Toronto Police are still on the hunt after a bloody year left 62 people slain in the city
Last Updated: 3rd January 2010, 4:48am
Of Toronto’s 62 murders of 2009, there are 28 slayings left unsolved. The victims are:
Jan. 4: Evelyn Alfaro Mendez, 34
Mendez was shot in the head in an SUV on Talwood Dr. after driving three cousins home to Toronto and visiting her boyfriend, before heading to a nightclub she never reached.
Detectives, who hoped her partying with girlfriends and dancing at Latino clubs might provide clues, said the Malton mother of three had no ties to the Leslie St. and Lawrence Ave. E. residential area where she died. The second victim of 2009 was found in the still-running vehicle that was registered to another person.
Jan. 16: Kevin Boateng, 18
With no witnesses, motive or crime scene, the ex-Bishop Marrocco-Thomas Merton Catholic Secondary School student’s stabbing remains a mystery.
“Kasa,” who had brushes with police but no criminal record, died in hospital two days after flagging down a passerby just before midnight, then collapsing on Davenport Rd., east of Old Weston Rd. Detectives believe he was attacked nearby.
Jan. 20: Basil ‘Bizzy’ Bryan, 23
The second 2009 victim of deadly violence in 12 Division was shot twice in the back at Keele St. and Avon Dr., south of Eglinton Ave. W.
A father for eight months, he and a pal went for a meal around 10 p.m. and were filmed walking by a business security camera as a lone gunman opened fire. Det.-Sgt. Savas Kyriacou said the “ambush” left the quiet young man dead and his friend luckily ducking then running before the killer strolled away.
Feb. 1: Jahmelle Grant, 26
Silent witnesses who saw Grant shot in an alleged Weston Rd.-Lawrence Ave. W. area booze can packed with patrons have frustrated homicide officers and left relatives angry.
A father of one who had brushes with the law but whose family denied he had gang ties, Grant was driven to a hospital by friends. They refused to talk to investigators.
Feb. 22: Peter Joel ‘Bugz’ Bowen, 20
The award-winning city track-and-field and cross-country competitor was shot by two gunmen in the lobby of the Driftwood Ave. apartment building where he lived with his family.
Police said Bowen was with two friends when bullets riddled a hallway and steel doors as he ran for his life, collapsing just outside the Jane-Finch area building. Rough remarks suggested he and the shooter had clashed before.
Feb. 28: Kaser Kerry St. Louis, 24
St. Louis was shot dead, then run over outside the Little Ochie Bar and Restaurant on Kennedy Rd. north of Lawrence Ave. E.
Police released two video surveillance segments related to a wild melee inside that spilled outdoors and ended with two other men wounded. Detectives say witnesses remain silent.
April 22: Omar Leyson Waite, 29
The Gators member in Toronto’s gang-plagued northwest died one day after being shot several times near rush-hour traffic at a Jane St. and Eglinton Ave. W. bus stop.
Waite had a lengthy record for assault, weapons and violence, and died two days after a rival Generals gang member was gunned down in an alley.
May 1: Jarvis St. Remy, 18
The high school student and aspiring engineer was heading home for his midnight curfew when a gunman left him dying in a Dundas St. W. bus stop west of Scarlett Rd.
Described by relatives and friends as reserved, studious and devoted to family, he died in hospital. Since her first-born’s death, his mom Clemee Joseph has made repeated appeals for youths to avoid violence.
May 11: Adrian Johnston, 14
The youngest of this year’s unresolved murder victims was gunned down on a Scarlett Rd.-St. Clair Ave. area hydro field one day after Mother’s Day.
In August, his mom was joined in a vigil by 30 people on the field for what should have been her son’s 15th birthday, saying “the sick individual who took Adrian from us is still walking the streets — Adrian is not able to do that.” Stephanie Johnston also lamented the lack of calls to police by people she was certain know who killed the Runnymede Collegiate Institute student.
June 7: Ayoob Abdulgadir Aden, 16
Well-known and liked in a Dixon Rd.-Kipling Ave. neighbourhood complex, the teen was visiting an aunt there when he was stabbed — the last male in the shattered world of his grieving mom and three sisters.
Responding to a neighbour’s call, police found him in the lobby of the building where he was with two friends in an apartment when an argument erupted with a fourth person. His two wounded friends survived, but the young teen — whose father vanished and brother died during strife 17 years ago in Africa — died a day later.
July 10: Kristian ‘Kristy’ Thanapalan, 22
Six men and a woman drinking and passing a volleyball in Glamorgan Park on Antrim Cres. in Scarborough got into an argument when one of the victim’s friends threw the ball at a car after cricket players began speeding from a parking lot.
An hour later, up to 35 men with bottles and bats swarmed Thanapalan and his pals, whose female friend was sleeping in a car. The aspiring York University student died from a blow to the back of his head and several friends suffered bruises and cuts. Police have narrowed their search for the killer after interviewing his friends, but are still trying to crack their “group mentality.”
July 19: Tevon Mitchell, 18
The year’s first fatal victim of a drive-by shooting died outside a packed upscale Scarborough mansion while attending a birthday party.
Known as “T-Pain” or “Tevo,” he was found on the driveway of the Rouge Hills Dr. home near Port Union Rd. and Lawrence Ave. E. just before 2 a.m. A West Hill Collegiate Institute student, Mitchell was among more than 80 guests inside and outside before the shots were fired and two cars drove off.
Aug. 1: Wesler ‘Tyson’ Fabien, 25
The Ottawa resident and a Montreal pal were shot around 4:30 a.m. outside the Howard Johnson on Avenue Rd. after a night of partying with friends in the Entertainment District.
The lone gunman waited in their hotel parking lot as they parked their silver Range Rover, then ran off after triggering his gun several times. Fabien died in hospital, his friend survived.
Aug. 10: Tevane Sean Anthony Lennon, 34
The furniture store worker was cycling home with groceries when he was confronted near Melody Park by a gunman outside a car occupied by at least two people on Sultan Pool Dr., near Martin Grove Rd. and Finch Ave. W., just before 11 p.m.
Lennon begged for mercy before the shooter fired more than a dozen bullets. The father of a three-year-old was gunned down near where another man survived being shot July 31 in crime-plagued Jamestown.
Sept. 2: Jamie ‘J’ Hull, 30
The drifter was reportedly shot close-up in the back in the courtyard of an eastside housing complex.
Investigators said they did not know why he was in the Blake St. complex, near Danforth and Pape Aves., where he once lived, but confirmed Hull was being sought for threatening to shoot a woman and her family. A man was seen running away.
Sept. 5: Kamal ‘Tall-up’ Hercules, 21
After spending the evening with friends, the first of two Labour Day weekend murder victims was shot outside a Rabba Fine Foods store at Sherbourne and Front Sts.
A month later, following “great co-operation” from area residents, police released surveillance photos of a potential witness to the 3:45 a.m. shooting. Hercules had no criminal history and no apparent beefs with anyone, a detective said.
Sept. 7: Sheldon Henry, 23
Hit by multiple slugs in a North York housing complex, the well-known drug dealer had a lengthy criminal record for sexual assaults, weapons and drug offences, and boasted on Facebook of his profitable exploits.
The father of two was left slumped in a doorway outside a lowrise Field Sparrow Way building northwest of Leslie St. and Finch Ave. E. Witnesses reported hearing an argument and people running from the complex, where he lived until June but regularly returned to do business.
Oct. 10: Bernard Christian Derro, 19
The teenager was one of seven people shot over the Thanksgiving weekend.
Derro, the only one killed, was found in the lobby of his Parkdale building on Jameson Ave., south of King St. W., around 11:30 p.m. Police suspect a shooter got into a first-floor apartment by a balcony, argued, then opened fire, leaving a second man wounded.
Oct. 18: Christopher Skinner, 27
Newmarket lawyer Warren Skinner and his wife, Ellen, last month offered a $25,000 reward raised by relatives, friends and colleagues, and made a desperate bid for help to find the driver who deliberately ran down their son.
Toronto Police are still seeking occupants of an SUV who confronted him at Adelaide and Victoria Sts., perhaps for touching the vehicle as it passed. He was walking home from sister Taryn’s birthday party in the Entertainment District around 3 a.m. when at least two men knocked him down, then drove over him.
Nov. 2: Theodoros Tiku, 27
Known as “Freshie” on the streets and to police who watched his exploits as a youth in Regent Park, Tiku was shot repeatedly in the head by a suspected rival gang member on Gough Ave., near Pape and Danforth Aves.
The Silent Soldiers gang leader’s bodyguard was on the wrong side of the Don River, on turf occupied by the breakaway Point Blank Souljahs. Det. Mike Carbone said Tiku appeared to have been targeted by his killer.
Nov. 11: Robert Flagiello, 18
Family and friends will have no trouble remembering last Remembrance Day, when the teenager was hit by a stray bullet fired by a man in the middle of a west-end street.
Gunfire erupted after Flagiello left an Oakwood Ave.-Vaughan Rd. area recording studio around 8:30 p.m. and an uncle said the rapper –who had just moved back into the area to help his single mom raise his two brothers — collapsed after getting friends safely inside. Five men arrested in a nearby barbershop were later released.
Nov. 17: Alexander Rodney Rundle, 28
Known as Alex, the 7th homicide victim of November was shot several times in the chest during a violent Etobicoke home invasion in the Kipling Ave.-Dixon Rd. area.
Around 7:30 p.m., three masked gunmen burst into the 129 Wincott Dr. bungalow, where four people lived, including Rundle and his father Bill, owner of Rundle’s Contracting where his son worked. Another tenant, whose name wasn’t released, escaped with a minor wound, wearing only his underwear.
Nov. 22: Shane Kelter, 32
Assassinated by a gunman near an upscale Toronto condo, the Independent Soldiers gangster from Vancouver was sought by police in California, where he was indicted in 2008 as a kingpin on conspiracy, money-laundering and drug charges along with two other Toronto men and three other Canadians.
Kelter and Vancouver friends spent the night at an Exhibition Place club and had just left their limousine to visit a friend’s condo when a gunman approached, opened fire, dropped his handgun and ran off. The motive for his shooting on St. Joseph St. remains unknown, but abandoning such a weapon is a gangland hitman-style trademark.
Nov. 22: Alton Reid, 35
The Malvern Crew member formerly with the Versace Crew died one day after being shot in the head in a gang-related attack during a birthday party at the Atlanta Banquet Hall.
About 200 people were in the Ellesmere Rd. hall when bullets from at least two guns fired by men who bought tickets to the party felled him and left four “innocent bystanders” with lesser injuries, Det. Paul Worden said. The Pickering father of one was acquitted after his arrest during a 2004 police sweep of the Malvern Crew, but had a 2003 record for possessing a gun.
Dec. 3: Aeon ‘Gates’ Grant, 19
An apparent ambush left the teen with a fatal head wound and three “friends” injured after being targeted by a gunman in a stairwell of a North York public housing highrise where Toronto Police later focused on a crackhouse for possible clues.
Det.-Sgt. Gary Giroux called the shooting just before midnight on the 15th floor of 30 Falstaff Ave., near Jane St. and Hwy. 401, a “very focused attack on these individuals,” who were left with nowhere to escape. Of the three survivors who ran off, two 17-year-olds were found in a nearby plaza and a 25-year-old walked into a hospital.
Dec. 7: Laura Rios-Gleggro, 45
The shooting of the Colombia-born businesswoman and mother of three, who for 20 years ran a shipping business between Canada, Ecuador and her homeland, was all-the-more chilling since she was slain while tending to her little daughter.
Emma, 2, was unhurt in the backseat of her mom’s truck when the owner of Rios Envios was ambushed around 8:45 p.m. by a waiting gunman outside her Weston apartment building north of Lawrence Ave. In a letter on colombiaenlondon.com, she said two Colombians in November 2008 offered to develop a computer program for her firm but she lost $10,000 in the venture and customers were ripped off after her client and business database was stolen.
Dec. 9: Tafari ‘Tuff’ Spear, 30
A gangster arrested in 2003 during a police sweep of the Tretheway Gangsta Killers died in a hail of bullets that left a suspected rival street gang member wounded, police say.
The shooter and 50 patrons in the Classic Cocktails bar on Wilson Ave. fled after the shooting, and Det.-Sgt. Wayne Banks said only a handful of people bothered to contact police later. Uncertain if Spear was targeted for his gang links, Banks was particularly keen to talk to three women who were with the victim when he was shot.
Dec. 29: Kenneth Mark, 29
Captured on surveillance videos, a gunman and his lookout are sought after Toronto’s last murder victim of the year was shot in the back of the head around 10 p.m. while heading home in the Gilmour Ave.-Dundas St. W. area with a pizza slice after his Wal-Mart shift.
The 6-foot-5 “gentle giant” was an activist who worked with police to protect the Junction area from violence. Shot with a pellet gun in 2008 after asking two men not to bring firearms near a playground, friends believe he was targeted for standing up to thugs and Det. Hank Idsinga said police believe the killers mapped out Mark’s nightly routine.
IAN.ROBERTSON@SUNMEDIA.CA
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