Saanich police have released surveillance video of a vehicle they say is related to an investigation into a 2017 Oak Bay machete attack in which a woman was seriously injured.
A stranger entered the woman’s home, in the 2500-block of Esplanade Road, on the morning of April 25, 2017, and slashed her with a machete causing several injuries to her upper body.
The 45-year-old woman had to undergo surgery for her injuries and despite a massive search for a suspect, one was never caught.
Police said in a news release Tuesday that the day after the attack, investigators discovered a secondary crime scene in Sooke and are trying to identify a vehicle seen “going back and forth” to the scene on Sooke Road.
The vehicle is described as a blue Ford Explorer Sport Trac with “unique characteristics,” according to Saanich police.
“Over the past five years, detectives with Saanich Police’s Major Crime Unit alongside officers with the Oak Bay Police Department, have been conducting a thorough review of this investigation and all of the available evidence collected,” police said in a statement.
“Detectives have uncovered new evidence that may lead to the identification of a suspect and the recommendation of charges to Crown Counsel.”
At the time of the attack, police described the suspect as a man in his 20s with a heavy build, wearing a brown jacket, dark pants and baseball cap.
And Saanich police spokesman Const. Markus Anastasiades confirmed the intruder did not act alone.
“Police believed that the attacker had help, assistance from others, and that has broadened the scope of this investigation,” he said.
Oak Bay’s mayor, Kevin Murdoch, said as a result of years of work by multiple police departments, he’s hopeful the five-year-old crime will be solved.
“Oak Bay is like any community,” he said. “We obviously have all kinds of crime here. And one of the reasons that we do have that service agreement with Saanich, allows us to scale up and down.”
Anyone with information on the crime is asked to contact the Saanich Police Department Major Crime Unit at 250-475-4356 or 1-888-980-1919.
CHEK News
