SLAIN MOM FEARED FOR HER LIFE
HUNT CONTINUES FOR STABBING VICTIM’S ESTRANGED HUSBAND
Cory Christians struggles to find words to describe the unimaginable events of the past 48 hours.
The Calgary man recently got engaged and was looking forward to his wedding when a call from police Wednesday turned his world upside down.
His mother, Carmel Christians, had been stabbed to death, and his father, James Christians, had been charged in the slaying and was on the run from police.
“(She was) outgoing, fun and easy to be around,” Cory said of his mother, his voice shaking.
As for his father, “I have nothing I want to say about him,” he added.
Carmel, 55, died after being stabbed outside a friend’s Chaparral home Wednesday morning as she was leaving for work.
Her friend, Delores McMartin, is recovering in hospital after being wounded while trying to intervene in the attack.
Police continued their search Thursday for James, who has been charged with second-degree murder, aggravated assault and possession of a weapon, and is considered “a threat to himself and others.”
Numerous tips have poured in from the public, but none have so far led police to the 65-year-old.
At the time of her death, Carmel had been living with McMartin. She feared an emergency protection order would not protect her from her husband following an assault Sept. 2.
“Even with a restraining order, I still fear for my life,” Carmel told a provincial family and youth court hearing on Sept. 3.
The woman told court she did not want to return to her Queensland home because her husband of more than 20 years would then have no place to go.
Carmel told court that the argument on Sept. 2, which led to James being charged with assault and uttering a death threat, began when she told her husband she wanted to go to a football game and he didn’t want her to go because he would be left alone.
She said he had been drinking earlier that morning.
“He had threatened to take a sledge hammer and destroy everything in the house, and then he got a gas can, and I was sitting outside on the patio, and he poured gasoline in front of me and then he said he was going to burn the house down,” she told the hearing.
Carmel said her husband went into the house with the gas can and she said to him, “Do you want me to warn the neighbours?”
“Like, he never went through (with) any of this, of course, so then I went in the house,” she testified.
When she went into the kitchen, she said he tried to strangle her.
“And I tried to get away, and then I went downstairs in the basement, and then he told me I wasn’t leaving the house.”
She said he was just arguing with her at that point and she tried to get away, but he kept standing in the doorway. Then, he just walked up to her and punched her in the face, she said.
She told the hearing it was the first time he had ever been physically abusive.
Carmel ran out of the house and went to a girlfriend’s home where she called her 23-year-old son.
When his father left the family home, the son called 911.
“When they finally caught up to (James) ... he said he wanted the police to shoot him ... so they took him directly to the hospital,” she told court.
The restraining order was to be in place for a year.
Just over six weeks after it was put in place, Carmel was stabbed to death and her friend injured.
Police remained at the couple’s Queensland home Thursday. A makeshift memorial of flowers and candles was set up at the scene in Chaparral.
Police urge anyone who spots the suspect or his grey 2013 GMC pickup truck with the Alberta plate JRA 305 not to approach, but to immediately report the sighting by calling 911.