Creba Family Impact Statement
Posted April 8, 2009 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Closing arguments in the sentencing of a man convicted in the second degree murder of 15-year-old Jane Creba continued on Wednesday.
The man, who was a young offender at the time and can only be identified as J.S.R., was one of several youths and young adults who took part in a gang shootout on Boxing Day. Creba was an innocent bystander who was hit by a stray bullet during the exchange of gunfire Yonge Street.
If J.S.R. is sentenced as a youth, he could face as little as 10 months behind bars, prosecutors said Wednesday.
As an adult he would likely spend another three years in prison, and be monitored for life upon his release.
The Crown read the Creba family’s impact statement in court. It is posted below in its entirety.
Jane Creba’s Family Impact Statement:
On Boxing Day 2005, a gang shootout on Yonge Street left one dead, many injured, and a city in shock and outrage. Not only did we lose our beloved Jane, “our bright light”, but Toronto appeared to be stumbling into darkness.
Three years later, we recognize that our family’s personal grief and loss is only one of many Boxing Day stories. The impact of Jane’s death on the family was and continues to be deep and profound. The immediate tsunami of grief and sadness that swept up her parents, brother, and sister also pulled into its wake her cousins, uncles, aunts, grandparents and close friends. The life events and holidays that once were a celebration are now a time of healing – finding the light in the darkness.
Outside the immediate family, her death affected her neighbours, the local schools she attended, the Riverdale neighbourhood, the summer camp and the cottage community where she spent every summer. Jane was a highly regarded student athlete, and young scholar at Riverdale Collegiate Institute. She showed all the signs of a successful future citizen. Her death chilled the students and school communities. While Jane’s close friends have now graduated, Jane continues to be remembered in an annual award given to a graduating student. Jane is also dearly missed and remembered at her summer camp, where she had begun to stretch her wings and hone important life skills – poised to become a councillor and leader. Jane was a great kid.
Beyond those connected directly to Jane, the people of Toronto have been forever changed by the Boxing Day shootings. There is no way to express the collective shock, outrage, and bitterness is seeing Toronto’s main street plunged into open gang violence, from people with seemingly no regard for others, and end in the death of an innocent bystander, our Jane.
Bruce Creba and Virginia Barton,
January 23, 2009.
