A former sex-trade worker says she had a close call with the suspect accused of killing three women in Winnipeg.

On Monday, police said Shawn Lamb, 52, faces three second-degree murder charges for the deaths of Tanya Nepinak, 31, Lorna Blacksmith, 18, and Carolyn Sinclair, 25.

The 29-year-old woman, who didn’t want her name used, said Shawn Lamb invited her inside his suite in January on Notre Dame Avenue.

She says he offered her crack cocaine and then made advances.

"He was trying to be aggressive on me,” she said.

“I grabbed a hammer and I swung it at him and told him, ‘If you don’t let me out of your house, I’ll smash your house up,’” she said.

The woman was able to escape.

“I was like, Oh my God – I can’t believe I got out of that with my life,” she said.

The woman is speaking up because she believes there could be more victims. She said she told detectives about Lamb in April.

“My voice wasn’t heard. They didn’t do nothing about it – they just thought it was a bad date gone wrong,” said the woman.

Lamb has not been charged with the attack against her in January.

She said she’s been clean and off drugs for four months now and is looking at becoming an addictions worker, hoping to help other girls.

“I just want to do better with my life and I want to do more with my life because there is more to life than just using,” she said.

On Tuesday, police returned to one of Lamb’s former apartments to investigate.

He has a lengthy criminal record.

Lamb was first charged in 1976. Since, then he racked up 99 convictions for a variety of crimes. He's done time in federal and provincial jails from British Columbia to Alberta and Ontario. The last time he appeared before a Manitoba judge for sentencing was in 2010. Lamb was considered a high risk to reoffend.

He was on probation when police say he killed the three women.

Canada’s public safety minister said Tuesday he didn’t want to discuss the case.

“I don’t want to comment much further on that particular case,” said Vic Toews.

CTV News put in a request to speak with Lamb at the Winnipeg Remand Centre, where he is in custody. He declined to speak and referred media to his lawyer Evan Roitenberg, who recently represented Graham James.

A call to Roitenberg’s office was not returned Tuesday.

- with reports from CTV's Stacey Ashley and Caroline Barghout