Police link murders in Hamilton and Vaughan
Surveillance video provides numerous clues
Police say the gunman who killed a prominent Hamilton mobster in May is the same man who shot and killed a woman in Vaughan and injured her boyfriend, who is the son of another wellknown gangster.
Such a close connection between the two high-profile killings highlights both the dangerous unrest in the Toronto- area underworld but also the vast net of passive video surveillance monitoring public spaces.
The density of cameras discreetly peering from businesses and homes in both cities may come as a surprise to the people who plotted the murders, as the footage has unravelled attempts to hide their movements.
Links between the slayings — which will now be investigated together — came after police scoured thousands of hours of public surveillance video from both cities to track suspect cars and people, police said.
Various video feeds tracked the shooter in both murders to what police say is the same black Honda Civic.
“Nowadays when you walk outside, you commit a crime, you show up at work, you’re constantly, constantly on video. In the city of Vaughan there is a tremendous amount of video surveillance that’s available, and it’s available to the police to use,” said Det. Sgt. Jim Killby of York Regional Police.
“Quite frankly, I don’t think they counted on there being a great deal of video of surveillance.”
Police say the modus operandi, the use of the same Honda Civic and the physical appearance of the gunman — as well as other evidence police would not disclose — tell detectives on both forces they are searching for the same killers.
Both fatal shootings have mob links.
On Tuesday March 14, 2017, at about 4: 10 p. m., a gunman hopped from the passenger side of a stolen Jeep Grand Cherokee and ran to a BMW SUV in a commercial parking lot on Caster Ave. in Vaughan, just north of Toronto, and shot two people inside.
Mila Barberi, 28, was killed and her 40- year- old boyfriend was injured with a bullet in his arm. Police said Barberi was not the intended target.
“It wasn’t a random attack on her or an intentional act against her. This was an intentional act against somebody that was at that business that day, and it wasn’t Mila Barberi,” Killby said.
Investigators have not identified the injured man, but sources told the National Post it is Saverio Serrano, known as Sam, one of three sons of Diego Serrano.
The father, 69, is known as one of Canada’s “cocaine cowboys.” This month, he was sentenced to prison from his third cocaine trafficking case.
Police said they are unsure if the injured male was himself involved in organized crime or even if he was the intended target.
Exactly seven weeks later, on May 2, 2017, also on a Tuesday and also at around 4 p.m., a similar looking man climbed out of a Ford Fusion and approached a Ford F-150 pickup that had just pulled into the driveway of the Hamilton home of Angelo Musitano, the son of a dead Mafia boss and a gangster in his own right.
At the driver’s window, the gunman fired repeatedly inside the truck, killing Musitano, 39.
The gunman fled in the Fusion but abandoned it a few blocks away.
The car was s t olen a month earlier in Quebec, widening the potential geog- raphy and timeline of the plot.
Someone was conducting surveillance on Musitano since at least April 27, said Det. Sgt. Peter Thom of Hamilton police.
As was done by York police, Hamilton officers scoured video footage from homes and businesses.
“We’ve identified three other vehicles that we believe were involved in the coordinated stalking of Angelo Musitano in the week leading up to his death and that more than one individual was involved in the planning of this murder,” Thom said.
The cars include a black, two- door Honda Civic with the body style of 2006 to 2011 models, a red Chevrolet Malibu and a blue or grey Infiniti.
“Investigators believe that the persons responsible for these murders participated in sophisticated and extensive surveillance of the victims prior to carrying out the actual killings,” Thom said.
York police tracked the stolen Jeep before and after the Vaughan shooting through video feeds. The Jeep is seen “travelling in tandem” with a black Honda Civic, Killby said.
Video shows the Civic parking and a man walking from it to the Jeep, which then drove to Castor Ave., where a gunman got out the passenger- side door with a gun in his hand. Seconds later he ran back for his escape.
The men then tried, unsuccessfully, to set the Jeep on fire in an attempt to destroy evidence, police said. They returned to the Civic and fled.
“Thankfully for us they have made a number of mistakes. I believe they thought they were using a clean vehicle to carry out this crime,” but the video feeds spoiled it, Killby said.
He said it is too early to say whether investigators think it was a hired, professional killer, but the idea is not being rejected.
“He may be responsible for multiple murders, I have no idea.”
Investigators ask the public to pass on information about the people, the vehicles or anything suspicious.