By JASON HEWLETT
Daily News Staff Reporter
The parishioner who directed a man toward the bishop he ended up attacking was not concerned at the time that he might be dangerous.
Adele Huculak said Monday the man charged with viciously beating Bishop David Monroe came to the Sacred Heart Cathedral Friday night looking to talk to a priest.
She was setting up for her sister’s wedding when a man approached her outside the cathedral and asked to see a priest.
“He just seemed like an average guy looking to see a priest. It was not anything to be overly concerned about,” she said, adding it’s not unusual for someone to come to Sacred Heart with that request.
John Bandura, 30, is charged with aggravated assault, assault with a weapon, and mischief following the attack that took place at the rectory on Nicola Street late Friday night.
Monroe, 69, suffered a severe head injury and remains in critical condition at Royal Inland Hospital.
“I could only imagine the terror that someone must feel when someone attacks them,” said Huculak, a young adult co-ordinator.
She said she can barely remember what Monroe’s assailant looked like. It was dark and he was wearing a ball cap.
“I don’t even think I could identify him on the street if I saw him,” she said.
Bandura was admitted to RIH earlier in that evening, a fact RCMP didn’t learn until their investigation into the beating was well underway, said Sgt. Scott Wilson.
RCMP followed a blood trail away from Sacred Heart, which eventually disappeared. Wilson said police believe the suspect swam across the Thompson River.
“At 10:30 p.m. we didn’t know who the guy was. We didn’t know why he had assaulted the bishop. We didn’t know where he had gone,” he said.
Investigators looked at what else had gone on in the city that could be associated to the beating. Police learned officers were called to a disturbance at RIH at about 8:50 p.m. Friday when a patient smashed a window near the hospital’s cafeteria.
Wilson said the man, who turned out to be Bandura, was admitted with “mental health concerns.” Through conversations with Bandura’s family, officers learned he had been fixating on religion at the time.
Wilson said hospital staff could not prevent Bandura from leaving RIH.
“When you are self-admitted, you can leave . . . on your own accord,” he said.
Bandura’s father, Rod Bandura, lives at the G & M Trailer Park on reserve land. Police, assisted by an RCMP helicopter and dog services team, found the suspect at about 1 a.m. Saturday hiding inside his dad’s shed.
Bandura spent the weekend at the Kamloops Regional Correctional Centre.