Man found guilty of murdering woman in 2022 Toronto subway stabbing
Neng Jia Jin will get life in prison for the fatal stabbing of Vanessa Kurpiewska
A man who stabbed two women on a Toronto subway in 2022, killing one of them, has been found guilty of first-degree murder and attempted murder.
Neng Jia Jin will receive an automatic sentence of life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years for first-degree murder following the decision in a Toronto court Friday.
The official sentencing is set for May 20. Lawyers appointed as Amicus curiae, after Jin elected to represent himself in court, suggested the court also sentence him to 10 years for attempted murder. Attempted murder comes with a sentencing range of six years to life.
Jin had already pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and attempted murder at a pre-trial hearing in February.
On the afternoon of Dec. 8, 2022, Jin randomly attacked two women on an eastbound subway train approaching High Park Station, stabbing both several times, according to the agreed statement of facts.
He injured a 37-year-old woman, according to the court document, and fatally wounded 31-year-old Vanessa Kurpiewska of Toronto. Kurpiewska died in hospital shortly after. The other woman — whom Jin stabbed in the abdomen, arm, hand and leg — received extensive permanent nerve damage and a physical scar.
Jin was arrested on scene at High Park Station, where the train stopped after the emergency alarm was pulled, court documents said.
At the start of Friday's sentencing hearing in a Toronto courtroom, Kurpiewska's mother, with tears in her eyes, attempted to lunge at Jin from the gallery. She was stopped by officers of the court and temporarily removed from the room.
Jin did not know the victims, according to court documents.
Kurpiewska's sister read a victim impact statement in court on behalf of her family, saying her sister was a kind soul, and her death was a "pure act of evil that took her away and will haunt the family forever."
A witness who tried to save Kupiewska from the attack told the court in his own statement that the incident had shaken him, causing him to contemplate suicide.
Jin said he was taking revenge for botched surgery
Jin, a Chinese national, told police after the stabbing that he knew the women were innocent, but he wanted to take revenge after a Canadian doctor damaged his eyesight during a surgery, according to court documents.
He said he'd wanted to sue, but a lawyer told him he couldn't because he had no legal Canadian status, so he wanted to take revenge on other innocents.
"I was harmed by Canadians, so I have to take it out on you Canadians," he told police in Mandarin, speaking through a translator, according to the agreed statement of facts.
In court documents, Jin denied he was suffering from mental illness.
Jin, who entered Canada illegally and is facing a deportation order, told police he's been comfortable in prison since the attack, getting regular meals, shelter and medical attention for his eyes, court documents said. He said he didn't care if he got a life sentence.
Jin considered killing other people first
In the hours before the subway attack, video submitted to court showed Jin took a bus to Kennedy Station in Scarborough hours before the attack. On the bus ride, footage showed Jin glancing at female passengers.
"Initially, I wanted to kill people on the bus, but I still couldn't see clearly on the bus," Jin later said in his statement to police that day. "Later, I got onto the subway, and I could see clearly."
Jin took the subway across town to Royal York Station, according to court documents, where surveillance video showed him start to stalk a woman with resemblance to Kurpiewska, his eventual murder victim.
The video, submitted to court, showed the woman try to evade Jin on the eastbound platform.
When the next train arrived, the woman walked to the far end of the platform and hid from Jin's sight. She then tried to board the train, but Jin ran to her car and stuck his arm between the doors to prevent them from closing. The woman then jumped back off the car through another door as Jin got on and the train departed.
In an impact statement read before the court, the woman said she's been haunted by Jin's stare ever since, and has become anxious in public, paranoid someone may be following her at any time.
Jin spent the next hour going back and forth between west end subway stations before boarding an eastbound car at Islington Station where his eventual victims were already riding just before 2 p.m., court documents said.
Soon after, Jin took two knives from a bag he'd been carrying and stabbed Kurpiewska seven times where she sat, before moving on to his second victim seated in the back of the car. As he attacked her, a Good Samaritan on the train intervened to disarm and subdue him until police arrived.
The fatal attack was one of a series of violent episodes on TTC property in 2022 and 2023. They include a teenager who was stabbed to death at Keele Station in March 2023 and the fatal attack on a 27-year-old woman in June 2022, where a man poured a flammable substance on her and ignited it.
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With files from Naama Weingarten