The Craig Kelloway Case: Friendly Night Of Neighbor Bonding Turns To A Brutal Knife Attack

[Alberta, Canada]

Minutes after this photo was taken, middle school teacher Craig Kelloway (31) was viciously stabbed 37 times.

In spring of 2013, Craig moved into a new neighborhood surrounded by new neighbors.

On May 4th, he met another couple who was also new to the neighborhood, Nicholas Raspberry (25) and his wife. Craig thought that inviting them to a barbecue at his house with his girlfriend would be the perfect way to make new friends in the area. They took pictures and enjoyed a few beers together.

In the early morning hours of May 5th, Nick made a panicked 911 call. “There was a guy stabbed multiple times by me. Oh my god…I stabbed him everywhere”, he said. When police arrived on the scene, they found Craig on Nick’s living room floor. Before they could make it to the hospital, he died from his wounds in the ambulance.

Now police were left with trying to piece together what exactly happened that night.

Raspberry told investigators that they had a cookout at Craig’s house before moving the party back to his house. Craig’s girlfriend headed home while Nick’s wife headed to bed which left the two men alone together. According to Nick, Craig grabbed him by his shirt and threatened to punch him if he didn’t have sex with him. He went on to explain that Craig told him his wife was the next to be raped so he grabbed a knife and started stabbing Craig in self defense. “I felt it was him or me”, he said with his head down. Police expected Nick to have a few scrapes and bruises to support the fact that Craig had slammed him up against a wall and scuffled with him. However, he did not have any injuries whatsoever.

An examination of the bloody crime scene revealed that three different butcher knives were used to stab Craig. Two of them were broken due to the amount of force that was used. One of the blades was located lodged into Craig’s back. There were a significant number of defensive wounds on his arms and hands, so severe that his thumb was almost cut off.

The autopsy showed that he had been stabbed a total of 37 times which penetrated areas such as his throat, diaphragm, lungs. Nick claimed that the attack stemmed from self defense, but most of the stab wounds were focused on the back of Craig’s body. Furthermore, a medical examiner determined Craig received another major puncture wound after his heart had stopped beating.

Nick was arrested on the night of the crime and charged with second degree murder two days later. He spent 13 months in police custody while awaiting trial until he was granted bail.

His trial lasted for a month before a judge decided to sentence him to a lesser charge of manslaughter. Nick showed no emotion as the judge read out that he would have to serve 7 years in prison. In June of 2020, he was granted day parole which means that he is permitted to participate in public activities during the day, but is required to return to prison every night. The Parole Board of Canada ruled Nicholas Rasberry’s risk is manageable in the community.