‘She’s not just taken away from me’
Still no charges laid in homicide of Strathcona County mother
For two months, Kirk Babiak has been replaying the scenes in his head: The frantic phone call, the house surrounded by police, the devastating, unbelievable news that the woman he loved had been murdered.
“To have this happen just makes no sense,” said Babiak, whose girlfriend, Paula Stiles, was found dead inside her Sherwood Park home on the morning of April 15.
“She’s not just taken away from me, she’s taken away from everybody — her friends, and her family and her beautiful girls. There’s so many people that are just devastated and at a loss of knowing what to do next, because she filled such a big role in so many people’s lives.”
Stiles, 44, a mother with three daughters, worked as a training supervisor at Enbridge Pipelines. She was found dead inside her house at 40 Foxhaven Court.
No arrests have been made, and the cause of her death has not been released by RCMP.
RCMP spokeswoman Josee Valiquette said Friday that the case remains under active investigation.
RCMP previously appealed to the public for video and photographs shot in public areas in or around Sherwood Park between the night of Tuesday, April 14, and the morning of Wednesday, April 15.
Investigators were also looking for two teenage skateboarders who had been in the area, and were considered to be potential witnesses. Valiquette said she did not know if the skateboarders had been located, but that investigators were still looking for tips and information in the case.
Babiak and Stiles met online in May 2014, and found an instant connection. The romance that bloomed seemed effortless, the connection immediately apparent to people in their lives.
Stiles had three daughters, and Babiak two sons. Their lives appeared to mesh in a Brady Bunch kind of way, their families blending easily together.
Babiak said they spent every possible moment together, and he lived at her house during the weeks he didn’t have his sons.
On her Facebook page, Stiles described being “overthe-moon happy” in her new relationship.
After planning a large surprise party for his 40th birthday in early April, she gave him a card that read: “I spent my first forty years searching for you, and now, am looking forward to living and sharing my next forty years with such a sweet, caring, extraordinary man.”
The next weekend, the couple and the kids drove by an eight-bedroom house they’d been looking at online. They didn’t have time to go in and see it that day, but Stiles wanted to call the real estate agent.
Instead, the next morning, Babiak got a call from Stiles’ nanny, who was hysterical, telling him to come over. On the way, he tried to phone and text Paula, telling her, “There’s something going on at your house. I’m on my way there.” There was no answer. Babiak said the weeks since have been hard and empty, what happened still surreal and unbelievable.
“It’s left a huge void in my life and in my heart,” he said. “She was everything to me.”
Babiak said it’s especially agonizing that no charges have been laid, but he still believes someone will be arrested in her murder.
“I have to (believe that). Just for peace of mind. Just so I don’t drive myself crazy,” he said. “Paula was so much to so many people. To have this happen is the most horrible thing. It doesn’t make sense. And I can’t believe that someone’s not going to go to jail for it.”
He has a card she wrote him almost exactly a year ago, promising: “I will love you with everything I have, ’till I breathe no more and beyond that.”
He looks at the texts they exchanged early on the morning of April 15,in what would be one of the final hours of her life. He said he wonders what would have happened if they stayed awake longer that night. Maybe something would have been different.
“Good night Sweetheart. I love you,” she wrote.
“Love you more,” he replied.