Lelsey Halls heard the “blood curdling” screams Wednesday, looked outside and saw people had been run down in her apartment parking lot, then unselfishly sprung into action to help. After returning home from giving Toronto Police further statements early Thursday afternoon, she described what transpired 24 hours earlier on Cassandra Blvd. just east of Victoria Park Ave.
The horrific scene unfolded around 12:30 p. m. when a man was driving around the apartment complex’s circular driveway allegedly trying to run down a group of people.
“I saw people lying on the ground,” Halls recalled, pointing to the driveway. “Then another person over there screaming, ‘He ran her over, he ran her over. ‘” Halls ran downstairs to the aid of a gravely injured 61-year-old woman who had been struck by a white Dodge Caliber.
“She was just covered in blood, blood all down her face, down her arm,” said Halls, explaining she held the dying woman in her arms and tried to help her. Halls grabbed a cellphone from a frantic woman who was having difficulty trying to speak to police, directed the 911 dispatcher to the address at 250 Cassandra Blvd. , then followed their instructions for providing assistance.
She saw a man hovering around who she soon learned was the dying woman’s husband. Halls said he had also been seriously injured when he was hit by the car and had blood pouring from a large gash over his left eyebrow. Halls recalled the woman’s breathing was very shallow when she touched her hand to her chest.
And she could hear the dying woman’s inconsolable husband saying, “That’s my wife. ” “Her husband just kept wanting to be with her, just wanting to be with her,” Halls said, sobbing as she described those heartbreaking moments. “It’s my wife, it’s my wife, he ran over her,” Halls remembers the man saying.
She then heard neighbours from a second-floor apartment yelling at her saw that the driver was still behind the wheel of the car on the other side of the driveway. Halls said the man was waving his hands inside the idling car. The next thing she remembered were firefighters rushing towards her and police taking the man from his car and placing him under arrest.
On Wednesday night Homicide Det. -Sgt. Brandon Price put to rest any rumours the incident may have been hate-motivated and described it instead as an allegedly “intentional attack” involving people with a “familial relationship.
” On Thursday, a lone bouquet of flowers sat beside an orange pylon and a chalkboard sign that read, “Only LOVE can defeat EVIL. ” Some neighbours believe the husband and wife were trying to load belongings of another woman into a car in the parking lot at the time of the attack. The suspect police took into custody lives in the lowrise apartment complex, according to Halls and other residents.
Police say Ciro Garofano, 79, is charged with one count of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted murder. The accused appeared in a Finch Ave. courthouse Thursday morning and remains in custody.
The victim’s name was not released. Halls, 56, has lived in the complex since she was a child and has never experienced anything like this. A next-door neighbour said she was on a first-name basis with the suspect and described him as a quiet man who kept to himself but added he had a “grumpy” demeanour.
Halls’ husband Steven was out walking their American bully Ophelia and echoed the sentiments of the second-floor neighbour. Steve said he had “a few interactions with him” over the year and offered a few anecdotes saying he tried to help “the old guy” one day as he struggled to haul a La-Z-Boy chair up the steps to the apartment front doors. “He didn’t want anything to do with it.
And basically told me to get lost and he could do it himself. ” Steven recalled with a shrug. Another time, Steven alleged he was in the basement parking lot of the building heading out on his Harley when the man approached him and called him “an undesirable biker.
” Steve said at the time he just laughed it off thinking he was just a grumpy old guy. “It’s really sad on both sides. It’s the end of his life.
The old guy that nobody could seem to have a positive relationship with,” said Steve. “And the woman who perished. It’s really sad.
” jboland@postmedia. com @TorSunphoto21.
From: torontosun
URL: https://torontosun.com/news/local-news/man-79-accused-of-murder-in-deadly-north-york-car-attack