Four suspects have been charged after Sarnia police said people staying in a motel room were held against their will during an invasion and robbery, the city’s fourth since last summer.
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The occupants of the room at the Bluewater Motel on London Line were not injured despite being briefly held against their will before police were called shortly before 6 am Tuesday, police said.
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In an update Thursday, police called it a targeted incident. Four Sarnia residents – Benjamin Lockery, 24, Sarah Daponte, 34, Kasandra McKelvey, 35, and Kenneth Tobey, 40 – are charged with forcible confinement, robbery, and breaking and entering.
Spelled Lockery on the court docket but Lockrey on social media and in a 2021 Sarnia police missing-person report, the 24-year-old with ties to the Petrolia-Brigden area was held in custody and will be returned in court Friday. Daponte and McKelvey were both released with court dates in mid-February. Tobey will also be in court Friday.
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“These obviously are very, very serious allegations. They are concerning,” assistant Crown attorney Lori MacIntosh said during one of the accused’s bail hearings, which wasn’t covered by a publication ban.
The court Sarah Mailloux and Steven Page, a couple from Sarnia, according to social media, were held against their will in Unit 25 at the motel.
“The individuals are very fearful and I think that it’s not unfounded fear in the circumstances when individuals who do not normally reside at that… hotel broke in as retribution,” MacIntosh said, adding the forcible confinement allegedly involves gagging.
The court heard the altercation may have been tied to the Sarnia drug subculture.
One of the accused, Daponte, has past drug convictions, including for trafficking methamphetamine in 2016, which net her an 18-month jail sentence. But the bail court heard she’s accused of having a lesser role in the motel incident and justice of the peace Kelly Jackson, who granted her $250 lease, said her prior record is becoming somewhat outdated.
While out on lease, Daponte can’t go back to the motel or contact Page, Mailloux, or any of her co-accused. None of the charges against any of them have been tested in court.
This is at least the fourth Sarnia home invasion since last summer. The previous incidents took place in July on Earlscourt Drive, though a suspect wasn’t until arrested September, in late August on Napier Street, and in October on Afton Drive.
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