Latest victim identified
On Monday, 10 people were killed in a van rampage on Yonge St. Friends and family share three of their stories
U of T student Sohe Chung is remembered as an “amazing, genuine” person,
Sohe Chung is the latest victim of Monday’s van rampage independently confirmed by the Star, as police and the coroner work toward identifying the 10 people killed.
Her story joins those of Anne Marie D’Amico, Dorothy Sewell, Munir Najjar, Chul Min “Eddie” Kang, Betty Forsyth and Renuka Amarasingha — who were all killed when a white rental van rammed pedestrians along a stretch of Yonge St. between Finch and Sheppard Aves. Fourteen others were injured.
Here are some of their stories. More can be read at thestar.ca.
Munir Najjar
On March 26, Munir Najjar and his wife, Lillian, locked up their house in Amman, Jordan, and gave his neighbours of 18 years the keys. Keep an eye on the house, Najjar told them, while I visit my kids in Canada.
The retired man in his 80s was a friendly face everyone knew in his Amman neighbourhood, his neighbours Jalil Twal and Nuhad Matalka told the Star in a phone call from Jordan. Every day, they’d open their front door and he’d be there, smiling, ready to share a conversation or lend them a hand.
“He’s a very nice man. He helped everybody,” Matalka said. Twal said Najjar was clever and kind.
On Monday, Najjar was killed in a van crash alongside nine other pedestrians in the Yonge and Finch area. That morning, he was just out for a walk to Starbucks, Twal said. He was an active man in excellent health, Twal added, who liked walking.
“He walked better than me and I’m 73 years old,” Matalka said, laughing.
Najjar was visiting his son Omar, daughter Haneen and three grandsons in Toronto. They’re a “happy family,” Jalil said.
In the days before Najjar was killed, the couple were enjoying their vacation. They had visited the Aga Khan and had celebrated Easter with ice cream at Unionville. In their Facebook photos, Munir and Lillian Najjar are always side by side, smiling.
“He was a good man,” said a relative, who wished to remain anonymous. “He certainly did not need to leave this way, but he will be remembered for his good heart.”
In Jordan, the news of his death came through television. First, his neighbours and relatives heard about the van crash in Toronto. Then, they heard the shocking news their friend had been killed.
“Everyone here is crying,” Matalka said. “It is a tragedy ... he was a great, great man.”
Relatives told the Star the Najjar family is waiting for the coroner’s office to formally identify him. On Wednesday, the Jordanian Embassy in Ottawa released a statement saying they were working with Canadian authorities to “help and assist the family.”
“We are missing him,” Twal said, lamenting that Najjar would’ve been home in three weeks. “That’s what he told us.”
“I don’t know how to live without my beloved neighbour,” Matalka said. “What else can I say? I just want to cry. He just went to visit his children. He is coming back to Jordan dead.”
Betty Forsyth
Betty Forsyth was a 94-year-old force of nature who defied her age by living independently and taking frequent long walks along Yonge St., constantly wearing out the wheels on her walker. “I had to change them twice!” her nephew Rob Forsyth said. “She wore them down to the metal.” Described by friends as “delightful” and a “sweetheart,” Forsyth loved to chat, visit Casino Rama and take twohour-long strolls from her apartment at Yonge St. and Finch Ave., sometimes to Steeles Ave. “She was 94 years young,” close friend Barbara Puckering said.
Forsyth was killed in Monday’s van rampage on Yonge. On her way back home from a walk, she had stopped to feed the birds and squirrels near her apartment at the Kemptford at 5430 Yonge St., a Toronto Community Housing building.
Her walker was found on the sidewalk nearby. On Thursday, Forsyth was still waiting for the coroner to identify his aunt, who is still known as unidentified victim “number 6.” Forsyth, a Star Trek and Downton Ab
bey fan with an “exceptional memory,” friends and relatives said, was born in 1923 in Peacehaven, East Sussex, a small seaside town in England. The second of four children, she was christened Mary Elizabeth Forsyth, but was always known as Betty, according to cousin Jacqueline Ritchie.
“It is a terrible shock,” said Ritchie, 62, who lives in Peacehaven. “When you’re a long way away, it’s harder to accept as well.”
Maureen Williams, another close friend, met Forsyth after her mother Lillian started working for her about 40 years ago when she owned a dog groom- ing business on Yonge St. Over the years, Forsyth, who did not marry or have children, became part of Williams’ family.
“She acquired strong friends as a support group,” Williams said. “Betty had an incredible capacity to see the funny side of life and laugh at herself.”
Alifelong dog lover, Forsyth, at 14 years old, began working as a kennel maid for Lady Ionides, a member of England’s aristocracy, Ritchie said.
She went on to breed toy poodles for wealthy American breeders who sailed over to Southampton on the Queen Mary to collect her dogs, Ritchie added.
When Forsyth and her mother immigrated to Canada in 1968, they sailed in on a Russian ship, the Alexander Push
kin, Ritchie said. Forsyth brought13 poodles with her on the voyage. She opened her first dog grooming business a few years later.
She was living with bladder cancer and was scheduled to begin an experimental treatment at Toronto General Hospital on Thursday, Ritchie said.
“She said if it didn’t help her it may help someone else in the future.”
Sohe Chung
University of Toronto student Sohe Chung was among those killed in Monday’s van attack, friends have confirmed.
“She’s an amazing friend and everyone did love her. Everyone is absolutely in shock,” said high school friend Cora Cianni, who posted a memorial to Chung on Facebook. “There wasn’t a single person who didn’t get along with her. She was an amazing, well-rounded person.”
Chung worked at the luxury retailer Holt Renfrew, according to a LinkedIn account identified by a close friend as being authentic.
Born in 1995, Chung studied molecular biology at the University of Toronto, where she was a member of the university’s Korean Students’ Association.
The association posted on its Facebook page Wednesday that the van attack has affected “one of our own student members.”
A vigil is planned at the North York Civic Centre on Friday evening.
“Although we won’t understand what the affected victims family members are going through, we will be putting together a gathering in hopes to unite the community. We encourage you to attend,” said the message, originally written in Korean.
High school friend Cianni said Chung’s friends and family are grieving and are asking for privacy.
“I remember her being a genuine, kind person,” said Gabby Prieto, who worked with Chung at Sketchers in the Eaton Centre around 2014.
“She was so caring and kind. She was a great person to work with.”
Jodi Yeung said Chung was part of her close circle of friends at Loretto Abbey Catholic high school near Yonge St. and Wilson Ave.
“She’s kind of shy but when you get to know her she is really funny,” Yeung said. “She was super sweet.”