CAP-PELE, N.B. - Four teenagers who were killed in a highway crash in southeast New Brunswick were being fondly remembered Sunday while people in their home community of Cap-Pelé grieved their loss.
"They were hardworking people who enjoyed life, and people who were good friends together," said Rev. Louis-Joseph Boudreau, a Catholic priest in the small Acadian fishing village of 2,300 people.
The four victims, all from Cap-Pelé, died when their car crashed into a culvert and rolled several times on Route 115 in Notre-Dame early Saturday morning. Police say speed was a factor in the crash.
Boudreau said Justin Léger, Sébastien Léger and Justin Brown — all 18 years old — had graduated high school, while 17-year-old Luc Arsenault was to graduate at the end of this school year. Justin Léger and Sébastien Léger are not related.
Boudreau said a funeral service for all four young men will be held Tuesday at 3 p.m. at Église de Paroisse Ste. Therese D'Avila in Cap-Pelé.
He said it will be a celebration of their lives.
"For them it is the end of their life, but they have already given a lot to the community and to their families," said Boudreau inside Ste. Therese D'Avila on Sunday. "It is that hope that I hope to share with the congregation and the families."
Boudreau said the loss of four young lives is difficult at any time, but particularly hard during the Christmas season.
"I hope that we will be able to change this shroud of grief so that the joy of Christmas may be able to grow as we live with them," he said.
Cap-Pelé Mayor Debbie Dodier said the municipality is asking people in the community to keep their Christmas lights turned off until after the victims are buried.
A Christmas ball that had been scheduled for Saturday night at a high school in nearby Shediac where one of the victims attended was cancelled and grief counsellors were brought in. Counsellors were also being made available Sunday afternoon.
Flags at the village office and at the Shediac high school were flying at half-mast Sunday.
Dodier, who is also the principal at the elementary and middle school in Cap-Pelé where some of the young men had attended, said the boys were all friends who enjoyed playing hockey and riding dirt bikes.