CUEVAS o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2006-07-14 published
No motive apparent in garage double killing
Scarborough deaths and fatal shooting in West End bring city
homicide total to 38
By Timothy
APPLEBY and Scott
ROBERTS,
Page
A10
Toronto's homicide total for the year has risen to 38 after a
middle-aged woman and a 31-year-old father of three were found
slain in a blood-soaked garage on a quiet Scarborough street.
The shooting took place late Wednesday. In an unrelated gun incident
earlier the same evening on the other side of the city, a man
newly released from prison was shot in the head. He died of his
injuries yesterday.
Both of the Scarborough victims, believed to be Canadians of
Filipino origin, were shot in the head and were discovered by
the man's wife when she returned home, police said. The relationship
between the two deceased was not clear, police said.
Two assailants believed to be Filipino or southern Asian, wearing
light-coloured shirts, were being sought.
Detective Mike
BARSKY of the homicide squad discounted widely
circulating suggestions that the female victim -- identified
by other police sources as Isabelita
MALEJANA, 56, of west-end
Toronto -- was a transsexual or transvestite. "I don't know where
that came from," he said.
A former neighbour said Ms.
MALEJANA was married with children.
The family used to live on Embro Drive, near Allen Road and Sheppard
Avenue.
"It's so sad that this happened," said Emily, who spoke on the
condition that her last name not be published. "She was very
quiet. She didn't come out of the house very much. The family
kept to themselves for the most part."
Emily said the family moved away from the area about a year-and-a-half
ago, but she didn't know where they had been planning to relocate.
Speculation that the crime was a murder-suicide is false, Det.
BARSKY
said. However, no motive was immediately apparent.
The second victim was identified as Virgilio
CUEVAS, whose wife
discovered the bodies at 58 Canoe Cres., near Steeles Avenue
and Markham Road, when she opened her garage door at around 8: 40 p.m.
and called 911.
Mr. CUEVAS and Ms.
MALEJANA were pronounced dead on arrival at
Sunnybrook hospital.
Neighbours described seeing a bloody scene inside the garage
after police arrived.
"I came outside and ran across the street and saw the police
running with their guns out," said Jupiter
ENGRACIA, who lives
down the street from the house.
"There was a body in the garage with blood spattered everywhere."
When emergency crews removed the other body, it was wrapped in
a blanket, Mr.
ENGRACIA said.
Ammunition was reported to have been found in the home, but police
said there was no sign of a gun at the crime scene.
The couple's three children, all believed to be under 5, were
in the house at the time and were uninjured.
Late in the evening, police removed them from the family home.
Neighbours said they often saw Mr.
CUEVAS playing outside with
his children.
Yesterday, police tape cordoned off the front yard of the home
as a police cruiser guarded the area. A lawn mower and three
small bicycles sat in the yard.
Neighbours said they were shocked that such a gruesome slaying
could happen in this quiet, newly built subdivision.
"This is scary; it's just two houses away," said Darwin
RUBIO,
"My wife wants to move…. This makes her want to move more so."
Separately on Wednesday night, a man in his 40s and just freed
from jail for breach of probation was also taken to Sunnybrook
hospital in critical condition.
Shot and wounded in an apartment above a bar on Weston Road near
Eglinton Avenue, he succumbed to his wounds yesterday.
The man's identity was not immediately released, pending notification
of relatives, but a friend who said she knew him well gave his
name as Gerald
McDONALD.
Four unidentified youths were spotted fleeing that crime scene.
The incident was the latest in a rash of recent fatal shootings
in the Weston Road area.
The three deaths push the city's firearms-related tally close
to the same number as was recorded this time last year. In total,
52 people died as a result of gunshot wounds in 2005, an all-time
high.
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CUEVAS o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.toronto_star 2006-07-15 published
Four homicides, one long night
Police chase leads in garage slaying of man, woman
Other victims are man who was shot, Brampton mother
By Thulasi
SRIKANTHAN,
Meghan
HURLEY and Betsy
POWELL, Staff
Reporters with files from Jim
WILKES
Virgilo CUEVAS often used the garage of his home for refuge,
and to smoke -- and that's where he and a female "acquaintance"
were shot dead, leaving Toronto police searching for a motive
and the killers.
"We're still working on a couple of theories, but there's nothing
concrete that I can say yet," homicide Det. Wayne
FOWLER said
yesterday.
CUEVAS, 31, and a 56-year-old woman were found lying on the concrete
floor of the attached garage of a house near Steeles Ave. E.
and Markham Rd. on Wednesday night. Police were waiting to notify
next of kin yesterday before releasing the woman's identity.
Meanwhile, police on the other side of Toronto were investigating
the Wednesday evening slaying of a man in his 40s, and Peel Region
police were probing the death of a 31-year-old mother of two
whose body was found early yesterday.
A man identified by Friends as Gerald
McDONALD may have been
killed over the cash he was carrying when he was shot in an apartment
building on Weston Rd. near Eglinton Ave. W., a friend speculated.
"He had $1,700 in his pocket. Maybe someone knew that he cashed
his cheque and that he had this money," said Nancy
IANNRELLA,
owner of Nancy's Bar and Grill, next to the apartment.
McDONALD had been released from jail just two hours before he
was killed, she said, and had dropped into the bar before going
to cash the cheque.
Police were called to the building at about 7: 23 p.m. Wednesday
after someone reported hearing gunshots.
The victim died in hospital yesterday.
About 90 minutes later, in Scarborough,
CUEVAS' wife, Maria,
found her husband and his friend after she drove up to the house
around 8: 45 p.m. Wednesday.
The garage door was partly open, and when she drove in she could
see one of the bodies,
FOWLER said.
She then went inside, where the couples' three young children
were with their grandparents.
FOWLER said no one in the house is a suspect.
CUEVAS was home all day and had gone on his own into the garage,
where he was joined by the woman.
"The purpose of her visit, I don't know,"
FOWLER said. She doesn't
live nearby and was driven to the address. The wife knows "her
husband's friend" by sight.
There was no romantic relationship, he added.
witnesses: described two men, of Asian or Filipino descent --
as were the victims -- wearing light-coloured jackets or jerseys
running away from the scene.
No firearms were located.
The wife's father, who asked not to be identified, said he saw
his distraught daughter early yesterday morning.
The only thing she would say was that her husband was gone. "That's
all," her father said. "She was crying really hard."
The children do not really know what is going on, he said. Two
of them are staying with him. "They are sad, they cannot sleep."
Neighbours say they often saw the children running around the
red-brick home, cycling and spending time with their father in
the backyard, where they often barbecued.
Yesterday, a shiny blue bicycle with training wheels sat on the
freshly cut lawn.
"Nothing like this ever happened on this street before," said
Darrell RUBIO, who has lived there for three years. He said the
family held a lot of parties, and there were always people coming
in and out.
Rayne DOOKIE was in her home relaxing when she thought she heard
a loud noise.
"I heard a shot. I thought it was a car backfiring." She said
she quickly dismissed it because she couldn't imagine anything
like a murder happening in their quiet neighbourhood.
Councillor Raymond
CHO was going door-to-door in his ward to
reassure citizens.
"I was totally frustrated, shocked and angry, because this is
a good community," he said.
Meanwhile, Peel Region saw its fourth homicide this year with
the death of Malena
MORALES, whose body was found in a 12th-floor
Brampton apartment early yesterday.
Police found
MORALES's body showing "obvious signs of trauma"
when they responded to a call at about 2 a.m., said Const. Jennifer
BRYER.
Homicide detectives sealed off the building, on Steeles Ave. W.
near Hurontario Street, and officers canvassed other residents throughout
the day.
Residents said the woman lived with a man and two children, but
it was not known whether she was married.
Two boys, a 10-year-old and his younger brother, were being cared
for by relatives as police searched for a male suspect.
"This used to be a good building," said a woman who has lived
there 16 years.
"But it's been going downhill for the last year or so. There
have been a lot of drugs and dealers and the police have been
here many times."
An autopsy is planned today at the Centre of Forensic Sciences
in Toronto.
The gunning-down of the man Friends called
McDONALD, whom police
have not officially identified, makes him the fifth homicide
victim killed somewhere along Weston Rd. in just a few months.
On July 2, a 25-year-old man was gunned down outside a bar on
Weston south of Rogers Rd.
Three men tried to steal the money being collected at the club's
front door, police said. A second victim caught in the crossfire
was taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
On June 13, police found Clive
McNABB, 39, stabbed to death in
his Weston Rd. and Eglinton Ave. W. apartment, just steps from
the scene of Wednesday's shooting.
A week before
McNABB's death, 22-year-old Gabriel
JARAMILLO was
shot dead in the area around Weston Rd. and Lawrence Ave. E.
Peyton BADIRU, 26, has been charged with second-degree murder
in that case.
And at the end of March, Romaine
LAWRENCE, 18, was killed when
bullets tore through the window of a pizza parlour at Weston
Rd. and Eglinton Ave. W.
"We've been directing our resources along that stretch of Weston
Rd.,"
Staff
Sgt. Gary
MULHOLLAND, of 12 Division, said in response
to a question about the cluster of homicides.
"Over the past few years we've had initiatives to lower violence
and we will continue to do so."
MULHOLLAND said that while it is "unsettling for the neighbourhood,"
the violence mostly seems related to activities of criminals
in the area. "It's not just the average citizen walking down
the street."
That's little comfort to
McDONALD's bar-owner friend, since he
was shot steps away from where she works.
Someone came running into the bar screaming to call the police
after the shooting,
IANNRELLA said.
She was working when it happened and saw the victim in the hallway
when she went upstairs.
"I can't sleep because I'm in such shock because it happened
in my neighbourhood,"
IANNRELLA said.
"I know when I go home in the night I get scared."
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