The night ended late, verging on Friday morning. Dylan Ellis and Oliver Martin, both 25, headed out to the Range Rover that belonged to one of their fathers. Ellis, wearing glasses, is pictured with Martin above.
It appears they drove away with a female friend in the back, and then returned to the apartment near
Walnut Ave and Richmond Street.
What happened next is almost unbelievable. As they sat in the SUV, with the engine running but the vehicle still in park, a shooter approached.
Police believe the suspect, or suspects, wanted that high-end Range Rover. Instead, in a carjacking gone horribly wrong, both men ended up dead.
What makes Friday's early morning double murder so terrifying is that it could have been anybody.
Police have repeatedly said the two young men had absolutely no connection with criminal activity and were not known to a
uthorities.
"They're good guys. They didn't do anything. They didn't do anything wrong. There was nobody that would want to do anything, nobody. Nobody would want to do this to them," sobbed one friend outside the crime scene.
Ellis, the grandson of philanthropist Mariano A Elia, was a graduate of a college in Quebec and was pursuing a career as a photographer. Martin was a graduate of a university in southern Ontario, and had been working at a mutual fund company in Toronto's financial district.
They both lived in South Rosedale.
Little is known about the woman in the backseat, and police are working heard to keep it that way. "The other individual who was in the vehicle, I'm not going to comment a great deal about," Det. Sgt. Gary Giroux outlined a press conference. "That person is cooperating with the investigation and has been spoken to by the Homicide Squad." Officers speculated that the shooter didn't know she was in the vehicle.
One man, who said he had known the victims since he was 10 years old, was visibly shaken. "Senseless, random. These are the nicest people you ever met in your life. I don't know two better people," he lamented. The pressure became too much, and he couldn't continue. "I, I can't, I can't talk to you guys," he stammered, then got in his car.
Police still aren't sure exactly what happened that night. Emergency crews were called to the scene and paramedics found the victims inside their vehicle. Ironically, they were both wearing their seatbelts.
EMS officials worked feverishly to save their lives, but they both succumbed to their injuries and died on the way to hospital.
The forensics team was looking at the car and the surrounding apartments all day Friday. The SUV is covered with a tarp because of the rain.
Police also expect to get some clues from cameras in the area. "It's a co-op portion of the city, and a number of the buildings in that area are covered by video surveillance," explained Giroux.
Ellis and Martin are the city's 24th and 25th homicide of 2008 - 13 of them have been gun-related.
At this point police haven't released a suspect description.
But Giroux says cops already know a few things. "I do believe that the shooter or shooters are familiar with that particular area of the city and I'm seeking the co-operation of the community with regards to their assistance in identifying who's responsible for this."
Anyone with information in the case can contact Crime Stoppers anonymously at
416-222-TIPS (8477).
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See unedited video of Giroux In The Raw here.