Two killed in Vaughan café shooting
Former T.O. mayoral candidate owned car found in parking lot
York Region police are on the hunt for a gunman who shot two people dead and left two others injured, one of them now clinging to life, at a Vaughan coffee shop Wednesday morning.
Vaughan residents Christopher Desimone, 24, and Maria Voci, 47, were found dead when police arrived about 8:15 a.m. at Moka Espresso, near the busy intersection of Islington Ave. and Hwy. 7. Two others were also shot and rushed to hospital, one suffering life-threatening injuries. Police did not identify the injured victims.
A black BMW convertible belonging to former Toronto mayoral candidate Rocco Di Paola remained unclaimed Wednesday afternoon in the coffee shop’s parking lot. Calls to his business were not answered.
Police are hoping anyone who might have witnessed the shooter’s getaway in a dark compact vehicle will provide information — particularly anyone who might have been driving through the area at the time with a dashcam.
Police say the shooter, described only as a “male with darker skin,” fled south on Islington.
“If anyone has any kind of video or was in that area and noted anything — noted a vehicle speeding away or anything like that — we would absolutely want to hear from them,” said Const. Laura Nicolle.
The Moka, previously known as the Doppio Espresso Bar, is in a strip mall between a Pizza Pizza and a convenience store. Wednesday afternoon, a bright red “open” sign blinked in the front window of the café as neighbours, concerned community members and workers from local businesses stood behind strips of yellow police tape.
Carmen Palma, who works at the Active Green and Ross Tire and Automotive Centre near the site of the shooting, usu- ally stops at Moka about 7:45 a.m. to pick up a tea before her shift, a time, she said, that is usually fairly quiet for the espresso bar. But Palma didn’t go in Wednesday. “I was running late this morning,” she said, so she skipped her tea and went straight to work just up the street, minutes before the 911 call was made. “I was very lucky today.”
Palma said the business’s compressors were so loud workers didn’t hear anything when the shooting occurred. “It’s kind of scary,” she said. “If we would have got here a little bit earlier, we would have gotten caught right in the middle of it.”