Friends of man accused in Edmonton crowbar attack get restraining order

EDMONTON — Friends of a man accused of breaking a woman’s arms with a crowbar in an alleged act of road rage have been granted a restraining order against him, saying they fear for their lives.

Jared Matthew Eliasson, 28, was charged in March with attempted murder, possession of a dangerous weapon and aggravated assault in what Edmonton police called a road rage attack.

Police say the 34-year-old woman was driving to her home and honked her horn while passing a car that was stopped on a street. When she got out of her car outside her home, a man ran up and struck her on both arms with a crowbar.

Eliasson was himself a victim of a violent crime in 2014 when he and a friend, Christopher Northam, were stabbed while walking down a street.

Northam, his wife Samantha Massey and her parents sought a restraining order against Eliasson after reading about the March crowbar attack. They were fearful he would get bail.

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In their affidavit, they said they had growing concerns about their friend, including a text message to Northam that said “I am going to kill you.”

“Given his escalating, extremely violent behaviour, we are all afraid for our lives,” Samantha Massey wrote in the affidavit.

A Court of Queen’s Bench judge granted the restraining order last month. None of the allegations have been proven in court.

Eliasson has been denied bail and is to appear in court for election and plea on May 25.

In the affidavit, Massey said she and Northam had been friends with Eliasson for about five years and saw each other regularly.

She said Eliasson used to act weird at times and say strange things, but they weren’t concerned about his behaviour until the last few years.

Massey said in the affidavit Eliasson blamed her husband for his break-up with her cousin. Someone threw a rock through her cousin’s window with her name on it and set a car with her apartment number spray painted on it on fire.

Last spring, she said they started receiving the disturbing text messages.

Massey said in the affidavit they suspected it was Eliasson and called police, who advised them to no longer communicate with him.

Someone then smashed a window of their home, she said in the document.

Massey said her parents’ neighbours in Leduc, Alta., reported that someone wearing a balaclava was throwing rocks at her parents’ home.

“When the neighbours drove up to him, he grabbed a crowbar and smashed one of the windows in their car,” she said in the affidavit.

Last December, someone smashed a window of their home and threw a puzzle inside. She said the puzzle was a Christmas gift they had given Eliasson.

The same day, someone tried to pry open their back door and slashed the tires of her car.

Massey said about a week before the woman’s arms were broken with a crowbar, a man wearing a balaclava confronted her father as he was leaving for work.

“The driver brandished a hunting knife, and made threatening gestures, including a throat slash gesture,” she wrote in the affidavit.

None of the allegations in the affidavit has been tested in court and Eliasson was not present when the restraining order was granted. Eliasson’s lawyer Zack Elias was not immediately available to respond to requests for comment.

John Cotter, The Canadian Press