"I want to find out who did this to me and why," said a tearful Elizabeth Louie Friday, April 4, the day after she suffered an assault that has left her badly bruised and frightened in her own neighbourhood.
Her movements slow and in visible pain, Louie described what she can remember of the events of early Thursday morning around 3:30 a.m. from where she was recuperating at her mother's house.
After drinking for a while with her sister, Louie got a ride back alone to her home on Stotlou Road just outside of Duncan. There was a party going on at a nearby house, so she decided to head there to continue her evening.
The people there, at least 15 to 20 according to Louie and her partner Mark Puska, who was asleep at the time of the assault, were "friends and family, so I thought it would be all right," Louie said.
She remembers being at the party and having some drinks, and thinks she was trying to leave when it happened. Her memory is spotty.
"I remember being hit and covering myself," she said, also recalling being struck so hard she saw bright lights.
There were at least two people hitting her, Louie said, but one of the things that disturbs her the most about the attack is that nobody came to her aid and stopped the violence.
"I remember screaming and telling them to stop and 'somebody help me'," she said. "All it would have taken was one person."
She would have intervened if it was happening to someone else, she said.
One of the attackers grabbed her by the throat and said he was going to mess up her face, Louie said.
Another threatened to cut off her breasts so that nobody would want her anymore.
"It's all so foggy," she said. "They could have killed me."
Louie got out of the house and began screaming for her mother.
Injured and bleeding, she made her way to her home, a trailer beside her mom's house. Police and an ambulance were called, and Louie was taken to hospital, where it was determined she had suffered some serious bruising.
"I've got bruises all over my head," she said.
She doesn't know why she was attacked, but speculates it might have been for the diamond in her ring, which was pried out during the assault, leaving her finger bloody.
On Monday, Louie made her statement to the police.
"Ms. Louie has attended our detachment and supplied the investigator with a second, more formal statement," said Cpl. Krista Hobday. "The investigator is now acting on that information as he conducts his investigation into the allegations. We cannot speak to the specifics of the contents of the statement until they are verified or negated by way of a thorough investigation."
Louie said she remains afraid for her safety, but is determined to try to find justice. "What's going to stop them from doing this to someone else?" she asked. "I don't want this to happen to somebody else.
"Nobody deserves this."