Sudbury man gets life sentence for violent attack on woman and her baby

The man who pleaded guilty to a vicious 2019 knife attack on a Sudbury woman and her baby has been sentenced to life in prison.

Alexander Stavropoulos, 28, has been sentenced to life in prison for the random attack that happened in a busy box store parking lot on Marcus Drive in early June 2019.

In a Sudbury court on Wednesday, Justice Karen Lische recounted the facts in the case saying on the day of the attack Stavropoulos took a bus from his apartment to get a coffee, then made his way to Home Depot and purchased a pack of four utility knives. It was stated that he was looking for larger knives but he took what they had. He discarded two of the knives in the parking lot and kept the other two.

Stavropoulos waited hours for the "right little white girl" to kill, Lische said, and when he saw a baby in a stroller, with her mother and three-year-old sister, he knew she was "the one."

It was also said that Stavropoulos knew he had to kill the baby’s mother first so that he could execute his plan to kill the young child.

He targeted these strangers because of their gender, Caucasian race, and the youngest child because of her age, Lische said.

At the sentencing hearing, the court heard that the mother Stavropoulos attacked is permanently disabled now, after being stabbed several times in the attack more than two years ago.

Lische said the first stab was to the back of the woman's neck before she was repeatedly stabbed in the neck and head.

There was a significant injury to the mother, who nearly died, Lische said.

The court also heard the attacker had tried to stab the women’s 8-month-old baby and punched at the stroller five to six times.

"His motivation, in whole or part, was hatred of white females as he felt rejected by them," Lische said.

"Although the nature of the attack was unprovoked and random, it was focused on Alexander Stavropoulos' clear intent to kill a young white girl."

She said the lives of the "heroic bystanders" -- who helped save two people that day – are forever traumatized by the events. One of the people who "helped save the mother's life" was a family medicine resident who worked in the emergency room at Health Sciences North.

Stavropoulos has been in jail since the stabbing took place.

He will be eligible for parole after serving 10 years in prison.

The 2019 incident was not his first violent attack in Sudbury. Stavropolous served 99 days in jail for another knife attack at the Sudbury transit terminal on April 1, 2018. He was on probation at the time of the second attack.