‘I fear for all the children out there’ says mother of slain teenager in killed in random 2023 TTC attack

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Gabriel Magalhaes, a warm and effusive 16-year-old, dreamed of becoming an astrophysicist and liked to hug his mother on cold and windy days.

But nearly two years after he was killed in an unprovoked subway station attack that shocked Toronto, his mother, Andrea Magalhaes, is still struggling with the reality that she will never hug her son again.

“Gabriel will never live beyond his teen years,” Ms. Magalhaes wrote in a victim impact statement that was read Thursday in a Toronto courtroom as part of the sentencing hearing for her son’s attacker.

“Gabriel will never feel the overwhelming love and fear that comes with having children.”

The boy was fatally stabbed while waiting at the Keele subway station on Toronto’s west side on March 25, 2023, in an attack that was part of a wave of violence that fuelled a debate about public safety and how the courts deal with repeat offenders.

Jordan O’Brien-Tobin, 24, pled guilty to second-degree murder last year. Prosecutors told the court Mr. O’Brien-Tobin was addicted to drugs and had a long criminal record, including more than 120 convictions for failing to comply with court orders and failing to attend court, as well as 18 convictions for assault, including assault with a weapon and sexual assault.

While the minimum sentence for second-degree murder is life in prison with no parole for 10 years, the Crown asked that he not be eligible for parole for 18 years. The defence asked for 12 years. He will be sentenced on Feb. 28.

The Globe and Mail previously reported that before Gabriel’s killing, Mr. O’Brien-Tobin had many criminal cases end in plea deals despite a history of property crimes, serious assaults and flagrant breaches of bail and probation orders.

Ms. Magalhaes wrote in her statement that she is constantly haunted by the details of her son’s death.

“I fear for all the children out there,” she wrote. “I will never again be able to hug my baby.”

Prosecutors described Mr. O’Brien-Tobin as a man with drug problems but who was never diagnosed with a serious mental-health condition.

The Newfoundlander, who had moved to Toronto’s streets, went through cycles of arrest and release. Before the stabbing, Mr. O’Brien-Tobin had been seen sleeping in doorways and had been arrested for incidents that included shoplifting, carrying fentanyl and assaulting a store worker.

Mr. O’Brien-Tobin addressed the court, reading from a handwritten statement.

“My words cannot bring back a loved one and for that I’m very sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry for what I did. I’m sorry for your loss.”

Crown attorney Karen Simone told court the killing shook the city.

“People who use public transit in our city were left feeling, ‘Am I next?’ It’s how people felt after this happened,” she said.

An agreed statement filed in court says the attack was “unprovoked and with no exchange of words.” The statement says Mr. O’Brien-Tobin stabbed the teen in the chest and then left the station.

Mr. O’Brien-Tobin was arrested later that night. Police found his phone contained text messages reading “I just stabbed someone random” and “I stabbed someone and got away with it,” according to court documents.

The killing coincided with other high-profile slayings at Toronto’s mass transit stations. In June, 2022, a woman was doused with lighter fluid and set on fire at Kipling station. In December, 2022, two women were stabbed – one fatally – at High Park station. That same month, a homeless man was stabbed to death across from Union Station, leading to the arrest of eight teenaged girls.

Gabriel’s father, Antonio Fernando De Magalhaes, wrote in his own victim-impact statement that he has been living in a “nightmare.”

In other victim impact statements, bystanders write of being traumatized by their powerlessness to save a boy whom they found bleeding out at a subway station. One describes holding Gabriel while he was bleeding from his mouth and trying to comfort him by telling him everything was going to be okay. In another, a Toronto Transit Commission worker says he was so stunned by what he saw that he spent the next 18 months off work.