CANADA Canada- Suck Ju Ryu, 56, Convenience store owner, fatally shot during robbery, Toronto, 18 Feb. 1993, *Reopened, DNA*

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The Robbery Turned Deadly​

Toronto | 1993​

The search for the teenagers who shot a beloved store owner

Suck Ju Ryu emigrated from South Korea to Canada in 1972 with little more than a dream of a new life. With his wife, he raised a family and, about a decade later, opened a new convenience store on the ground floor of a seniors’ home in the north end of Toronto. The residents and other locals got to know the soft-hearted and hard-working business owner. By the cash register, the linoleum tiles had worn away from the years he’d spent tending to the store.

''Sometime during the afternoon of February 18, 1993, 56-year-old Ryu closed the store briefly to drive his wife home, as he often did. Shortly after he returned, two teen boys, believed to be 15 and 17, reportedly entered the store with a firearm. Ryu’s daughter and police suspect he refused when the teens demanded he hand over his cash. Whatever happened, one of them shot him in the chest and they fled. A few minutes later, a customer found Ryu lying on the floor and called 911.

The suspects were last seen boarding a westbound bus, but by the time the police caught up to the vehicle, the teens were gone. Police canvassed the neighbourhood, collected evidence from the store and brought the bus in for forensic examination. But with no solid leads or security footage, and with DNA technology still in its infancy, they couldn’t zero in on the killers.

In 2021, nearly 30 years after Ryu’s murder, Toronto police reopened the case in the hopes of extracting DNA and further evidence from what was collected on scene, hoping that advancements in testing technology might crack the case. The force also promised to create a profile that they can compare to a database of known offenders. Ryu’s daughter Elizabeth is still hoping for a breakthrough. “There are moments where I might see someone walking by who looks like my dad and my heart stops,” she told media. “And then I realize it’s not him.”