It was just before sunrise when the shots rang out on Solace Road.
First responders arrived at the sleepy Markham street on March 7 to find debris strewn across the front porch of the Raguthas family home. The front doors had been kicked in.
Inside, Neveeth Raguthas, a GTA tow truck driver, and his sister, Nilakshi, had been shot. Their dog, Lucky, was dead on the floor.
For two years, the mystery of exactly what happened at Erin Patterson’s dining table has gripped the world.
Five people sat down to eat lunch at her home in rural Australia on 29 July 2023. Within a week, three would be dead, a fourth would be fighting for his life, and the fifth would be under investigation for intentionally poisoning her guests with wild mushrooms.
After a much-watched trial in the tiny town of Morwell, Patterson has now been found guilty of murdering three relatives at the lunch and attempting to kill another. Those she killed were Patterson’s former in-laws, Don Patterson, 70, and Gail Patterson, 70, as well as Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, 66.
They entered the stores with shopping bags already full and left empty-handed, sometimes counting cash.
Watching the transactions unfold in downtown Los Angeles were plainclothes detectives from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, who suspected the stores, Quickmart and Big Apple, were buying and reselling stolen goods, according to a search warrant affidavit reviewed by The Times.
When deputies raided the stores in February, they found allegedly shoplifted shaving cream, sunscreen and mouthwash — and $1 million inside a safe, said Det. Yesenia Olvera, who led the investigation.
Someone murdered Raymel Atkins in Louisville, Ky., in 2023. More than a year later, his mother and sister don’t know who did it; the police have not made an arrest in the case. The same is true for Tiffanie Floyd, killed in 2021. And Michael David, killed in 2017. And Cory Crowe, killed in 2014.
In fact, the Louisville police do not arrest anyone in roughly half of murder cases. I spoke to family members of a dozen victims. They all conveyed a similar sentiment: that the police had abandoned them and theirs. “The police don’t really care,” said Deondra Kimble, David’s aunt. “They’ve proven it to me.”
A Toronto jury on Friday acquitted a 20-year-old man of second-degree murder, accepting his claim that he fired four shots in self-defence, believing the victim — 18-year-old Jefferson Guerrier — was “lunging” at him with a knife outside a high school in the city’s east end.
The fatal shooting just as classes were ending for the day on Halloween in 2022, drew widespread attention due to the proximity to students, one of whom filmed the incident on their cellphone.
Jurors, who deliberated for about a day before returning to the downtown courtroom Friday afternoon, also found the man not guilty of reckless discharge of a firearm that resulted in his brother being shot.
This “understanding” had better be shown to homeowners and others threatened by Toronto’s ferals.
The ringleader of a $30 million scam network that preyed on seniors across a staggering 46 states has finally been arrested and now faces decades in prison for the alleged fraud.
Gareth West of Canada was taken in custody Friday for the scamming ring, in which callers phoned the older Americans, pretending they were their grandchildren who had been arrested or hurt and were desperate for cash, according to the Economic Times.
The worried elders were pressured to act fast and not tell other family members about the dire situation.
h/t PA Cat
At the exact moment on June 11, 2024, that Canada’s musical cognoscenti gathered at a Toronto record store to celebrate the past year’s most significant albums, someone, or some group, was getting ready to siphon nearly $10-million from the music industry.
The non-profit Foundation Assisting Canadian Talent on Recordings has, for four decades, collected money from the federal government and private radio broadcasters to fund programs to help musicians and their industry pay for recording, promoting and touring – recently to the tune of $30-million a year.
Police have a man in custody following a sexual assault in High Park last month.
Speaking to reporters Thursday morning from inside the park, Sex Crimes Det. Adrian Pileggi said the victim was walking alone on a paved pathway at around 10:40 p.m. on June 4 near Howard Park Ave. and Parkside Dr. when she was approached from behind by an assailant.
On June 21, just after 4:30am, an 11-year-old and his parents were all jolted out of bed in their North Etobicoke home.
“We heard a smash,” said the homeowner, who asked not to be identified — still too shaken after the ordeal. That sound came from their rear patio door.
The police can’t protect you. They only deal with the bad guys after the fact.
Dad had a gun. Mom should have one too.
6 men in custody after Ontario police lift shelter-in-place advisory on Highway 11
h/t DS
The sister of one of the four University of Idaho students slain in their off-campus home blasted the “shocking and cruel” plea deal that will spare the life of accused killer Brian Kohberger.
Aubrie Goncalves, 18, voiced her outrage over the deal in which Kohberger will cop to killing her sister Kaylee Goncalves and three others, in a lengthy statement posted on Facebook.
Everyone knows guns used by Canadian criminals are often smuggled from the U.S. Not everyone knows how — not like Naomi Haynes does. That’s because she did the smuggling.
A native Montrealer who’s been living in the U.S. for decades, she helped traffic dozens of weapons into Canada, some linked directly to drug gangs.
“I wasn’t thinking about the havoc I was causing in my birth land,” she told CBC News last week.
As crime and homicide rates spiked over the last decade, everyone seemed to notice.
Cops, lawyers and, most importantly, the public. But one group was steadfast in their refusal to acknowledge what was unfolding on the streets of the country.
MANDEL: Remorseful teen in swarming of Ken Lee sentenced to 12 months probation
Let’s hope the remorseful teen really absorbed the moving words of a kind and compassionate judge.
In his thoughtful decision Thursday, Superior Court Justice Philip Campbell sentenced the seventh of eight girls involved in the vicious swarming death of Kenneth Lee to 12 months probation. She had pleaded guilty to manslaughter last month on the eve of her trial.
Canada is soft on violent crime.
That is not to say that the average Canadian wrings their hands over the plight of the criminal. But the courts do.
