A woman’s frantic shrieks from a cellphone filled the eighth-floor hallway of a Scarborough highrise on Saturday.
About 12 hours earlier, Lingathasan Suntharamoorthy, 36, was gunned down inside his eighth-floor apartment at 100 Dundalk Dr. – near Kennedy Rd. and Hwy. 401 —- and his heartbroken sister was on the other end of phone hearing from a cousin that he may be dead.
“We don’t know if it is him or not, we are just waiting for confirmation by the police,” Rubin Ariaratnam said Saturday at the Kennedy Place apartment building.
The sister’s worst fear came to pass soon after when an officer knocked on her door, the cousin later explained.
On a night where gunman sprayed the city with bullets leaving one man dead and two wounded in three separate shootings in the span of a few hours, Toronto Police say officers responded to the Dundalk Dr. highrise around 11:50 p.m. and found a man suffering from multiple gunshot wounds.
The man, later identified by cops as Suntharamoorthy, was pronounced dead at the scene becoming the city’s fourth murder of 2019 – the fourth slain in six days.
“Officers attempted CPR, contacted EMS and Toronto Fire, who arrived on scene shortly thereafter,” Homicide Det. Robert North said Saturday at 41 Division. “Unfortunately, despite all the efforts of the officer’s and EMS the man succumbed to his injuries.”
No suspect description was immediately available but investigators are reviewing the building’s surveillance video.
Officers stood guard throughout the day at the door to the apartment, securing the scene for investigators.
Shattered glass was strewn across the sidewalk and roadway outside the building, beneath Suntharamoorthy’s balcony, and a section of a townhouse complex across the street was cordoned off with yellow crime scene tape.
It was not immediately known how the townhouse complex was involved.
Amy Li, part of the apartment building’s ownership, said she received a call from a resident around 11:45 p.m. Friday saying glass had showered down on them as they sat in their idling car outside the building.
Earlier in the night, around 9.m. Friday, another man believed to be in his 20s was rushed to a trauma centre with serious injuries after gunfire erupted at a suspected at a condo near Bathurst St. and Fort York Blvd. that was possibly being used as an Airbnb.
A third man walked into hospital early Saturday morning with gunshot wounds that cops suspect were suffered when gunshots rang out at a Scarborough strip mall on Victoria Pk Ave., north of Eglinton Ave. E.
Speaking about his slain cousin, Ariaratnam said Suntharamoorthy worked for a Sri Lankan tow truck company in Toronto and had been in and out of jail over the years since coming to Canada.
He claimed his cousin acted as “muscle” for the towing company, helping resolve matters when needed.
Suntharamoorthy made headlines in 2005 when he and three other men were charged after a mentally disabled man was brutally beaten to death at a Scarborough diner, near Midland and Lawrence Aves.
Suntharamoorthy was subsequently convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to five years behind bars.
He was back in the news in 2010 after leading OPP officers on a high-speed chase along Hwy. 401 while was on probation and suspended from driving.
A few years ago, while Suntharamoorthy was serving federal penitentiary time, Ariaratnam said he acted as an escort for his cousin after he was granted a day pass to attend his mother’s funeral.
In January 2017, Suntharamoorthy was in the news yet again when Toronto cops issued a Canada-wide warrant for his arrest.
He was in custody at the time and making a court appearance when a clerical error enabled him to walk out of the courthouse.
At the time, he was deemed to be “unlawfully at large” and police described him as “violent and dangerous.”
Six months later, Suntharamoorthy surrendered to police at 42 Division in Scarborough.
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