WARNING: This article may affect those who have experienced sexual violence or know someone affected by it.
After 90-year-old Mary was raped, she got herself to a hospital, only to be “turned away with a pat on the head,” her son told a courtroom as he read aloud his victim impact statement at a hearing for the man who violently attacked his mother.
Mary is not the victim’s real name; it is a pseudonym CBC News has used in order to respect a publication ban protecting her identity.
A dangerous offender and sentencing hearing is underway in Calgary for Duran Ross Buffalo, 41, who was convicted of aggravated sexual assault and break-and-enter to commit sexual assault by a jury last year.
Prosecutors are trying to have Buffalo designated as a dangerous offender and handed an indeterminate sentence.
‘I can’t stop crying’: Jurors hear tearful 911 call from 90-year-old rape victim
Before she died in 2024, Mary learned that her rapist had been caught and charged, and she wrote a powerful victim impact statement that was read aloud by her daughter on Friday morning.
The assault, said Mary, “ruined the life that day; destroyed it.”
“The rape is now part of my person, an ugly part.”
For more than a decade before the assault, Mary had been living in a secure assisted living apartment building in Calgary where residents would leave their doors ajar so that home care workers could let themselves in.
On Jan. 1, 2021, Buffalo broke into the apartment building and staff called police. Officers searched the building for about 20 minutes before assuming he had left.
In reality, Buffalo was hiding in the storage room of Mary’s apartment.
“I was awakened later sensing someone in my room and opened my eyes to see this man at the end of my bed,” wrote Mary. “I tried desperately to fight him, but he was too strong for me.”
Mary said she weighed less than 100 pounds at the time and was under five feet tall.
She described Buffalo holding her down with his hand over her mouth to muffle her screams.
“When it was over, I could hardly believe I was alive,” she said.
Mary got herself to a hospital, where she said medical staff believed her early-stage dementia was to blame for her story.
Around 5 a.m., hours after being raped, Mary took a taxi back to her apartment.
She wrote that she was “distraught, and not believed. It was an awful experience. I felt so helpless.”
Her daughter arrived from Edmonton that morning and discovered Buffalo’s shirt in her mother’s apartment. They called police, and officers took Mary for a rape kit at a nearby urgent care centre.
“I agreed to do this because I wanted people to understand this assault really happened to me,” she wrote.
In the aftermath, Mary said she felt “traumatized, cold, violated and scared that this could happen again to me.”
She ended up leaving Calgary, where her husband is buried, so that she could live with her daughter in Edmonton.
“This man stole my home from me; he stole my peace of mind,” said Mary. “To have my final years poisoned … left me sad and weary and lonesome.”
Buffalo’s dangerous offender hearing continues next week.
Court of King’s Bench Justice Michele Hollins has already heard evidence presented by prosecutors Matt Dalidowicz and Stephanie Morton that Buffalo is in the highest risk category for reoffending.
Dangerous offender hearing underway in Calgary for man who raped 90-year-old, sexually assaulted 5 kids
He has a 20-year history of sexual and violent offences, including crimes against children as young as four years old. Prosecutors say Buffalo’s risk to the community is unmanageable.
After his attack on Mary, her “health spiralled downhill immediately,” according to her son.
She died in 2024.
Before her death, Mary wrote that she was no longer able to look at herself in the mirror.
“The outside bruises have now faded, but I am still bruised emotionally.”
