MANDEL: Kenneth Lee viciously killed days before heading home for Christmas

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Kenneth Lee was finally coming back to them.

Just a few more weeks, he told his family, and he’d leave the Toronto shelter system – where he’d gone to find himself – and he’d be home for Christmas.

“Happiness was within reach,” Helen Shum wrote of her brother in her victim impact statement. “But sadly, this reunion would never happen due to the action of the accused.”

Lee, 59, was viciously killed shortly after midnight on Dec. 18, 2022, when police allege the homeless man was attacked by a swarm of eight girls in a parkette near University Ave. and Front St. after he came to the aid of a female friend who’d been robbed of her alcohol.

The girls, who range in age from 13 to 16 and can’t be identified under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, were originally charged with second-degree murder.

Four of the accused girls recently pleaded guilty – three to manslaughter and one to assault causing bodily harm and assault with a weapon.

The remaining four teens have pleaded not guilty – three to second-degree murder and one to manslaughter – and will have trials next year.

As the first to plead guilty to manslaughter and the only one still in custody, the 15-year-old listened with little emotion in court Friday as Crown attorney Mary Humphrey read three heartbreaking victim impact statements from Lee’s sister, brother-in-law and cousin.

“Every memory, every thought, every word I write has been excruciatingly painful,” Lee’s sister, Helen Shum, wrote. “The realization that I will never be able to see my brother’s face, hear his voice or listen to one of his many corny jokes is heart-wrenching.”

She lost her only sibling, and her mother lost her only son. Their family will never be whole again.

“He was loved,” Shum wrote.

“My brother was only 59-years-old. The images from the security footage played during the preliminary trial has been repeating in my head every day and night. The piercing pain that hits me every time these uncontrollable images surface in my head are unbearable.

“I have not had one peaceful night of sleep.”

According to the agreed statement of facts read during her manslaughter plea in May, the teen admitted her role in the shocking three-minute beating of Lee: while she was high on alcohol or drugs or both, she punched and kicked him and spit and screamed at him – even as the homeless man lay battered and helpless on the ground.

The Crown said the deadly assault only ended after an employee leaving the shelter at the nearby Strathcona Hotel heard loud screaming and intervened in what she later described as “a bunch of wolves on top of a piece of meat.“

No wonder his family is haunted by the images they’ve seen.

Lee’s sister says she’s been diagnosed with depression, is now on sick leave from her job and needs medication to sleep. Adding to her excruciating agony is watching her 85-year-old mother struggle with losing her son.

“She is now nothing more than an empty shell with no happiness, only isolating herself to her house,” Shum wrote. “No mom should have to bury their child.”

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Shum offered an insight to Lee’s last months: always overprotected as the sole son in a Chinese family, she said he’d decided to strike out on his own.

“It took enormous courage to decide to leave behind all his safety nets and to find himself. I was very proud of him. This was the first time my brother was out on his own. He joked, ‘Better later than never.'”

He was her children’s beloved uncle, confidant and mentor who indulged them with pizza, chocolate milk and games of Monopoly, and he remained in constant contact with them, she said.

“He knew that his family would always be behind him and he would have a home to come back to,” his sister wrote. “We were all looking forward to the day he would come back to us.”

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Tragically, that day was stolen away.

“Only a week before his death, my brother had spoken with my mother indicating he was finally feeling happy and was looking forward to coming home soon around Christmas.”

Instead, he died of a penetrating stab wound to the heart, while his battered body suffered 19 different wounds from blunt-force trauma.

And the girl who admits to beating – but not stabbing – Lee? Her lawyer said she’ll be seeking a non-custodial sentence.

mmandel@postmedia.com