Woman tells of escape from alleged serial killer

A Winnipeg woman who claims she was attacked by alleged serial killer Shawn Lamb says she is lucky to be alive but she's angry that police didn't seem to carewhen she tipped them off about his violent behaviour.

It was a frigid January night earlier this year when 29-year-old Denise, a sex-trade worker who lived on the streets and sold her body in exchange for crack cocaine, was looking for a warm place to get high.

She knocked at the door of her friend's apartment suite. Thefriend wasn't home but a neighbour, Shawn Lamb, was.Denise says he invited her insideand theyshared some crack thatshe had just scored.

But he wanted more, saidDenise, who didn't want her last name published.

"He was forcing himself on me and I fought him off me and I told him if he don't let me out of this house that I'm going to smash up your house," she said, adding her street survival instincts took over.

"Forget this I'm not going to let this guy do this to me rape me.I'm not going to let this guy do this because I have been through this so many times on the street and out there I'm a fighter."

She says she fought himoff, screaming, kicking, punching,and escaped, runningout thedoor and down the stairs.

Shortly after that she entered a sobriety program, in part because of thedisappearance of her friend Carolyn Sinclair, whose body was found near a city dumpster in March.

Like Denise, Sinclair was battling a drug addiction and worked in the sex trade to support her habit.

On Monday,Winnipegpolice announced that Lamb, 52, is charged with three counts of second-degree murderin connection to the deaths ofwomen reported missing within the last year.

One of those is Sinclair, who was 25.

The others areTanya Jane Nepinak, 31, and Lorna Blacksmith, 18.

Lengthy record

Lamb,who is originally fromOntario, has an extensive criminal record extending across four provinces.

Since 1979,he has had 109 convictions in Ontario, Alberta, B.C. andManitoba. In the latter,Lamb has45 convictions since 2002 for everything from robbery to forgery, fraud, and uttering threats.

Most recently he was charged with sexual assault in May and again this month. When Lamb was picked upon June 21, that was when police say they learned of his alleged connection to the three homicides.

The news of Lamb's arrest angered Denise, who says she has been sober since her January encounter with the alleged serial killer.

After Sinclair's body was found, Deniseand others told police about Lamb'sviolent behavior andtheir suspicions he couldhave something to do withmissing women cases.

"I had a gut feeling [he might have been involved]. I thought, 'Oh my God.' I was enraged. My stomach was twisted," Denise said.

Butpolice officers just shrugged her off, she said. She never filed a formal complaint with police.

"It made me feel enraged, as if my voice wasn't heard and it wasn't looked upon and other people made reports of him too," she said.

But Denise said she is relievedshe did not become another homicide statistic.

"I thank God every day for letting me live, for letting me survive that [encounter]," she said.