Just hours after Langley nurse Sonia Cella appeared to file divorce proceedings in B.C. Supreme Court, police allege her estranged husband set the family home on fire and attacked both Cella and her 14-year-old daughter with a hammer.
Mounties launched a manhunt Wednesday for Andre Harvey Richard, 44, who has two outstanding assault charges and a court order to stay away from his wife.
An arrest warrant for breaching that court order has now been issued against Richard, who police say is known to them for previous domestic violence.
Neighbours on Wakefield Drive in Langley awoke at 1 a.m. Wednesday to a terrifying scene — the home owned by Cella and Richard engulfed in flames and the family fleeing to the safety of a nearby house. Police are treating the case as an attempted murder investigation.
Perhaps equally terrifying is a staggering quantity of statistics that suggest violence against spouses and children is a common occurrence in this province.
In the first decade of the millennium, there were 133 female victims of family-related homicides in B.C., according to Statistics Canada data. The B.C. Coroner, investigating intimate partner deaths from 2003 to 2011, found 36.4 per cent of all women who were murdered in the province were killed by their partners. In 2010, there were 16,259 police-reported victims of intimate partner violence in the province, according to Statistics Canada, and as many as four-in-five assaults go unreported.
Angela Marie MacDougall, the executive director of Vancouver’s Battered Women’s Support Services, called the problem systemic, but said from what she’s seen, more women than ever are taking steps to get out of abusive relationships, something she estimated Cella had done.
“The woman here has done everything she should do and could do to be safe and to take the effort to create a new life for her and for her family,” she said, adding that it is important to recognize abusive relationships can put lives at risk.
MacDougall and her staff help about 100 new women each month, 81 per cent of whom had been experiencing partner abuse. As many as 2,000 women access the group’s support programs on a regular basis.
RCMP allege Richard set the Langley home on fire and then attacked his wife inside her bedroom. When their teenage daughter tried to help her mother, she was also attacked.
The woman, her daughter and eight-year-old son escaped the residence before it was destroyed in the fire.
While Langley RCMP did not identify the weapon used in the attack, Mission RCMP tweeted that it was a hammer.
Cella, a psychiatric nurse who worked in provincial correction facilities, was in stable condition in hospital Wednesday.
Home ownership documents list Richard’s occupation as a shipper, but a Langley journalist tweeted late Wednesday that he was recently employed at a local auto parts shop.
Richard is five-foot-eight, heavy set, and about 200 pounds, with very short dark hair and possibly facial hair. He may be driving a 2006 Grey Saturn Relay minivan with B.C. license plate 804 HWC.
Neighbour Nicole Gibson said her niece received a letter from St. Catherine’s Catholic elementary school in Langley, where the couple’s son is a student, indicating the school was on lockdown Wednesday.
Gibson said staff at St. Catherine’s had informed her that Richard had been banned from the school two weeks ago, but she was not given a reason why.
“So that’s why St. Catherine’s is in total lockdown, because they are worried about whether he’ll show up or not ... looking for his son,” she said.
“It’s scary. It’s so close to home like that, and with little kids like that, it’s just sad.”
On Tuesday, Cella, 40, filed a family law proceeding against Richard in New Westminster Supreme Court. Although the documents are not public, it appears she initiated divorce proceedings.
There is a Sonia Cella who is health care manager at Fraser Regional Correctional Centre, and is employed by Sentry Correctional Health Services Inc., which provides health services to prisoners in the custody of B.C. Corrections.
A biography of Cella on the Sentry website says she attended Douglas College and Simon Fraser University. She worked as a nurse in Calgary and then with the Fraser Health Authority in-patient psychiatry and extended care unit, and was also a nursing teacher at Stenberg and Sprott Shaw Community College. She began working for B.C. Corrections in 2007.
A manager at Sentry did not respond to an interview request.
Langley RCMP spokeswoman Holly Marks said she did not know how long the couple had been estranged, nor how he broke into the house.
The online court database shows Richard was charged Jan. 1, 2009 and Feb. 22, 2014 with assault in Langley. The charges are still before the courts.
Anyone with information about Richard is asked to call Langley RCMP at 604-532-3200.
Adrienne Castellon, principal of St. Catherine’s elementary, sent a letter to students Wednesday morning advising them of the lockdown. In it she writes: “Please be advised that there has been an incident in the neighbourhood and our school and preschool are on lockdown for the day or until the police tell us otherwise. Your children are safe. We are following direction of the authorities.”
At St. Catherine’s many parents were picking up their kids early in the day to take them home. Although none of the parents wanted to give their names, they all said they were taking their children home as a precaution. One mother said she would keep her children home tomorrow as well if the suspect was still at large.
Langley firefighters are also investigating; however, a complete search will not be possible until the house has cooled and firefighters can safely enter.
At the scene Wednesday morning, the neighbourhood was quiet.
Police cordoned off the cul-de-sac where the burned house is located. Several residents described the neighbourhood as quiet and family-friendly.
Stephanie Roukema, who has lived just a few houses down her whole life, said she doesn’t know the people who live in the house but didn’t think there had ever been any trouble there before. She awoke to sirens and police cars around 1 a.m.
“I saw the flames but I knew it must be more than just a fire,” she said.
One of the homes near the victims’ house is behind police tape. The residents declined to be interviewed and asked that their house not be shown on camera. Another neighbour said the house was the place the woman and her kids fled to after her estranged husband allegedly set fire to the house. The neighbour, who would not give her name, said she didn’t know the victims but often heard a man shouting loudly at the victims’ residence.
