A Halls Head mother charged with careless driving over a Wheatbelt car crash that killed her twin daughters has pleaded guilty to the offence and will be sentenced in March next year.
Rachel Van Oyen, 32, was travelling on Great Eastern Highway in Carrabin when her Toyota Camry sedan veered off the road and crashed into a tree.
Rachel van Oyen with her twin daughters, Macey and Riley, who died in a crash in February.Credit: Facebook
The children were travelling to Perth with their mother after visiting family in Kalgoorlie. It is understood all passengers were wearing seatbelts at the time of the crash.
Van Oyen was charged with two counts of careless driving causing death, grievous bodily harm or bodily harm and on Monday pleaded guilty to those charges in Northam Magistrates Court.
In a Facebook post days after the crash on February 18, Van Oyen said “nothing makes sense now” and added that she wished Macey and Riley could see how much of an impact they had made.
“In a blink of an eye everything changed. My entire world fell apart, vanished. There are still no words to describe this emptiness and pain I’m drowning in. It should have been me,” she wrote.
“What I would give to take your places my precious girls. I have never felt so helpless than I did that day, all I could do was try hold you briefly even though you’d both grew wings.
“Nothing makes sense now, you two were my absolute world and nothing made me more complete being your mother. You gave me so much purpose, you gave me a strength like no other, you gave me reason to live.”
Van Oyen said at the time she had been overwhelmed by offers of help from the community.
A GoFundMe page has since raised more than $50,000 for her.
The page, created by Phillip Van Oyen, described the two girls as “vibrant, cheeky, and beautiful young girls who had so much life and promise ahead of them”.
Rachel Van Oyen will be sentenced in March.
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