Disturbed teen unleashed horrific knife attack against vulnerable Nanaimo woman

The Crown’s Leanne Mascolo laid out the horrific facts involving an offender and victim both of Indigenous descent and unknown to each other.

Tom was homeless at the time and sleeping on a bench on the seawall, beneath the Indigenous canoe monument on Front St. when she was suddenly and repeatedly stabbed.

She received significant injuries to her back, while her neck, arms, face and head were also punctured.

In a letter titled, A Rude Awakening, written several months after the attack, Tom recounted what happened.

“He tried to cover my mouth with one hand, stabbing me with the other as he whispers to me saying ‘Just go to sleep.’”

Tom said she fought back, punching him in the face and managing to pull his hoodie over his head. The boy’s arms were still free swinging like crazy stabbing her continuously.

He said he’d give her a bandage and she needed to stop screaming.

Mascollo said Tom’s calls for help caught the attention of bystanders in the area.

A man rushed over to the boy and told him to stop it and put the knife down. The teen threw his weapon into the grass.

The bystander directed several other people to help detain the boy. He was arrested without incident shortly after.

An RCMP officer overheard the youth covered in blood say he wanted to kill somebody that night.

The boy was questioned by police, presenting himself as emotionless while answering questions about his violent assault.

He was taken to a youth detention centre in Burnaby a few days later, after making a local court appearance.

Mascollo said the incident is almost incomprehensible. She emphasized the heroic actions of the Good Samaritans during the high-risk intervention.

“The fact that it happened where and when it did and people around were able to call for assistance in very short order saved her life quite frankly,” Mascollo said.

An unconscious Tom was rushed to hospital and intubated to help her breathe. She later required significant stitching and stapling.

Doctors at NRGH considered Tom fortunate and close to sustaining life threatening injuries.

Paramedics reported stab wounds to her back could have bled out if they weren’t covered up on-scene.

The victim currently lives with chronic pain, PTSD, constantly has nightmares, is afraid of strangers and is facing medical expenses.

Inflicted by cognitive deficits and childhood trauma, the offender has been in custody for nearly 600 days. He’s resided at a residential treatment centre for youth in B.C.’s interior for more than six months while released on bail.

Since aggravated assault convictions carry a maximum two years in jail under the Youth Justice Act, the Crown and defence agreed that two further years of intensive supportive supervision is appropriate, amounting to 50 months of total court monitoring.

In addition to a detailed pre-sentence report examining his background, numerous psychological evaluations followed, including a report dedicated to the offender’s state of mind during the offence.

While he was deemed to be in a psychotic state, a doctor did not feel the offence met grounds for not criminally responsible.

Marijuana use before the attack is believed to have amplified his psychotic symptoms.

The boy said he knew his behaviour was wrong and that his actions weren’t motivated by delusion.

His several cognitive deficits include fetal alcohol syndrome disorder (FASD), epilepsy and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

The offender from the Fraser Valley area arrived in Nanaimo to visit his foster grandparents and a friend a few days before the crime.

Defence lawyer Kelly Bradshaw said his mother passed away of a drug overdose three months before the stabbing.

He languished in his new living environment at his grandmother’s place, spending a lot of time alone, playing video games and missing school where he displayed suicidal tendencies.

“Unfortunately it appears from when his mother passed away to the offence there was no intervention. The struggles he was undergoing weren’t noticed,” Bradshaw said.

She noted her client has been productive and behaved well since being under the court’s watch and responded well to medication.

He will likely continue residing in his current youth care home for the next several months before appropriate intensive supervision arrangements are made for the now 19-year-old.

The offender plans to remain sober until his court conditions are over.

He had no prior criminal record.

He attended the lengthy hearing through a video feed, while the victim sat visibly distraught accompanied by an RCMP victim services volunteer.

Judge Karen Whonnock is expected to issue her judgment in the coming days.

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by Ian Holmes

Disturbed teen unleashed horrific knife attack against vulnerable Nanaimo woman

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