Slain Ryerson researcher ‘full of joy,’ says widower
Charges in the instructor’s stabbing death were upgraded to first-degree murder on Thursday
There was a pure motivation behind everything Mark Ernsting did — whether it was when he was digging in his garden, whipping something up in the kitchen, singing in his beloved choir at downtown Church of the Redeemer or working towards a cure for cancer.
“Everything was to make the world a better or more beautiful place,” says Rob Iseman, Ernsting’s widower.
Speaking for the first time since the stabbing death of 39-year-old Ernsting last month, an emotional Iseman said he cannot even begin to understand why someone would extinguish a life that was such a force for good.
“He was just so full of joy and light in every single thing he did in his life,” Iseman said through tears.
“They destroyed so much beauty in the world.”
Ernsting, a well-loved cancer researcher described in his obituary as “brilliant, funny and compassionate,” was attacked on Dec. 15 on McGill St.
He had been out for an evening walk in his neighbourhood near Ryerson University.
Police have previously said the attack may have been a robbery gone wrong; and on Thursday, the charge was upgraded against the man police allege fatally stabbed Ernsting.
Calvin Michael Nimoh, 22, was initially charged with second-degree murder, but now faces first-degree murder after police uncovered new information through surveillance footage and witness accounts.
Det. Paul Worden said there is now evidence of forcible confinement — which, under the Criminal Code, automatically triggers a first-degree murder charge. He declined to comment further on the new evidence, for fear of tainting witnesses accounts, but said the attack is still considered a random “crime of opportunity.”
“We are still anxious to speak with witnesses,” Worden added.
Ernsting’s family, friends and colleagues said goodbye to the beloved researcher, who was also a professor at Ryerson, at a large funeral late last month.
He was laid to rest in a “beautiful plot” in the Toronto Necropolis, overlooking the Don Valley Parkway, said friend Elaine Wilson.
For Iseman, each day has been “between horrible and then slightly better than horrible.
“I miss him every single day and every minute of every day. He was the most amazing person.”
Nimoh, who was arrested just one hour after Ernsting’s stabbing, is also facing charges connected to another incident that took place hours before the deadly attack.
Police allege Nimoh was involved in the robbery and stabbing of Glynis Brownsey, 66, around 7:45 p.m. on Summerhill Gardens, in the Yonge St. and Summerhill Ave. area. Nimoh faces charges of robbery, aggravated assault, carrying a concealed weapon, weapons dangerous to the public peace and wearing a disguise to commit an indictable offence.
Speaking with the Star from her home in Victoria, B.C., Brownsey — who uses her maiden name Leyshon — described being totally alone on the quiet residential street when she came face-to-face with a black balaclava.
“They came from behind and then in front of me,” she said.
“I tried to yell, which was remarkably difficult.” she said. “It’s hard to make a noise, all your breath is high in your chest.”
Her assailants too, she said, were “completely silent.”
Leyshon describes her attackers — a man and two females, according to police — working with an eerie orchestration. “It was so controlled and directed and violent and fast,” she said. “It felt like they had a script or a scenario that they were working to, and that was the way it was going.”
A well-known opera director, Leyshon was just four doors from her friend’s home, where she was staying while in town for work, when she was attacked.
Stabbed four times in the torso, her knuckle broken, and her arms slashed from trying to fight back, she was left alone on the sidewalk robbed of her purse, along with her wallet and cellphone, she said.
With supportive friends and family and her work to sustain her, Leyshon says she feels stronger every day. But she is haunted by the thought that so soon after she was attacked, Ernsting was killed. “How lucky I was compared to the other victim is just unbelievable,” she said.
Some of her colleagues had connections to Ernsting through the choral community. “By all accounts, a spectacular human being,” she said. “(He was) a special human doing important work.” Wendy Gillis can be reached at wgillis@thestar.ca.