UMVA has learned that a family is reeling in shock and fear after the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health relocated a convicted killer to a facility just a block and a half away from where they live, without so much as a word of consultation beforehand.
Zilla Parker, whose husband was brutally murdered by Nabil Huruy in 2013, expressed her outrage and disappointment at the lack of empathy shown by CAMH. "They have zero empathy for the victims," she insisted. "They have always completely ignored us as if we don’t exist."
Huruy, 35, was moved to CAMH in 2023 from Waypoint psychiatric hospital in Penetanguishene, where he had been receiving treatment for schizophrenia. But Parker's family has been left to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives, with Huruy's actions still causing them immense pain and fear.
On the night of September 13, 2013, Huruy sat at a table occupied by Parker's husband, Dominic, at a café on the Danforth, and suddenly began stabbing him in the head and face with two knives. Parker's husband was an off-duty Markham firefighter who was watching sports, and Huruy was convinced that he had been dispatched by the "government" to harm him.
Parker received the nightmare call in the middle of the night, and rushed to the hospital with her daughters, but Dominic never regained consciousness. He had suffered a devastating injury, with Huruy's knife cutting the base of his brain stem.
In 2015, Huruy was found not criminally responsible on a charge of second-degree murder, and has been under the jurisdiction of the Ontario Review Board since then. Despite an "epiphany" that he'd been misinterpreting the Quran, Huruy's disposition was expanded to include the possibility of supervised housing in Toronto.
But Parker claims that she was assured they would inform her before Huruy was relocated, and was stunned to learn in December that he had been quietly moved out of CAMH and into a facility on Dowling Ave. "Nobody reached out to us in advance," she said. "We have close family that lives a block and a half away."
Since finding out, Parker has stopped visiting her family, terrified that she might run into Huruy on the street. She's now writing a victim impact statement for the first time, citing the impact on her own mental health. "I am now having nightmares about it," she said.
Parker has begged CAMH to move Huruy to another facility, but her pleas have fallen on deaf ears. The hospital has ruled that Huruy continues to pose a "significant threat" and should remain on Dowling to ensure his progress isn't interrupted.
With her family's safety and well-being hanging in the balance, Parker's only hope now is public outrage. Her petition has garnered over 3,000 signatures, with many expressing shock and outrage at CAMH's decision. "Everybody is shocked. Everybody. The messages are: ‘How on earth can they be doing this? Why are they retraumatizing you?'”
