Colleagues seek ways to honour slain family doctor
As Toronto police photographed and searched the tony North York home once shared by doctors Elana Fric-Shamji and Mohammed Shamji, a group of Ontario physicians called an emergency meeting Sunday to discuss ways to commemorate a much-loved family doctor allegedly killed by her neurosurgeon husband.
Two days after police charged Toronto Western Hospital Dr. Mohammed Shamji with first-degree murder in the death of Fric-Shamji — his wife and the mother of his three children — investigators obtained authorization to search the family’s large brick home on Verwood Avenue in the Bathurst and Sheppard area.
Toronto police investigators are also awaiting information from Ottawa police pertaining to a previous complaint Fric-Shamji made about her husband.
According to colleagues, FricShamji, 40, filed for a divorce from her husband of 12 years just over a week ago.
On Sunday, many of the same medical colleagues who last weekend were working alongside FricShamji at a council meeting for the Ontario Medical Association found themselves planning a commemoration of her life.
“The group is looking at everything from a trust fund for her children, to support for one of the many causes she was passionate about,” said OMA President Virginia Walley in a statement, adding the doctors are also working on a way to permanently honour Fric-Shamji.
Fric-Shamji was reported missing Thursday, after she failed to show up for work. That afternoon, the body of a woman was discovered by York Regional Police near a bridge beside the West Humber River.
Shamji, 40, was arrested Friday night at a coffee shop in Mississauga. He made a brief court appearance at Old City Hall Saturday and will remain in custody until his next court appearance Dec. 20.