London, Ont. man pleads guilty to random stabbing of elderly woman

Cristepher Young-Hough has pleaded guilty after stabbing an elderly woman unprovoked last year. CTV’s Nick Paparella reports.

While walking her dog along Brydges Street in east London in August 2024, 78-year-old Betty O’Loughlin couldn’t believe she was being attacked.

“I thought he was going to kill me, I thought I was a goner, I was scared,” she told CTV News after the stabbing. “He pushed me to the ground and then started hitting me with a knife.”

A London courtroom heard Betty eventually recovered from her injuries after receiving staples in hospital but died this past summer from issues not related to the attack.

On Thursday, the man responsible for the stabbing, Cristefer Young-Hough, 33, pled guilty to one count of aggravated assault in connection with the case.

In an agreed statement of facts, Crown Attorney Cara Douglas said, “The assault appeared to be completely unprovoked.”

The court heard that Young-Hough suffers from mental health issues.

At the time of the stabbing, he reached out to his mother Shannon Young, who ended up calling police. In a witness statement she said, “He [Young-Hough] texted me and said that he stabbed an old lady...I said, ‘Jesus what are you talking about?’ I kept telling him you need to turn yourself in.”

When eventually arrested by police, the court heard the accused asked officers, “What took you guys so long?”

And when he spoke about the attack to police, “He said it was like stabbing lemon meringue pie.”

During the proceedings, Young-Hough also pled guilty to assault causing bodily harm in connection to an attack that injured a corrections officer while in custody at the Elgin-Middlesex Detention Centre in November 2024.

The case has now been put over until Jan. 19, 2026, with the Crown seeking a psychiatric assessment before looking into a dangerous offender application in regard to Young-Hough.