencing.
"He knows what he's done, he knows how he's affected his surviving family, he knows how he's affected his community," Mr Morrissey said.
"This doesn't seem to be thrill-seeking ... there was a focus on the performance of the car."
Teiffel, who has no prior criminal history and was a man of strong faith, is set on owning up to his actions, the barrister said.
Judge Sarah Leighfield will sentence him on August 7.
Australian Associated Press
