Teen arrested in fatal ‘unprovoked' stabbing of woman in North York plaza
unprovoked stabbing death of a woman loading groceries into her car Thursday morning
at a North York plaza has been arrested, police say.
Shahnaz Pestonji, 71, of Toronto was killed in an 'unprovoked' stabbing while loading groceries into her car near
Parkway Forest Drive and Sheppard Avenue East
on Thursday morning, officers said.
Pestonji was rushed to hospital, where she was pronounced dead, investigators said, while the suspect fled the area, leading to a police search over several days.
The boy, who is from Toronto, was arrested Sunday and charged with second-degree murder, investigators said in a
news release
.
Beneath this violent act lies an issue unfolding in the Greater Toronto Area — a surge in youth crime that
many experts describe as a public health crisis
driven by poverty, persistently high youth unemployment and inadequate access to social support systems.
In 2024, Toronto police
charged 13 people under 18 with homicide
, up from just three in 2023, and laid gun charges against 168 youth, the most since the pandemic. Nearly two-thirds of Toronto's carjacking-related arrests involved minors in 2023.
At a news conference Friday evening, Toronto police said they believe the suspect intended to rob 71-year-old Shahnaz Pestonji when she was stabbed.
Search efforts for the suspect
included door-to-door canvassing, drones, canine units
and reviewing surveillance footage, officers said.
The suspect was believed to be 'very knowledgeable of the city, and especially riding the transit system,' Pinfold added.
A number of videos claiming to show the suspect are circulating on social media. Toronto police did not confirm if the videos are legitimate.
'We are aware of the videos circulating online. This remains an active investigation, and we are urging anyone who has any information to contact the police,' a police spokesperson told the Star in an email.
The accused is scheduled to appear in court at the Ontario Court of Justice at 10 a.m. on Monday.
The suspect's age means he cannot be publicly identified under the Youth Criminal Justice Act. Police previously received permission to temporarily release the name and photo of the suspect before the arrest. That permission has now expired.
The youngest person to ever be charged and found guilty of murder in Toronto was 12
when he fatally stabbed his cousin
more than 80 times in September 2023.
Pestonji's
family described the wife and mother as 'an angel on this Earth'
who was devoted to her family after a career working with veterans and seniors as a nurse at Sunnybrook Hospital.
Shahnaz Pestonji's family said she had a distinctive, contagious laugh, loved to travel and was an incredible cook.
'There's no doubt in any of our minds that she knows how much we loved her,' her daughter Yasmin, 39, told the Star last week. 'If I could get another hug I would never let go.'
Her family said Prestonji had a distinctive, contagious laugh, loved to travel and was an incredible cook.
'She would never say 'I'm busy,'' her daughter Dina, 41, added. 'She made time for everything, especially family.'
With files from Estella Ren, Daniel Opasinis, Raju Mudhar and The Canadian Press
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Michael McLeod films a selfie video with the complainant on the dance floor inside Jack's Bar. While a jury verdict typically comes much quicker, the benefit of a judge-alone trial is that the judge provides detailed reasons for their decision. The courtroom where it will happen is the largest at the London courthouse, and was previously used for the infamous Bandidos murder trial, in which six men were convicted in the mass slaying of eight men connected to the biker gang in 2006. During the Hockey Canada trial, the multiple prisoner's boxes along one side of the room remained empty, as the accused players, who are all out of custody, each sat at a table with their legal teams. In the publi c gallery, McLeod's parents sat in the centre of the front row each day of the trial; Hart's mother and Dubé's relatives were also often in attendance. A series of text messages between Michael McLeod and the complainant after she alleges he and four other members of the Canadian world junior hockey team sexually assaulted her in a London hotel room. E.M. was beamed into the courtroom via CCTV from a different room at the courthouse during her testimony, while the courtroom's background was blurred on the screen so that she couldn't see the players. Court documents reveal that while she was scared and anxious, E.M. initially believed she might be able to testify in person. But after sitting in the witness box during a tour of the courthouse before the trial, she began to cry. This prompted the Crown to ask that she testify remotely, an application that wasn't challenged by the defence. 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She said that while most news articles from 2022 'accept as true what is in your statement of claim' from the lawsuit, the public's view of the case could shift by the end of the trial. I think Canada has probably grown a bit as a nation There is a 'real possibility that the current perception of what happened could change,' Cunningham said, according to notes from a meeting with E.M. Talach said he believes E.M. went through with it all due to wanting a mix of accountability, healing, and prevention. And her actions motivated the public to push for change. 'Regardless of the outcome, I think Canada has probably grown a bit as a nation,' he said. 'And hockey has had to sit up and take notice of some important issues that we'll continue to discuss.'
