Toronto gun crime: Widow marks 10th year since losing husband to gunfire during charity dance
Published on Tuesday July 10, 2012
/TORONTO STAR
Jennifer Moore, 61, and her daughter Jaleesa, 24, in their Brampton home. Moore's husband, Colin Moore, 51, was gunned down over a $10 cover charge by two men in the kitchen HHMS club in Toronto on July 6, 2012, where he and his wife were holding First Fridays, a charity dance for Guyanese community members. Gary Eunick and Leighton Hay were convicted of first degree murder in the shooting In May 2004.
1 of 2
Peter Small
Courts Bureau
For Jennifer Moore, the pain of losing her husband to murderers’ bullets never lessens, just becomes more manageable.
Last Friday, she marked a grim anniversary. It was 10 years ago to the day that Colin Moore was shot in the kitchen of HHMS nightclub in east Toronto by two angry young men over a $10 cover charge.
“You just wake up and hope it’s going to be a good day, but you never know,” she says.
Moore still has her “shrine” for the popular 51-year-old Guyanese-Canadian community leader in the living room of the Brampton home they shared for 15 years — a table dominated by his photo. On the floor lies a soccer ball signed by his teammates.
She can’t bring herself to throw out his clothes, though she finally removed his shoes from the front porch.
Her doctor and friends tell her she should move on.
“I would have thought I would be a little further on in the process,” she says.
Moore is inviting friends and family to a memorial service at East Scarborough Pentecostal Church on Progress Ave. on Saturday.
“We’ll go to the cemetery, release some balloons and lay some flowers,” says Moore.
The 61-year-old mother of two often visits Rest Haven cemetery, at Kingston and Brimley Rds., to talk to the man she married 25 years ago.
On July 6, 2002, Colin and Jennifer were holding their monthly First Friday charity dance for the more mature Guyanese-Canadian crowd.
Colin and his brother Roger argued at the door with three young men who refused to pay the $10 cover charge. They came to blows.
The young men left, but two returned with handguns minutes later and found the brothers in the club’s kitchen. Colin was hit by eight bullets, one to his aorta, while Roger cheated death with a graze to the head.
Jennifer saw it happen. “It was like watching something in slow motion.”
A jury convicted Gary Eunick, 29, and Leighton Hay, 21, of first-degree murder in May 2004.
Eunick and Hay appealed, unsuccessfully, to the Ontario Court of Appeal. However, Hay is seeking leave to appeal in the Supreme Court of Canada, based on new evidence.
The Crown alleged he shaved his head after the shooting to thwart detection.
But recent forensic tests ordered by the defence show hair clippings found in his home are predominantly facial hairs, not scalp hairs.
Jennifer is philosophical about Hay’s appeal, though she believes the jury probably got it right. She bears no hatred for the convicted killers.
“Our lives have ended, but theirs have as well,” she says.
Her youngest daughter Jaleesa, 24 and about to be married, still feels angry, not at the killers but about losing “the best dad ever” at age 14.
She regrets not kissing him goodbye, as usual, the last time she saw him. She was too busy practising a song, “At Your Best,” for the Miss Guyana Canada pageant. Instead, she sang it at his funeral in front of 3,000 mourners.
“I still get up and think I’m going to see him and he’ll ask me what I want for breakfast. He used to always make me breakfast,” she says.
“When I get married, he’s not going to be there to walk me up the aisle. He wasn’t there for my university graduation. It’s the small things like that he won’t be there for.”
Her older sister Alicia, 36, a busy lawyer in Maryland, still phones home just because she misses him.
Colin Moore’s life revolved around his “three girls,” his widow says.
It’s the little things, she says, that trigger waves of grief.
When a light bulb blows, she’s gripped with the realization he’s no longer there to change it.
When it snows, she remembers he would never let her lift a shovel. “It’s too cold. The snow’s too heavy,” he would say.
He used to always renew her car sticker. She recently burst into tears lining up to renew hers, reminded again he is no longer around.
Steve Sullivan, executive director of Ottawa Victim Services, says professionals in his field never use the word closure. “There really is no closure. There’s days when it’s better.”
Hopefully over time the pain lessens.
“When people say there should be a time limit on their grief, that’s just not how it works,” Sullivan says.
Homicides are different, too. With such violent, unexpected deaths, no one gets a chance to say goodbye, he says.
It’s only in the last two or three years, Jennifer Moore says, that she no longer has a lump in her throat. “You feel this heaviness, like your heart is broken. You don’t even breathe properly,” she says.
In 10 years, Jennifer hopes to have grandchildren to dote on. “But I’ll think, ‘He should have been there to enjoy his grandchildren.’ ”
Adds Jaleesa: “There is always going to be a ‘He should have been there.’ ”
http://www.thestar.com/news/gt...during-charity-dance
Published on Tuesday July 10, 2012
/TORONTO STAR
Jennifer Moore, 61, and her daughter Jaleesa, 24, in their Brampton home. Moore's husband, Colin Moore, 51, was gunned down over a $10 cover charge by two men in the kitchen HHMS club in Toronto on July 6, 2012, where he and his wife were holding First Fridays, a charity dance for Guyanese community members. Gary Eunick and Leighton Hay were convicted of first degree murder in the shooting In May 2004.
1 of 2
Peter Small
Courts Bureau
For Jennifer Moore, the pain of losing her husband to murderers’ bullets never lessens, just becomes more manageable.
Last Friday, she marked a grim anniversary. It was 10 years ago to the day that Colin Moore was shot in the kitchen of HHMS nightclub in east Toronto by two angry young men over a $10 cover charge.
“You just wake up and hope it’s going to be a good day, but you never know,” she says.
Moore still has her “shrine” for the popular 51-year-old Guyanese-Canadian community leader in the living room of the Brampton home they shared for 15 years — a table dominated by his photo. On the floor lies a soccer ball signed by his teammates.
She can’t bring herself to throw out his clothes, though she finally removed his shoes from the front porch.
Her doctor and friends tell her she should move on.
“I would have thought I would be a little further on in the process,” she says.
Moore is inviting friends and family to a memorial service at East Scarborough Pentecostal Church on Progress Ave. on Saturday.
“We’ll go to the cemetery, release some balloons and lay some flowers,” says Moore.
The 61-year-old mother of two often visits Rest Haven cemetery, at Kingston and Brimley Rds., to talk to the man she married 25 years ago.
On July 6, 2002, Colin and Jennifer were holding their monthly First Friday charity dance for the more mature Guyanese-Canadian crowd.
Colin and his brother Roger argued at the door with three young men who refused to pay the $10 cover charge. They came to blows.
The young men left, but two returned with handguns minutes later and found the brothers in the club’s kitchen. Colin was hit by eight bullets, one to his aorta, while Roger cheated death with a graze to the head.
Jennifer saw it happen. “It was like watching something in slow motion.”
A jury convicted Gary Eunick, 29, and Leighton Hay, 21, of first-degree murder in May 2004.
Eunick and Hay appealed, unsuccessfully, to the Ontario Court of Appeal. However, Hay is seeking leave to appeal in the Supreme Court of Canada, based on new evidence.
The Crown alleged he shaved his head after the shooting to thwart detection.
But recent forensic tests ordered by the defence show hair clippings found in his home are predominantly facial hairs, not scalp hairs.
Jennifer is philosophical about Hay’s appeal, though she believes the jury probably got it right. She bears no hatred for the convicted killers.
“Our lives have ended, but theirs have as well,” she says.
Her youngest daughter Jaleesa, 24 and about to be married, still feels angry, not at the killers but about losing “the best dad ever” at age 14.
She regrets not kissing him goodbye, as usual, the last time she saw him. She was too busy practising a song, “At Your Best,” for the Miss Guyana Canada pageant. Instead, she sang it at his funeral in front of 3,000 mourners.
“I still get up and think I’m going to see him and he’ll ask me what I want for breakfast. He used to always make me breakfast,” she says.
“When I get married, he’s not going to be there to walk me up the aisle. He wasn’t there for my university graduation. It’s the small things like that he won’t be there for.”
Her older sister Alicia, 36, a busy lawyer in Maryland, still phones home just because she misses him.
Colin Moore’s life revolved around his “three girls,” his widow says.
It’s the little things, she says, that trigger waves of grief.
When a light bulb blows, she’s gripped with the realization he’s no longer there to change it.
When it snows, she remembers he would never let her lift a shovel. “It’s too cold. The snow’s too heavy,” he would say.
He used to always renew her car sticker. She recently burst into tears lining up to renew hers, reminded again he is no longer around.
Steve Sullivan, executive director of Ottawa Victim Services, says professionals in his field never use the word closure. “There really is no closure. There’s days when it’s better.”
Hopefully over time the pain lessens.
“When people say there should be a time limit on their grief, that’s just not how it works,” Sullivan says.
Homicides are different, too. With such violent, unexpected deaths, no one gets a chance to say goodbye, he says.
It’s only in the last two or three years, Jennifer Moore says, that she no longer has a lump in her throat. “You feel this heaviness, like your heart is broken. You don’t even breathe properly,” she says.
In 10 years, Jennifer hopes to have grandchildren to dote on. “But I’ll think, ‘He should have been there to enjoy his grandchildren.’ ”
Adds Jaleesa: “There is always going to be a ‘He should have been there.’ ”
http://www.thestar.com/news/gt...during-charity-dance
