A young woman’s bachelorette weekend in Dallas took a horrifyingly violent turn when she was viciously assaulted outside a nightclub, leaving her severely injured just a month before her wedding.
Bachelorette weekend interrupted by random assailant
Canada Rinaldi, 27, had traveled from Oklahoma with six friends for a weekend of pre-nuptial festivities, but the trip was derailed in the early hours of March 22 when she was suddenly attacked while leaving a nightclub, according to the Dallas Police Department.
“So I remember walking toward the back of the car, and then I remember waking up in an ambulance,” Rinaldi told FOX 4 Dallas. “That’s all I remember.”
The shocking incident was captured on an Uber driver’s dash camera, ending with Rinaldi unconscious on the pavement as an assailant with a backpack fled the scene.
“And so I saw this man walk up behind Canada, and he reached his arm out, and it kind of looked like he was going to take her cowgirl hat off of her head, but then immediately he just threw his arm back and punched her,” her sister Brienna Rinaldi told the outlet.
According to the group of bridesmaids, they had no prior interaction with the man that could have led to the provocation of the random attack.
“I screamed at him. I said, ‘What’s wrong with you?'” Brienna Rinaldi recalled. “And then, once I saw Canada, I was just screaming her name, and I remember screaming, ‘My sister, my sister!'”
Bachelorette weekend ends with bride in the hospital
The brutal assault left the 27-year-old bride-to-be with a broken nose, multiple fractured teeth, and a concussion. She also required eight stitches on her face, adding to the trauma just weeks before her wedding.
“It’s just shocking,” she told WFAA. “It’s hard to believe. I feel like a lot of my experiences were taken away from me.”
“I feel like I’m not excited to plan my wedding anymore,” she added.
Kelly Peralta, the aunt of Rinaldi’s fiancé, was also injured while attempting to protect her, and sustained a black eye as a result of the encounter.
“We started walking across the street to get into the Uber, and that’s when he came from behind and he punched Canada, and she went straight down, and I turned to push him away, and that’s when he got me,” Peralta recounted.
Kirsten McDowell, one of Rinaldi’s friends present that night, launched a fundraiser to help cover her medical expenses.
“Just 24 hours earlier, she had told us she was having ‘the best trip of her life,’” McDowell wrote on the fundraising page.
“That happiness was ripped away from her in an instant, turning it into the most terrifying and traumatizing night she’s ever experienced.”
McDowell stated that Rinaldi’s medical costs have reached $10,000, and over $20,000 has been raised on the GoFundMe page as of the time of publishing.
Despite the ordeal, Rinaldi remains optimistic that she will recover in time for her wedding. “My face is healing so quickly. I will be almost if not fully healed on the outside by the wedding, depending how my nose heals,” Rinaldi told People.
“I will still have the best day of my life with the person I love no matter what I look like.”
Suspect has a lengthy criminal record
On Friday, Dallas police arrested 27-year-old Trevon Woodards in connection with the assault, FOX 4 Dallas reported.
Officers used a stun gun to subdue him before taking him into custody, according to police records.
Woodards has a significant criminal history, including previous charges of assaulting a police officer, misdemeanor assault, and burglary. He had recently been released on parole before the attack, according to reports.
Court documents from Dallas County reveal that Woodards was originally charged with felony assault in September 2021 but later pleaded guilty to a lesser misdemeanor offense.
A police report from the 2021 case details how Woodards interfered with officers attempting to detain a suspect with felony warrants.
When ordered multiple times to back away, he refused, then grabbed an officer’s shirt and head, attempting to gouge the officer’s eyes, according to the report.
Records indicate he was sentenced to a year of community service and spent 10 days in jail in February for violating his probation.
