Victim can now feel her legs

A British woman believed to have been stabbed by a former Territorian has defied medical opinion by regaining some feeling in her legs.

Abigail Witchalls is said to have made “significant progress” a month after the knife attack that left her paralysed from the neck down.

The development has raised hopes that the 26-year-old may one day be able to walk.

Ms Witchalls was stabbed in the neck on April 20 in a country lane in Surrey, UK, as she pushed her 21-month-old son Joseph’s pram.

The prime suspect, Richard Cazaly, who used to live at Alawa, in Darwin, with his NT girlfriend Vanessa McKenzie, killed himself by taking an overdose of paracetomol after the attack.

Immediately after the attack, two doctors declared Ms Witchalls clinically dead, but a third thought there was a glimmer of hope.

Since then, medical staff at the Middlesex Hospital have been astounded by her progress.

The latest news came as detectives examined suicide notes left by Cazaly, 23, who wrote an apparent confession 10 days after the stabbing.

Privately-educated Cazaly, allegedly a cannabis-smoking drifter, died in Scotland after overdosing on paracetomol, and left two suicide notes. In one he allegedly wrote: “I’m terribly sorry. I must be two people. I can’t remember. But I must have done it.”

Police are awaiting the results of DNA tests on Cazaly and from a bag of knives found in his car.

The blades may have been linked to his work as a chef and as a traveling juggler.

Newshawk: http://www.napnt.org
Pubdate: Wed, 18 May 2005
Source: Northern Territory News (Australia)
Author: Stephen Wright
Copyright: 2005 Northern Territory News
Contact: ntnmail@ntn.newsltd.com.au
Website: http://ntnews.news.com.au/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/283