Reward offered for tips in 2016 fatal shooting
No arrests yet after pregnant woman was gunned down, killing her and her child
For the grieving relatives of Candice Rochelle Bobb, it has been a year without the “life of the family,” without the young mother’s sense of humour and boisterous laugh, without answers.
“We know someone in the neighbourhood knows something,” said Jackie Weir, Bobb’s mother, in an emotional press conference at Toronto police headquarters Wednesday. “We are asking each and everyone to just search your heart. She could be your sister, she could be your daughter.”
Just over one year since Bobb, 33, was gunned down in north Etobi- coke’s Jamestown Cres., Toronto police announced a reward of up to $50,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the individual or persons responsible for the deaths of Bobb and her baby, Kyrie.
No arrests have been made in the shooting.
Bobb was five months pregnant at the time of her death. Immediately after the shooting, her premature baby boy was delivered by emergency caesarean, but died in Sunnybrook’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit three weeks later.
Earlier this year, detectives announced Kyrie’s death had been officially designated a homicide. It was a complex legal decision made after months of consultation with Crown prosecutors, partly due to the fact that Kyrie was delivered prematurely — because his mother was fatally shot — but died after birth.
Toronto police Det. Sgt. Mike Carbone said officers would be canvassing the area of Jamestown Cres. and John Garland Blvd. all day Wednesday, making another push for any information that could lead to an arrest.
Bobb, who was from Malton, was shot just after 11 p.m. on May 15, 2016 while sitting in the back seat of a car parked in Etobicoke’s Rexdale neighbourhood. She had been returning from a basketball game in Scarborough, alongside her boyfriend, his cousin and a teammate.
When the car stopped near James- town Cres. and John Garland Blvd. to let out a passenger, the vehicle was hit by a stream of bullets. Bobb, who was sitting in the back seat, was the only occupant hit.
The driver took her to Etobicoke General Hospital, where she was pronounced dead and doctors performed the emergency caesarean section.
Police have confirmed Bobb was not the intended target. Detectives have not said if anyone else in the car may have been the intended target, but Carbone told reporters it may have simply been the movement of the vehicle that attracted the attention of the shooter.
Immediately prior to the shooting, the car made a U-turn on Jamestown Cres. that could have been interpreted as some kind of threat, Carbone told reporters earlier this year.
“It may have been something the offender may have seen that prompted them to start shooting at the vehicle,” Carbone said.
Weir said the past year has been “very difficult” on her family and Bobb’s sons, now in their teens — “they miss their mom every minute of the day.”
“We miss her laughter, we miss her smile, we miss her beautiful, beautiful hazel eyes,” Weir said.
She pleaded for anyone with information to come forward to police, or anonymously through CrimeStoppers.
Weir also had a message for anyone responsible for her daughter’s death: “Get your lawyer and turn yourself in.”
“You don’t deserve to have your freedom,” she said. “We haven’t been free for over a year.”