[1]Billie Jo McNaughton waits to reunite with her daughter after police close all access to the Trenton mobile park. Det. Sgt. Brad Robson said the OPP were investigating a home invasion and minor assault. The park was closed for two hours while OPP officers on the ground and OPP helicopter searched for suspects. No suspects were found. The victim suffered minor injuries. Photo by Linda Horn.
By Renée Rodgers
Fredrickton Farrell says his trailer has been robbed for Oxycontin before.
Farrell, who suffers from a number of diseases, including Lyme disease, takes the prescription medication for pain. About a year ago, Farrell returned to his Trenton home to find his trailer ransacked and his medication missing.
But last week Farrell was home when he was attacked by two assailants.
The afternoon of Sept. 28, he heard a knock at his front door.
“I went to the front door – nobody,” he said in an interview, two days after the incident. “I thought, ‘well maybe it’s the dogs’. I have two dogs. So I went to my back door – nothing.”
Farrell returned down the hall of his trailer.
“Next thing you know I was poked with something sharp in the back on the neck, grabbed by the back of the head, told to look straight forward and ‘Give me your F-ing blister packs’,” he said. “And I thought it was kind of like a joke, you know? Like one of my friends trying to say: ‘Look how easy it is to rob you’ type thing.”
Farrell said the two assailants then put a pillowcase over his head before he could see their identities and tied it at his neck with electrical cord. They also used the cord to bind his hands. Farrell said they demanded to know where his medication was, hitting him over the head three times with a hammer. Farrell said he denied having the medication at first, but finally told them where it was.
When Farrell was sure the robbers had gone, he managed to open his kitchen drawer, find a knife and cut a hole in the pillowcase on his head large enough to see to dial 911 with the back of his hand.
Police arrived soon after and Farrell was taken away by ambulance.
That was the first siren Shelley Hannah, a neighbor who lives near Farrell, heard that day.
“I never thought anything of it,” she said. The sound of sirens, she said, is not uncommon where she lives.
“Then about 10 minutes later, all these cops came in,” she said. “We counted 17 police officers. There was canine. I don’t know how many there were. I only seen one dog but my neighbour said there was more.”
Hannah said about 30 minutes later, she heard noises overhead.
“There was a helicopter in the air, flying around the whole area,” she said. “They locked the whole park down. No one could go in and no one could go out.”
Hannah, as well as other residents, reported the park was locked down for around two hours while police investigated.
Sharon Haisma, who lives a few trailers down from Farrell, was home at the time.
“I had just laid down for a nap,” she said. “I heard sirens so I walked into the kitchen and looked out the window. The police had the property taped off and I saw six or eight police cruisers lined up along the road.”
Farrell was released from the hospital after his wounds were treated. He said his first thought after the incident was to leave the park, but now he thinks he’ll stay.
“By the time you sell and move and you know, find a place, it’s a lot of money,” he said.
He also said the incident hasn’t made him scared to be in his own home.
“Just more cautious,” he said. “(I plan to) keep one eye open all the time. Actually I went out and brought a brand new lock for the door. Just beef up security, add a camera, one that I can look at the screen all the time, see my back yard.”
Yet memories of the robbery will continue to haunt him.
“It’s a shame that we have to live like this, with one eye open,” he said.