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Knifing victim feared for his life in attack by daughter’s boyfriend

Father had gone to daughter’s home to help her when boyfriend attacked
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A Red Deer father who raced to his daughter’s home after getting a Facebook plea for help, described fighting for his life as her drunken boyfriend attacked him with a knife.

Travis Peterson testified in Red Deer Court of Queen’s Bench Thursday that he did not even put on his shoes before he sped in his truck at about 5 a.m. Aug. 6, 2017, to his daughter, Shalyn Peterson’s, Oriole Park home.

When he arrived, she was holed up in a bathroom “scared and frantic” after an alcohol-fuelled fight with boyfriend Linden Joseph Lee Buffalo, then 27.

Peterson said that after arriving, he immediately went into a bedroom where Buffalo was pretending to be asleep, straddled him and punched him in the face once.

As he left the room, Buffalo came at him with a knife. Peterson partially deflected the first blow, which went about five centimetres into his neck, causing permanent nerve damage. Buffalo then stabbed him in the hip.

“I was fighting for my life to get out of there,” he testified before Justice Marilyn Slawinsky.

Buffalo is on trial for aggravated assault and mischief in connection with the attack. He was originally charged with attempted murder, assault and mischief.

Peterson, 42, testified the attack continued into the hallway, where he tried to wrest the knife away from Buffalo.

“You could see the stab marks in the walls from me trying to fight him off,” he said.

At one point, Peterson grabbed the blade with his hand, cutting it open, as he tried to pry the weapon from Buffalo’s grasp.

During the fight, he kept yelling at the intoxicated Buffalo, whom he described as being like a son to him. “Linden, no!” I kept saying. “It’s me, Linden.”

Fearing for his life, a blood-soaked Peterson ran out of the house. His daughter was waiting with her infant son, and all three got into his truck, which he drove to hospital as fast as he could.

“My daughter is crying and screaming, telling me I’m going to die. I said ‘I’m not going to die,’ ” he testified.

Peterson described how he crawled into hospital, leaving a trail of blood, before breaking down in tears on the stand. Court broke for a few minutes so he could compose himself.

Crown prosecutor Greg Gordon asked him how he knew Buffalo was intoxicated.

“The look in his eye,” Peterson answered. “He was just so out of it.”

Shalyn Peterson, 22, testified earlier she and Buffalo got into an argument at their home after a night of drinking at home and at a pub.

The spat soon escalated, and when Peterson threatened to call police, he grabbed her cellphone and smashed it on the floor. She ran into a bathroom with her iPad and got hold of her father through Facebook Messenger.

She described her father punching Buffalo once and the ensuing fight, but did not see him get stabbed.

“I saw there was blood everywhere.”

Peterson ran upstairs to get her mother-in-law to call police and also ran outside shouting to neighbours to call 911.

Before leaving with her father, she saw Buffalo standing by the door, looking bewildered.

“He was standing there like he couldn’t believe what just happened,” she said.

The Crown prosecutor and defence will present their closing arguments Friday morning. Defence lawyer Andrew Phypers said he intends to argue Buffalo acted in self-defence.