‘This could have been anybody’s daughter’: Vigil held for Surrey homicide victim
A candlelight vigil was held in Surrey on Saturday night for the woman who was fatally attacked inside her home last Sunday.
Dozens of family and friends of Tori Dunn gathered at Bend Regional Park for the vigil, some angry and all calling for justice.
Tori’s father Aron Dunn said his daughter was “vibrant and full of life.”
“She was a beautiful soul. She was kind, gentle, caring and soft,” he told Global News.
“She was just a wonderful, caring and loving human being.”
Dunn said his 30-year-old daughter’s death should be a wake-up call for government officials and called change in the Canadian justice system.
“(We need to bring) awareness to our justice system and how badly we need justice reform in this municipality, this province and every province in Canada… We’re very, very angry and upset, and we want justice for her,” he said.
“Tori was a young woman minding their own business, in her own home in a good neighbourhood. This could have been anybody’s daughter.”
Tori Dunn was found by Surrey RCMP officers inside her home on 182A Street at 10 p.m. with life-threatening injuries. She later died in hospital.
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Some of her friends said they had just seen her at a wedding the day before.
“All of us were together. We all were dancing and laughing and so we have really good keepsakes of our last day,” Jill Clark said, battling through tears.
“But I think our wedding will always be a reminder of our last day together.”
According to B.C.’s homicide investigation team, a suspect in the “senseless act” was arrested the night of the killing, with the help of police dogs.
Global News has learned the suspect, whom we are not naming until charges are laid, is on probation and had been in and out of custody in recent months.
The 41-year-old is accused of stabbing a woman near a Surrey SkyTrain station while out on bail for robbery charges, three weeks before Dunn was killed.
Last Wednesday, BC Conservative MLA Elenore Sturko said this case is another example of a failing system.
“We can see in this case that the system failed because we had numerous interactions with this person in our justice system and not once but twice women were harmed,” Sturko said.
“And in the second case, that person was murdered and it’s just simply unacceptable.”
— With files from Kristen Robinson, Amy Judd
