TORONTO — The killer who killed two people in Toronto earlier this week thought they had ripped off his family, the killer’s wife said Wednesday. Court records show that the family was suing the two after losing more than CDN $1 million in a claimed investment scam.
Monday, a man and a woman were shot and killed in an office building in north Toronto near a daycare center. The man who attacked them also died.
“Alan Kats, my husband, could not handle losing our life savings, and that is what led to this tragic event,” Alisa Pogorelovsky said in a statement shared by her lawyers. Alan Kats also died in the shooting.
She wrote, “I hope my family can get better someday.”
The victims of Monday’s shooting have been named by police as Arash Missaghi, 54, and Samira Yousefi, 44. However, the 46-year-old shooter has not been named.
Records from court show that Pogorelovsky and her husband sued the two people who were shot and others after losing CDN $1.28 million (US$930,000) in an alleged mortgage fraud scheme.
Missaghi and Yousefi had not been proven guilty in court of the charges against them.
That same year, Missaghi was charged with his part in a complicated mortgage fraud plan worth CDN $17 million (US$12.4 million). The investigation was called Project Bridle Path by the police.
“The events that led to the lawsuit we are in with Missaghi and Yousefi have badly hurt and now destroyed our family,” Pogorelovsky said in the statement.
It also said that she found a note from her husband after the shooting that told her “what he was thinking and why he did what he did.”
Police say the shooting happened at a shop that handles “financial transactions” on Monday afternoon in the North York neighborhood of Toronto.