Man who attacked women on TTC, killing 1, sentenced to life in prison – Toronto | Globalnews.ca
A Chinese national who stabbed two strangers on the TTC near High Park station two-and-a-half years ago has been sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years.
Superior Court Justice Joan Barrett also sentenced Neng Jia Jin, who pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and attempted murder in February, to 20 years for the latter charge, to be served concurrently with the life sentence.
“Two innocent women were intentionally, randomly and violently attacked on Dec. 8, 2022, as they went about an otherwise normal day using public transit,” Barrett said in her reasons for sentencing handed down in a Toronto courtroom Tuesday.
Vanessa Kurpiewska, 31, was killed. A 37-year-old woman who was sitting near Kurpiewska survived but suffered stab wounds to her abdomen, left forearm, right hand, and left leg. A tendon in her right ring finger was cut and required plastic surgery.
The 37-year-old woman lives daily with the physical, emotional and psychological harm that has been inflicted on her as a result of the incident, court heard.
As part of his guilty plea, Jin admitted that he left the Scarborough home where he lived with his daughter on the day of the attack intent on killing with two knives in his backpack.
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His intent was driven by anger and a quest for revenge against the Canadian doctors he blamed for his botched eye surgery.
A psychiatric assessment by Dr. Ian Swayze found that Jin was suffering from “a major depressive disorder of moderate severity without psychosis” at the time of the offences.
Swayze concluded that Jin’s acts were “reality-based in motivation with rage, anger and revenge.” Jin used his anger against the surgical ophthalmologist to justify his extreme act of revenge directed towards “the community at large.”
Jin’s acts on Dec. 8, 2022 were “organized, co-ordinated and deliberate,” the judge found, based on the psychiatrist’s report and the evidence that Jin carefully examined his surroundings, intentionally targeted victims he viewed as vulnerable, and kept his weapons concealed until seconds before the attack.
In arriving at her sentence on the attempted murder charge, Barrett found that Jin intentionally targeted female passengers captured on extensive video surveillance.
“Having planned his attack, Mr. Jin rode the public transit system for hours in search of female victims,” Barrett told court.
The judge found Jin was undeterred by the intervention of a Good Samaritan who tried to help the 37-year-old woman escape and targeted her because she was unarmed, vulnerable and defenceless.
Barrett said that were it not for Jin’s guilty plea, the fact that he is a 55-year-old first-time offender and has a diagnosed mental disorder, a sentence of life imprisonment would be appropriate.
“This was a crime of shocking violence that intentionally targeted females on the subway — a confined space that heightens vulnerability,” Barrett concluded.
In her sentence, Barrett referred to another unprovoked murder on the TTC just a few months after Jin’s attack in which 16-year-old Gabriel Magalhaes was fatally stabbed by Jordan Tobin-O’Brien as Magalhaes was sitting on a bench waiting for a train at Keele station.
“The public must be protected from Mr. Jin and other like-minded persons who use the public transit system to facilitate the killings of innocent persons,” Barrett told court.
Court has heard that Jin will likely face immigration consequences upon completion of his sentence, given that he arrived in Canada illegally in 2010 from the U.S. He sought but was denied asylum and has no legal status in Canada and is currently subject to an immigration hold.
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