‘Thank God I’m still alive’

HOLLOW WATER FIRST NATION — Michael Raven barely closed his eyes Thursday night.

“I can still see it,” he said, hours after the unimaginable act shook the quiet, remote community of Hollow Water First Nation, about 185 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg.

Raven was one of eight people attacked during a stabbing spree that claimed the life of 18-year-old Marina Simard. Her brother, 26-year-old Tyrone Simard, was identified as the suspect. He later died after crashing head-on into an RCMP cruiser south of the community on Highway 304.

Raven, 60, had been rushed by ambulance to Winnipeg’s Health Sciences Centre in the early morning hours. By the afternoon, he was back in Hollow Water, sitting on a bed in a spare room at his sister-in-law’s house — right next door to his own home, which remained sealed off and guarded by a Commissionaires officer.

The injuries were still fresh: a blackened eye, stitched and bloodied hands, and a stab wound under his arm wrapped in heavy bandages. But it wasn’t the pain that kept him awake. It was the memory.

Around 3 a.m., Raven said, he was startled awake by an intruder. RCMP later identified him as Tyrone Simard. He had already shown up once earlier that night, knocking on the door and asking to borrow Raven’s quad. Raven turned him away.

Not long after, Simard forced his way inside.

“When I got up today, I said, ‘Thank God I’m still alive. That I can still live another day.’ ”

“He just came barging in,” Raven said. “We managed to stop him, but she got cut as well. I got bottled over the head. We’re lucky.

“When I got up today, I said, ‘Thank God I’m still alive. That I can still live another day.’ I’m still having a tough time processing it. I can’t believe it was only yesterday. I still see how (Tyrone) looked.”

The other victim — both were beaten and stabbed before the struggle ended — was Raven’s girlfriend, Marcelina Bushie, who was Simard’s aunt.

It wasn’t until Raven reached Winnipeg that he learned the violence had spread beyond his home. His son, Jordan Hamilton, and daughter, Christy Williams, met him at the hospital. They feared the stab wound beneath his arm might have punctured a lung, but a CT scan brought relief: it hadn’t.

“I didn’t know that Marina had passed,” Raven said. “She was a beautiful girl. She was about to graduate.”

At the gas station in the heart of the town, a woman who works at the school and declined to give her name described Marina as a “sweet girl.”

On Friday morning, Jenny Bushie posted tributes to her deceased son and daughter on Facebook.

“Me and my baby Marina, R.I.P my beautiful baby, fly high my girl,” one post said, with a picture of Jenny and her daughter. “You and your brother are with papa Freeman and papa Henry and nana Marge now.”

“She was a beautiful girl. She was about to graduate.”

“My 3 handsome Tyrone, Tyson and Tyrese,” said the other, with a photo of her three sons. “R.I.P my handsome son Tyrone, fly high my son… u and your sister are with papa Freeman and papa Henry and nana Marge now.”

Shared Health said on its website Friday that four people who were attacked remain hospitalized at Health Sciences Centre. Two required surgery and are recovering in stable condition, the update stated. Three other patients were discharged Thursday.

On Friday morning, RCMP vehicles still dotted the community. Three homes were guarded off as forensic investigators continued their work. The school was closed. Most residents stayed indoors.

For many, the violence felt too close to home.

Cassidy Raven said he was asleep with his kids when his uncle — Michael — was attacked.

Despite the commotion just two doors down, Cassidy said he didn’t learn what happened until he woke up Thursday morning.

“I’m still in shock,” he said.

He recalled seeing a Facebook post from Jenny Bushie — one of the victims who was rushed to Winnipeg and into emergency surgery after the attack — crying out for help and saying she and her daughter, Marina, had been stabbed. “I kind of brushed it off. Then my sister came over around 7 or 8 a.m., saying the cops were there and my uncle had been stabbed.”

Cassidy said Thursday felt heavy and still.

“Everyone just stayed indoors, everyone was just on Facebook talking about it,” he said. “We were just in prayers. Unbelievable. Marina had just turned 18. Very tragic.”

Others described a similar sense of disbelief.

Devon Bushie, who lives a few houses away from a dark grey bungalow RCMP were still processing Friday, said he too slept through the attack.

“I was just stabbed last week (in Winnipeg) seven times,” Devon Bushie said. “Now the rest of my family has been stabbed.”

Devon said he is related to everyone involved. “It’s pretty rough, because it was my godmother’s two grandkids that died.”

At the band office, crisis workers, RCMP officers and members of the Manitoba First Nation Police Service filed in and out of meetings with council.

Tammy Lynn Constant, Hollow Water’s emergency co-ordinator, was too emotional to speak.

“Finally home and reflecting on this tragic day,” she wrote in a Facebook post Thursday night. “Please keep the prayers coming for Hollow Water First Nation. Take care of each other and hold your babies close tonight.”

Henry Moneas, a councillor in Hollow Water, said they were still struggling to process what had happened, while preparing for another funeral already scheduled for Saturday.

“We never thought something would happen like this,” Moneas said. “As a council member, with what happened, we’ve all been traumatized.”

Outside Jenny Bushie’s home, where she said she and her daughter Marina had been attacked, police tape cordoned off the yard and was guarded by security. Children’s toys lay scattered outside.

The street was quiet, the wind rattling through the trees. Neighbours were reluctant to talk.

“Nothing like this happens out here,” said Dorothy Bear, who lives several houses down from the crime scene on Sibi Drive.

At Bostrom’s Corner — a small restaurant just outside Manigotagan, south of Hollow Water — a Canadian flag hung at half-mast.

scott.billeck@freepress.mb.ca