‘I wanted to kill her’: man pleads guilty in near-fatal 2021 knife attack aboard city bus Elderly woman stabbed eight times from behind in horrifying mid-afternoon downtown scene By: Dean Pritchard Posted: 7:00 PM CST Monday, Jan. 30, 2023 Last Modified: 6:42 PM CST Monday, Feb. 6, 2023 Updates

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Winnipeg Transit passengers screamed in horror and ran for the exit after Peter Radulescu pulled out a knife and calmly stabbed an elderly woman seated in front of him eight times in the neck, chest and back, a court has heard.

Radulescu, 45, pleaded guilty Monday to one count of attempted murder for the Sept. 12, 2021, attack.

Guilty pleas for attempted murder are rare, as it is considered among the most difficult criminal offences to prove.

Radulescu will return to court Feb. 6, when Crown and defence lawyers are expected to jointly recommend King’s Bench Justice Jeffrey Harris sentence Radulescu to 13 years in prison.

Radulescu, dressed in grey jail sweats, appeared calm and at ease as he pleaded guilty to the attack and told Harris he was entering the plea of his own free will.

An agreed statement of facts was provided to court outlining events immediately before, during and after the attack. More detailed facts, expected to include evidence of Radulescu’s state of mind at the time, will be provided to court at sentencing.

In a police interview on Jan. 19, 2023, Radulescu told investigators questioning him about an unrelated incident it was his intention to kill the victims in both cases.

”I wanted to kill this guy just like that (woman) on the bus… I wanted to kill her,” he said.

Court records show Radulescu has been charged only in connection to the bus attack.

Court heard Radulescu boarded a bus at Portage Avenue and Berry Street at 2:15 p.m. The victim later boarded at Polo Park and took an aisle seat in front of him, near the rear exit of the bus.

When a passenger attempted to take the aisle seat next to Radulescu a minute later, Radulescu moved into the seat, blocking them, Crown attorney Sam Levkov told court, reading from the agreed statement of facts.

Thirteen minutes later, the bus was pulling away from the stop at Portage Avenue and Fort Street when Radulescu, “without warning or provocation, produced a knife and began to repeatedly stab the victim from behind,” Levkov said.

”I wanted to kill this guy just like that (woman) on the bus… I wanted to kill her.”–Peter Radulescu

Bus security video taken from an overhead camera and provided to court showed Radulescu stabbing the woman twice in the neck before she turned to face him. Radulescu stabbed the woman six more times in the neck, back and chest as she pleaded with him to get off the bus.

The video captured several passengers screaming and running past Radulescu and the victim toward the front exit door. Radulescu exited through the side door, after which the victim staggered to the front of the bus for help.

Police officers who happened to be nearby provided first aid to the woman until paramedics arrived and she was taken to Health Sciences Centre in unstable condition.

A doctor at the hospital “had to perform numerous life-saving procedures to stop the bleeding,” Levkov said. “But for his intervention, the victim would have died from blood loss.”

Police found a large folding knife discarded on the street in the area. DNA extracted from the knife matched that of the victim and Radulescu.

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Following the attack, police issued a “be on the lookout” notice for a suspect pictured in the bus security video. Radulescu was arrested a day later after an off-duty police officer saw him walking home from a grocery-store trip.

Radulescu agreed the bus security video “accurately depicts him stabbing the victim,” Levkov said.

As violent incidents on city buses continue to raise alarm bells, the Amalgamated Transit Union has been calling for increased security within the city’s public transportation system, including inspectors with the authority to detain people, or an increased police presence.

Last week, Mayor Scott Gillingham promised to establish a Winnipeg Transit security force within the next few months.

“The details are yet to be determined, but the bottom line is we need to ensure that Transit is a safe space for everyone who rides the bus and, certainly, those who work on the bus,” Gillingham said.

“The details are yet to be determined, but the bottom line is we need to ensure that Transit is a safe space for everyone who rides the bus and, certainly, those who work on the bus.”–Mayor Scott Gillingham

Last Tuesday, police arrested a woman accused of assaulting a bus driver and a teen passenger — and another woman who stepped in to fight the first unruly passenger.

In the past month, a father and his 10-year-old son were assaulted on a bus and a male passenger had to fend off a machete attack.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca

Dean Pritchard
Courts reporter

Dean Pritchard is courts reporter for the Free Press. He has covered the justice system since 1999, working for the Brandon Sun and Winnipeg Sun before joining the Free Press in 2019. Read more about Dean.

Every piece of reporting Dean produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.