Son arrested after dad stabbed to death in Scarborough

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Neighbours and close friends were grieving the stabbing death of a man in his 60s outside a north Scarborough home on Thursday morning.

Just before noon, a man with his wife showed up and both were visibly shaken and crying as they stood behind a police cruiser outside the home on Whitley Castle Cr. – near McCowan Rd. and Finch Ave. E.

The man took of his glasses and wiped away tears as he stood staring a the taped-off crime scene and home.

The man, who would not give his name, said when he moved to Toronto in the late 1990s from Sri Lanka that he lived with the family in downtown Toronto – and he called the deceased man by the nickname “Uncle.”

“He is like my uncle to me,” said the man, who last spoke to the family about a month ago on the phone.

“What I know is they were a happy family,” he said, alleging the son had some mental health issues.

“We don’t go deeply into the father, mom, son relationship, but we generally talk as a family,” said the man. “But they have some depression issues (with the son).”

Toronto Police arrived at the home just after 11 p.m. on Wednesday and found a man who had allegedly stabbed to death by his 32-year-old son.

The man was pronounced dead inside the family home.

Standing inside his garage Thursday, a next-door neighbour, who goes by the first name of Sree (short for Sreekuladevan), said his neighbour’s wife came out of their house Wednesday night in a panic looking for help and his own 27-year-old son went to their neighbours’ home and made the grisly discovery.

Sree said he had seen the wife earlier in the evening, around 6:30 p.m., and asked where her husband was and “she said he had gone to work.”

The victim had recently started a job as an Uber driver, he said.

Later in the night, he was on the computer when he got a knock on the door looking for help.

“At the time, she was on the phone with the police. Then she gave the phone to my son,” said Sree. “Then my son talked to the police.”

“Then we went inside, but I didn’t go. My son go inside. He saw the body (covered) in the blood,” he explained.

Sree said his neighbours moved into their home in 2004, a year after Sree moved in with his own family, and their kids went to school together.

He said they were a family of four – their daughter recently got married and moved out – and they used to own a Sri Lankan video store in Scarborough that rented and sold movies and videos.

“I can’t believe,” Sree said of the son’s alleged involvement in the killing. “Because he liked (his) father.”

jboland@postmedia.com