Edmonton man charged with murder in warehouse stabbing rampage

Police say a man arrested after a bloody stabbing rampage at an Edmonton grocery warehouse will be charged with two counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted murder.

Jayme Pasieka, 29, will also be facing two counts of possessing an offensive weapon when he is charged later Saturday afternoon and Staff Sgt. Bill Clark said more charges could come as the investigation continues.

Pasieka was arrested after a man with a knife in each hand and wearing a military-style vest, burst into the Loblaws warehouse and started stabbing people through the complex.

Two people were killed in the attack and four others were hurt, one seriously.

Pasieka worked at the facility and had a history of erratic behaviour, but Clark said investigators still don’t know the motive for the attack.

“We have some ideas about what may have caused it … but honestly we just don’t know right now,” Clark told a news conference on Saturday morning. “It’s just too early in the investigation.”

Police have identified the dead as Fitzroy Harris, 50, and Thierno Bah, 41.

A friend of Bah’s, Thierno Gando, said Bah, a member of Edmonton’s Guinean community, was married and was the father of four young children.

“We are all in shock. We can’t believe what happened,” Gando said.

Police said the attacker fled the scene and was arrested without incident three hours later when his vehicle was spotted by an alert citizen who had heard media reports of a suspect at large.

Clark said Pasieka was well-known to the people inside the warehouse and had worked there for some time. Clark said it was too early to say if anyone was specifically targeted.

Police wouldn’t say what Pasieka has told them since his arrest.

“I can tell you that he has been very calm, very polite and he has been co-operative,” Clark said.

Police had earlier said the assailant was wearing what looked like body armour, but Clark said Saturday that wasn’t the case. He said it was actually a military-style vest that had lots of pockets, but was not bullet-proof.

Police have said the warehouse is the size of two football fields and the victims were found scattered throughout the massive complex.

Clark said the whole attack took a couple of minutes at most.

“I was at the crime scene and it covers a large area — I would probably estimate a 50-to-75 yard area — where this whole rampage took place. There are various different aisles of food and things happened in a whole pile of different aisles. It was very random and very sporadic,” Clark said.

Clark said approximately 60 people were interviewed Friday and he said many more interviews would be done Saturday.

Pasieka was convicted in 2010 of assault with a weapon and uttering threats and was sentenced to 15 months probation.

The Edmonton Journal covered the trial and said Pasieka threw eggs at a neighbour’s vehicle, set a heart-shaped fire on their street and brandished a bow and arrow.

Pasieka told police he did it in the name of The Queen. The man’s father told court he had suffered a head injury three years earlier.

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