Pistakee Highlands woman recounts attack, how she survived
By JILLIAN DUCHNOWSKI -
jduchnowski@nwherald.com
PISTAKEE HIGHLANDS – Stephanie Brotherton said she thought Bill Canales was acting strangely as she drove him to his boss’ house. But she said she never expected that he’d launch an attack that left her with multiple stab wounds and fighting for her life.
Brotherton, 29, said she had considered Canales, 41, who lives near her father in Pistakee Highlands, a casual friend since they met about two years ago. She had given him rides before. When he requested one Friday, she arrived about 5 p.m.
“When I picked him up, he didn’t have a facial expression,” Brotherton said.
“It was like it wasn’t him.”
Police are continuing their investigation after arresting Canales, of 5012 Westwood Drive near Johnsburg, during the weekend on charges of attempted first-degree murder and aggravated battery. Canales’ attorney, Assistant Public Defender Chris Harmon, declined to comment Tuesday.
Brotherton discussed the ordeal publicly for the first time Tuesday as she continued her recovery after being released from the hospital Monday evening.
“Why he would do this to me, I don’t know,” Brotherton said. “We’ve never even argued or had bad words between us.”
Brotherton said Canales had her pull her truck into a cul-de-sac in a lumberyard near Route 12 and State Park Road outside Spring Grove.
He walked around her truck and started stabbing her with what she thought was a household steak knife as she sat in the driver’s seat, she said. She initially was in shock but began fighting back, she said, at one point wrestling the knife from him outside on the ground and stabbing him three times.
Brotherton said that Canales grabbed a metal board and smashed her in the face, which Brotherton believed broke her nose. She ran back to her truck, locked the door and laid on the horn. But Canales broke the driver’s side window with a shovel and started hitting her with it, she said.
“It’s so secluded that nobody heard me,” Brotherton said. “I was screaming and yelling.”
She got out of the truck, and he began punching her and then kicking her.
When the attack was over, she climbed back in the truck, where it seemed like she sat for hours, Brotherton said. When he got cold, Canales climbed into a semi-tractor about 15 feet from her truck.
“Everything on my body was bloody,” Brotherton said. “I was pouring blood from everywhere.”
At one point, he asked her to help look for the keys to her truck, promising to take her to the hospital if she found them or if she gave him a spare key, she said. He said his wife was going to leave him and he wasn’t sure why he did what he did, Brotherton said.
At another point, Canales said he was going to wait until she died, Brotherton said.
“ ‘Look, Stephanie, I’m not going to kill you. I’m going to wait for you to die, and I’m going to bury you,’ ” Brotherton said. “That’s what he told me.”
The first time she started walking toward Route 12, he ran after her and dragged her back to her truck, she said. Later, though, he said he was going to walk up to his boss’ house to get medical help for both of them.
He told her to stay in the truck, but she made her escape a few minutes after his footsteps faded.
“I didn’t shut my door, because I was afraid if I made a sound he would hear it and he would come back,” Brotherton said.
The first few cars that passed her on Route 12 honked their horns and kept going. But one stopped abruptly, and a man — who Brotherton calls her angel – offered help.
“I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for him saving me,” Brotherton said. “I owe my life to that man.”
Rescue crews took her to Centegra Hospital – McHenry and she was flown to Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge.
In all, Brotherton said she suffered a broken nose, two broken fingers on her left hand, a fractured finger on her right hand, and seven stab wounds, most to her upper left torso. She has 11 staples in the back of her head.
Canales remained in McHenry County Jail on Tuesday night, unable to post 10 percent of his $300,000 bail.
