A woman taken hostage in her Dufferin home last week says her captor, who died there in an explosion and blaze, tormented her for hours and threatened to set her on fire.
Sherry Young, 44, told CFJC that she knew 48-year-old Dennan Crosby only as a former colleague and was not his ex-girlfriend as reported earlier. Police continue to maintain the pair had a six-month relationship last year.
Crosby’s family said he came from Langley, according to B.C. Coroner Service. Police said his last known address was Surrey, and Kamloops RCMP are working with Surrey police to determine whether Crosby had a stash of more explosives.
Crosby was not a resident of Kamloops, but may have been here for a work contract, said Kamloops RCMP Staff Sgt. Grant Learned.
Learned said Crosby also had a history in Vegreville, Alta., and had a criminal record in that province related to property crime and substance abuse.
The only legal issue related to Crosby in B.C. was a driving infraction in Surrey dating back to September 2005.
The victim said she and her four children, along with her boyfriend, David Madore and his two kids, were arriving home last Thursday evening when Crosby pulled up in a white van.
She said Crosby had a “crazed and wild look in his eyes” and that the adults tried to get everyone into the house.
As the front door was being closed, Crosby forced his way in with the barrel of a gun, which went off in front of her face,” Young said Tuesday in an interview with CFJC-TV.
“As we were entering the house, Denann had the gun aimed at David’s chest as he had turned around to shield three of the five children. My 11-year-old son later said that he thought David was going to die.”
While Young’s boyfriend and the children escaped, Crosby held her hostage.
“He kept taunting me by showing me all the things that he had in his bag that he had planned to do to me. One of them was a fire starter and he was going to spray it on me and light me on fire,” Young said.
“He made me watch a video of his test explosions of the explosives that were on his chest on a harness.”
RCMP Staff Sgt. Grant Learned told a news conference Tuesday that Young and Crosby began seeing each other casually starting in April 2011.
“This went on for a couple of months,” he said. “And they began dating after that and this continued on until the early part of September, when the relationship started to wane.”
Madore said on the weekend Young would have died if a police negotiator who was speaking to Crosby by phone hadn’t persuaded him to let her go.
Crosby released Young just after midnight Friday, and about 10 minutes later, the phone went silent as the negotiator was speaking to the man who set off explosives that killed him and caused a fire.
Young’s home was destroyed in the inferno.
THE DAILY NEWS/ THE CANADIAN PRESS
