JARVIS ST.REMY Tribute

Shortly after the casket carrying murdered teen Jarvis St. Remy was taken away today, his stepfather stood in the church parking lot with a sombre expression, wondering why.

“There’s no answer,” said Linton Bigby. “We don’t know why this happened. We want to find out why this happened.

“We just want the people who did this to understand they took away a loved one. We want them to turn themselves in (to police), so we can get closure to this.”

Two men fled the bus stop on Dundas St. W. near Scarlett Rd. on May 1, leaving the teen dying in a pool of blood around 10:45 p.m.

The aspiring engineer had a midnight curfew and was leaving his best friend’s home after an evening of watching television.

“We’re not going to get closure on this until they surrender themselves to the police,” Bigby said. “We don’t hate them or anything, we just want to know the reason why.

“What (could) Jarvis have done to them to do something like this to him?” Bigby said. “He was a good kid, man.”

About 200 people followed the casket carrying St. Remy into the storefront Our Lady of Good Counsel Caribbean Catholic Church on College St., west of Ossington Ave.

Mass included songs, a poem reading and a saxophone solo before the casket was brought out for interment at the Sanctuary Park Cemetery on Royal York Rd.

“He was a great guy,” said Taavo Nisbet, 18, a fellow Grade 12 school mate at Western Tech.

“To shoot somebody, I can’t understand why people resort to violence.”

Nisbet said people should work out their differences with words.

“You don’t pull out a gun and shoot someone, especially at someone at that young age,” he said. “We’re just about to graduate.”

Joanna Wilson, 39, thought of St. Remy as her second son. He was with her son Courtney the night of the shooting, she said.

The two boys, who became friends five years ago, usually got together to watch television and play video games, she said.

“They never went out to parties,” Wilson said.

“Jarvis left as usual as he does every night,” she said. “My son was on his way to bed and we heard a bang.”

Wilson said she looked off the balcony and saw Jarvis lying on the ground.

She rushed out and found him “in a pool of blood.”

“It’s hard,” Wilson said outside the church. “Devastating.”

rob.lamberti@sunmedia.ca

Family Spokesperson: Tell Police what you know!! (Toronto Sun)