Authorities in Toronto are still on the lookout for a 33-year-old man deemed dangerous after two of his female relatives were found dead in an Etobicoke home last week.
Joseph Ayala is wanted for second-degree murder in connection with the deaths of an 82-year-old woman and a 60-year-old woman, Toronto police said in an Aug. 25 press release.
Toronto police officers responded to a call for a well-being check in the Sheldon Avenue and Silvercrest Avenue area at 1 p.m. Aug. 23.
Joseph Ayala. Toronto Police Service
“Officers … attended a home where they located two females suffering from injuries,” Det. Sgt. Jason Davis said in a press conference on Aug. 23. “Unfortunately, those females were beyond help, and those females were pronounced [dead] on the scene.”
Police have not released a cause of death or the identities of the two women, although posts on social media have identified the women as the suspect’s mother and grandmother.
Ayala is described as white and 5-foot-11 with a shaved head. He is known to wear a cowboy hat, cowboy-style jacket with tassels on the sleeves, and black cowboy boots, police said.
Police are warning members of the public not to approach the suspect and to contact 911 immediately if he is spotted.
There have been 55 homicides in Toronto so far this year, including 29 shootings and 14 stabbings, according to Toronto Police Service statistics.
The homicide rate in the first eight months of 2024 is already up nearly 20 percent compared to the entirety of 2023, when police recorded 46 murders. It is also a substantial increase from the 43 murders in the city in 2022 and exceeds 2021’s numbers when there were 52 homicide cases.
Eleven of this year’s murders occurred in June alone and include the deaths of two men who were victims of a mass shooting outside a school in Etobicoke, Ont., that also injured three others.
A 14-year-old boy has since been charged with first-degree murder in connection with the June 2 shooting spree that claimed the lives of Delroy “George” Parkes, 61, of Woodstock, Ont., and Seymour Gibbs, 46, of Toronto.
Three adults were also killed after a dispute at a North Toronto financial business turned deadly June 17. The incident prompted lockdowns at a nearby daycare and school.
The identities of the victims—Arash Missaghi, 54, of Toronto, and Samira Yousefi, 44, of Concord—were released by the police the next day. The third deceased is a 46-year-old man who police said they believed to be responsible for the shooting.
