A donation box has been set up for a Kamloops family who lost their home after it burnt down during a bizarre incident in which a Surrey electrician strapped with explosives took his ex-girlfriend hostage for seven hours.
Following the tense standoff Thursday night, the man released the 44-year-old woman around midnight just before three explosions rocked the house and it burned down to the ground.
The woman, her four children and her current boyfriend survived the ordeal, but lost their home which was reduced to ashes.
A friend of the family, Virginia Rogers has set up a donation box at a storage facility at 600 Okanagan Way in Kamloops. Donations are being accepted from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m.
Rogers said the family doesn’t have much left and anything would help including toiletries, clothes and toys for the children. She declined to identify the family members.
On Saturday morning, RCMP said investigators were still on scene and had not yet recovered the remains of the 48-year-old Surrey man. Sgt. Grant Learned said police were maintaining site security and did not know when it would be safe to search for the body.
He didn’t expect the name of the Surrey man to be released until after the weekend.
The bizarre incident began at 5: 20 p.m. Thursday when the armed man entered the home, taking his 44-year-old ex-girlfriend hostage.
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The woman’s current boyfriend escaped with three of her children. A fourth child climbed through a window to safety. The woman has two boys, aged 11 and nine, and two girls, aged 13 and eight.
Learned said shortly after entering the house, the suspect fired a shot into the ceiling and told everyone but the woman to leave.
During negotiations, police learned the man was distraught about breaking up with the woman two years ago.
Learned said she had twice phoned police after gifts were left at her rented home in Kamloops’ Dufferin neighbourhood.
There was nothing to indicate who sent the gifts, but the woman believed they came from the former boyfriend, said
Learned.
Nor was there anything to foreshadow what took place Thursday, he noted.
There were no restraining orders on the ex-boyfriend and police had no reports of him being violent, he said.
Police had responded to some “minor” calls about the man relating to his emotional distress and well-being, Learned said, adding the calls may have had something to do with the demise of his relationship.
The mother and her four children had moved in the past couple of months to Kamloops from Barnhartvale, a sprawling rural area of about 1,500 people east of the city, according Rogers.
Having only recently met the woman through a mutual friend, Rogers said she did not know the history of the woman’s relationship with her estranged boyfriend. She would not reveal the woman’s name.
Residents of the neighbourhood were reeling after the incident.
“Shocking, shocking, shocking. That’s what it is,” said Vern Reynolds. Simon Harry said the children took refuge in his home on the same cul-de-sac.
“I couldn’t believe something like that was actually happening,” Harry said.”My daughter was just in the house a half-hour before it went down. I’m still trying to process everything,” he said. Several neighbours said they did not know the woman well but she appeared to keep to herself and kept a watchful eye on her children.
Kim Bartlett said the children played in the cul-de-sac, but that the mom was
quiet.
“She didn’t say very much,” said Kim Bartlett, adding she had not known there were four children at the home. The RCMP said the Surrey man had explosives strapped to his body, which was confirmed by witnesses. The man also told police he had an explosive device wired to the gas tank of his vehicle and a second bomb in the car. He also said he could detonate the bomb from a remote device.
Police evacuated the neighbourhood after confirming explosives were indeed in the suspect’s car, and firefighters stayed out of the area until the risk of further blasts had passed and no one emerged from the house.
Once the scene was secure, bomb squad officers used a robot to safely disarm the explosive devices in the vehicle. Investigators said if they had detonated there would have been fatalities in the surrounding area.
No names have been released.
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