Accused Rupert Richards was charged in Toronto.
By Raif Karerat
Twenty-five years after the crime transpired, an arrest has finally been made in the first-degree murder case of Indian American Surinder Singh Parmar, who was fatally stabbed on Nov. 19, 1990.
Rupert Richards, who was arrested Monday, was “quite surprised” to learn he had been charged with Parmar’s murder, police said.
Det.-Sgt. Stacy Gallant, in charge of the Toronto police force’s cold-case unit, announced that 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.”
The victim 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 Toronto’s east end.
Parmar was working nights at the gas station and had family in India, including a wife and two children aged six and 12. Following the killing, the family immigrated to Canada and 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, according to the CBC.
‘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.”