“Is there a motive behind this, what was he thinking before the killings? We need to know these questions,” said Jitesh Vasudev, the father of 21-year-old Kartik Vasudev, who was shot dead at Sherbourne Underground Station last Thursday. .
“That’s the answer we have to have.”
Richard Jonathan Edwin, 39, has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Vasudev and Eliza Eleazar Mahepath, who were shot dead last Saturday near the intersection of Dundas Street East and George Street East.
Edwin appeared in court for a brief teleconference on Wednesday morning. The court heard that he does not have a lawyer yet and will appear again on Thursday. He spoke only to confirm his name.
Police say Edwin was arrested Sunday night and had a cache full of weapons near him at the time of his arrest. Investigators said they believed Edwin was “completely foreign” to both men, who also did not know each other.
“Any death is tragic, but these men were completely innocent and their killings were completely accidental acts of violence,” police chief James Ramer told reporters on Tuesday.
Kartik Vasudev, left, and Elijah Eleazar Mahepath were shot dead by “seemingly unknowns” in two separate shootings last week. Police have since arrested a man for the two deaths. (Toronto Police Department)
At a news conference Wednesday morning, Toronto Mayor John Tori praised police for arresting Edwin and said there was no easy way to curb gun violence.
“I think we need a combination of things, a stricter guarantee, stricter penalties for guns, offenses, we need to have stricter gun laws, we need more investment in children and families to make sure some of the root causes are addressed much more. “It’s not a simple matter or it has a simple solution,” Tori said.
Outside a memorial service for Vasudev at a funeral home in Etobicoke on Wednesday, Nilay Goyal, a finance professor at Seneca College, remembered the 21-year-old as quiet, shy and one of the best students in his class.
“He was brilliant,” Goyal said.
“It’s very sad to see that we will never know what came out of this brilliant mind and how it will affect the world.”
