Woman ‘saved herself’: Neighbour

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This article was published 09/06/2023 (1190 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

ERICKSON — The woman who came to the aid of the survivor of a violent home invasion in Erickson, says that she isn’t the hero — rather, the woman saved herself.

Muriel Safroniuk said that she only provided basic first aid care to Candace Richardson after she managed to escape her attacker and make her way from her own home across the street to Safroniuk’s house after a brutal act of violence that has left the small town shaken.

“I’m so impressed because a lot of people would have just curled up in the corner hoping that someone would find them,” Safroniuk told the Sun in an interview in the living room of her home on Thursday.

Though the two were neighbours, Safroniuk hadn’t formally met Richardson before that night, though she knew Richardson’s fiancé, Scott McMunn, who is from Erickson, well as he had grown up around the same time as Safroniuk’s kids.

“She saved herself … she’s a very amazing person,” Safroniuk said of Richardson.

While most people might have been asleep in the early morning hours on Tuesday, Safroniuk was instead lying on her couch listening to a true-crime podcast. In a chance foreshadowing of what was about to happen next, the woman featured in the podcast had just been found with her throat slashed.

Then suddenly, a figure who was swaying back and forth appeared on Safroniuk’s doorstep. At first, Safroniuk didn’t know who it was and thought it was someone who was drunk.

“Go away,” Safroniuk recalled yelling. She realized that her door was unlocked, and the figure opened the door and walked in.

“Help me!” She remembers the figure saying. The figure then fell to the floor. When Safroniuk turned on the lights, she found Richardson, unrecognizable and covered in blood. Safroniuk, a former nurse, began to cut Richardson’s shirt off to assess her wounds and wipe the blood off of her. The blood was so sticky, Safroniuk had to get a wet cloth, she said.

“She looked like the movie ‘Carrie,’ where they dumped the blood. Because she was from the tip of her head to her waist, completely saturated [in blood],” Safroniuk said.

Safroniuk said that Richardson, who is pregnant, had wounds on her hands from defending herself from her armed attacker.

“She fought. She fought like a warrior,” Safroniuk said.

Safroniuk’s husband, Larry, called 911 while Safroniuk relayed the nature of the wounds to the 911 operator as she discovered them.

“I could see [that] it had been a prolonged attack. She had been beaten. She had been stabbed. Her throat was cut. I mean, somebody was after her,” Safroniuk said.

Safroniuk said that she gave Richardson basic care, applying a cloth to her bleeding neck and elevating her feet since her blood pressure was so low. Safroniuk, who has about 40 years of experience as a nurse, said she believes that if Richardson hadn’t left her house to find help after she was attacked, she wouldn’t still be alive.

“Had she not got out, she would not have made it, in my medical opinion,” Safroniuk said.

According to accounts from Richardson, told to the Sun by Safroniuk, Richardson’s sister-in-law Michelle Dominey, and Jim McMunn, the father of Richardson’s fiancé, Richardson was violently attacked while sleeping in the basement of her home around 2 a.m. on Tuesday.

Richardson and her financé, Scott McMunn, had moved their bed to the basement because of the heat. McMunn had been away that night, staying at a friend’s home in Onanole after a day of playing golf in Clear Lake, his father told the Sun in an interview.

The attacker apparently accessed the house by sliding his hand under a screen and unlocking the door from the inside. Once in the home, he proceeded down the stairs to the basement, where he violently attacked Richardson. He slammed her head against the TV, stabbed her 10 times, including twice in the chest and once in the abdomen and the head. She later had to have a piece of broken knife blade surgically removed from her skull. Her throat was also cut.

At some point during the attack, Richardson lost consciousness. When she came to, she discovered her attacker had left. Fearing that he might return to finish her off, she made her way up the stairs, out through the garage, and over the lawn and across the road to Safroniuk’s house.

Jim McMunn later surveyed the crime scene when he was allowed into the house by Mounties. He said that blood on the walls indicated Richardson had been slammed against walls while she was attacked, and there was still a trail of blood on the stairs and door handles left from when Richardson made her escape.

McMunn, who received the call from emergency responders about Richardson, informed his son by phone. He told his son his fiancée was being airlifted to Winnipeg Health Sciences Centre.

Richardson’s family believe that her attacker left because he thought she was dead. They believe the attack was random. The family also said that nothing was stolen from the home.

Jim McMunn, a longtime resident and pharmacist in Erickson, said that the outpouring of support from the community has been overwhelming and he is grateful for all of the wishes for Richardson’s speedy recovery, though he said that the healing of the physical and mental effects of the attack will take some time for both Richardson and her fiancé.

“Everyone is wishing her a speedy recovery and we’re thankful for that. And we wish her a speedy recovery. But I can tell you that it’s not going to be a speedy recovery for either of them, though,” McMunn told the Sun during an interview at the Mountain Park Pharmacy in Erickson. He answered questions in between calls about drug prescriptions.

McMunn has lived in Erickson since 1988 and said that this kind of violence is unusual for the town.

“We’ve never had anything like this,” McMunn said.

While Richardson remains in stable condition at the Winnipeg Health Sciences Centre with her fiancé by her side, their restaurant inside the Erickson Curling Club remains closed. Curling club building manager Scott Gray donated the perishable food to a food bank at the couple’s request.

“They’re very generous,” Gray said of the couple. “They’ve been popular, people like them, they’re friendly, they’re certainly well known with the people that are coming in here.”

Richardson and McMunn own and run the restaurant themselves. Gray told the Sun that the couple had only opened the restaurant less than a year ago, but it has already been a success. Even people who don’t use the curling club come to take advantage of the menu offerings, he said.

Gray said that he wishes the best for the couple and hopes they can return to the community and their business, although he said the effects of the attack continue to ripple through the community.

“My wife locks the door all the time now, [she] tells my son to lock the door,” Gray said. “It’s really shaken a lot of people.”

RCMP arrested an 18-year-old man Wednesday afternoon in connection with the attack on Richardson.

At press time, he had not been officially charged but RCMP Sgt. Paul Manaigre told the Sun that he expects the man will face charges of attempted murder, break and enter, and relevant weapons charges.

The suspect is scheduled to appear in Brandon court this morning.

» gmortfield@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @geena_mortfield