Masked intruders were armed, man testifies
Paradise home-invasion victim describes terrifying February night
Michael Crant was having a beer and a round of darts in his shed with his father, Ivan, and friends when three masked men burst through the door.
Crant and his girlfriend, Tiffany Best, testified via video at the trial of Gary Hennessey, Mitchell Nippard, Tyler Donahue, and Abdifatah Mohamed on Tuesday.
Both recounted the events of Feb. 8, 2017, describing a disturbing scene in Paradise.
Crant said Hennessey and Nippard had been at the gathering, but left about a half hour before the men, one wearing a clown mask, the other two wearing balaclavas, stormed through the door. The man with the clown mask had a gun, and the other two men had knives.
Crant says he was ordered to get on his knees, while the others in the shed were put face down on the floor. He was hit in the head with a .22-calibre, black pistol, near the crown of his skull. Blood poured down the side of his head.
Crant was ordered to his feet to lead the men into the house on Milton Road in Paradise.
Best was folding clothes at the time the men entered the home. She was ordered to lie face down on the bed and was tied up with zip-ties.
Crant was ordered to get his mother, Daphne, out of the bathtub.
“I told her to get dressed as fast as she could,” said Crant.
Daphne was also tied up with zip-ties and was left in Crant’s bedroom.
The men asked for money and valuables. They were given a small amount of cash, including a two-dollar bill. Then Crant led them to where the jewelry was kept. Among the valuables stolen was a watch Crant had bought for his mother for Valentine’s Day years ago.
The three men took Crant out to a four-door Honda Civic, where they travelled to another home in Paradise.
“I was just hoping to get them away from my family,” Crant said.
He said the men took their masks off in the car, but Crant didn’t look at their faces.
“I didn’t want to know what they looked like, for my own safety,” he told the court.
After breaking down the door to a basement apartment and ransacking it, the men took off. Crant was left face down in the middle of the street. He went to nearby Hamilton’s Grocery to call a cab to head back to his parents’ home. He said he found no one at the home and he didn’t have his cellphone. The masked men smashed all the cellphones of those in the home when the robbery began.
He got in his father’s truck and drove around until he found his family members safe. He had his head wound checked at the hospital, before making a call to the police.
Crant told the court he knew Nippard for the last six or seven years, becoming friends with him in the last year or two.
The four men are facing a slew of charges in connection with four home invasions in February 2017, during which victims were reportedly tied up, assaulted and robbed. Nippard is also accused of shooting two dogs during the robberies, killing one.
A fifth man, 28-year-old Mohamed Salim, is also believed to have been involved, but was found dead March 3 in a quarry off the Trans-canada Highway near Paradise. It is believed he died in the cold while attempting to escape from police.
The trial will resume on Wednesday at provincial court in St. John’s.