Surinder Singh Parmar was working as a gas station attendant when he was found stabbed to death in the station’s bathroom in 1990. On Monday, a 61-year-old man was charged with first-degree murder in Parmar’s death.
TORONTO – A 61-year-old Toronto man was “quite surprised” to learn he has been charged with first-degree murder in the 1990 killing of gas station attendant Surinder Singh Parmar, police said Tuesday in announcing the arrest.
Rupert Richards, arrested Monday, was known to police. Det.-Sgt. Stacy Gallant, in charge of the Toronto police force’s cold-case unit, said innovations in DNA evidence and other investigative techniques helped crack the case.
“Items were re-examined,” Gallant said at a news conference Tuesday. “Items that had been sitting on a shelf for years.”
Parmar was found stabbed to death at 1:15 a.m. on Nov. 19, 1990, inside a men’s washroom of the Penny Gas Bar located at 1039 Danforth Rd. at Brimley Road, in the city’s east end.
Parmar was working nights at the gas station and had family in India, including a wife and two children ages six and 12. After the killing, the family immigrated to Canada. The family currently live in the Toronto area. Gallant said they were happy to hear of the arrest, but did not want to speak to the media.
“To go 25 years without knowing who did this to their father was difficult to cope with,” said Gallant.
Parmar, who was a teacher in India and held a PhD in history, arrived in Canada in June 1990 and had planned to return home in January. He died of multiple stab wounds to the neck and abdomen. Shortly after Parmar’s death, police recovered a knife in the killing.
”He was trying to make a little money,” Toronto police Det.-Sgt. Jim Crowley told The Canadian Press in 1990. ”He wanted to see some friends on the West Coast before he went back to India.”
At the time of the incident, police told reporters that Parmar was likely killed during a robbery at the 24-hour gas station.
Courtesy CBC News
