'Common thread' among stabbing victims: Calgary police

Police have identified a Calgarywomanslainduring a series of early-morning stabbings that investigators now say shared a "common thread."

Jacqueline Clara Crazybull, 44, died of a single stabafter an attack at the corner of 17th Avenue and 11th Street SWshortly after 4 a.m. MT on Wednesday.

Calgary police also said Thursday that investigators have found a "common thread" among the four other people assaulted in different parts of the city over the next hour.

"Before each of the assaults, the suspects used a ruse to engage the victims in conversation. The content of the conversation is being withheld for investigative reasons," police said in a release.

Calgary Drop-In Centre head Dermot Baldwin said Crazybull used the homeless shelter, along with at leasttwo others stabbed that morning.

"There is no question that these people were singled out," he said. "They look a little more dishevelled, and unkempt and vulnerable. I think the people who perpetrated this can read that fairly well."

'She was harmless'

Crazybull's friend, Bill Lenny, was in mourning Thursday for a friend, he said, whoused crack cocaine.

"Why could somebody hurt a woman like that. She was harmless, she was very nice. As far asI am concerned, she was a happy go lucky woman."

Staff Sgt. Patty McCallum wouldn't say if the victims were known to police, but said they weren't involved in criminal activity at the time of the attacks.

"They were doing nothing wrong. They were not engaged in criminal activity. To focus on that would suggest that they were specifically targeted and we don't know for certain that was the case," she said.

"We don't know if it was the area that was targeted specifically or is it the people? Why were they selected? Were they selected because they just happened to be there?"

The four surviving victims, who didn't know each other,according to police,were expected to recover. They include:

• A 21-year-old man stabbed at 15th Avenue and 2nd Street SW.
• A 42-year-old man stabbed at 16th Avenue and 2nd Street NE.
• A 43-year-old man stabbed in the 4400 block of Centre Street N.
• A 23-year-old woman stabbed and slashed at 44th Street and 21st Avenue SE.

Policewere also looking for three or four black men between ages 20 and 30 who were in a light-coloured, possibly beige or silver, newer-model sedan.