Father of three shot dead inside own convenience store, no arrests since 1993

By Madison Fitzpatrick

This week on Tracking a Killer: The Cold Case Files, CityNews reporters Fil Martino and Madison Fitzpatrick take a look at the unsolved shooting death of 54-year-old Suckju Ryu.

On the evening of February 18, 1993, the father of three was gunned down in his convenience store. Toronto Police say it appears two young men came into the store with a firearm and attempted to rob the shopkeeper.

Now almost 30 years later, his family members, including his daughter Elizabeth Ryu, who was 20 years old when her father was killed, still want to know who is responsible.

“He was [a] strong, very proud, man. He came to Canada with not a lot to start all over and give us opportunities that we wouldn’t necessarily get in South Korea,” says Ryu.

Toronto Police Detective Steve Smith has been with the service for close to 25 years and with the Cold Case Unit for the last four. He says it’s unclear if the two suspects even got away with any merchandise. “I mean, he may have given them everything that they wanted and they still shot him,” he says. “They shot him really for nothing, for absolutely nothing.”


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Elizabeth Ryu has her own version of what went down in her dad’s convenience store that night. “I think that whoever one person, two people who knows, came in and said, you know, hand over the cash and because my dad was a strong individual who was very proud, probably said no,” she says. “And then because he didn’t hand over the money. He was shot.”

Police say the firearm has never been located, but with new technology they are hoping to gain new information.

“We’re going to resubmit everything that we have from the scene, the blood, our swabs, fingerprints, basically everything that we have,” Detective Smith says. “Our hope is that we’re able to create a DNA profile from at least one, if not both the offenders.”

Without answers for almost 30 years, Ryu is still hoping to get closure for her fathers death.

“There are moments where I might see someone walking by who looks like my dad and my heart stops. And then obviously I realize it’s not [him],” she says. “The question of like, why, who would do something like that? Closure is something that kind of comes in waves sometimes. I think it’s okay not to have closure. And then other times it is on my mind for sure.”

Rogers Sports & Media is the parent company of CityNews 680 and the Frequency Podcast Network.

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