A man about to stand trial for fatally stabbing a woman, and injuring another, in random attacks onboard a TTC subway at High Park station in 2022 has entered surprise guilty pleas, telling the court through an interpreter that proceeding would be a waste of time.
The Crown confirmed with CityNews that Neng Jia Jin, 55, pleaded guilty to both first-degree murder in the killing of 31-year-old Vanessa Kurpiewska of Toronto, and attempted murder in the stabbing of a second woman who survived.
Vanessa Kurpiewska of Toronto. Photo: Toronto police.
“I killed that lady, that’s why I’m pleading guilty,” Jin said in court on Monday according to reports from the Toronto Star. “To continue on, it is wasting everyone’s time.”
Jin reportedly said he stabbed the women on Dec. 8, 2022, in an act of revenge after he was allegedly blinded by a doctor.
“Because the Canadian doctor harmed me I wanted revenge,” the Star reported him saying in court. “The hate I had inside of me made me feel like I want to kill.”
The shocking stabbings took place on a busy subway train at around 2 p.m. The suspect was quickly apprehended and taken into custody at the scene.
Kurpiewska was pronounced dead, while a second victim, a 37-year-old woman, was treated for non-life-threatening injuries and later released.
‘Horrific event’
One transit user who witnessed the incident described a chaotic scene with people screaming and scrambling for safety while a man wielded an object described as an “ice-pick.”
John, a CityNews Toronto employee, was riding the subway when it happened and said he heard a disturbance on the train as it approached the station.
“I saw a woman rush past me and into the next car and then a commotion at the other end of the train, children crying and some women screaming,” he said.
“I saw a man in the corner of the subway car, holding what appeared to be a sharp instrument, like an ice-pick and he was being prevented from leaving the train by another man.”
When police arrived, John says the first two officers on scene ordered the man to the ground.
“He refused repeated requests to go to the ground. One of the officers then used his Taser and eventually they managed to subdue him, but he was not easily surrendering, even when he was on the ground.”
Then-mayor John Tory said at the time that more investments were needed so people in crisis “have somewhere to go other than wander up and down subway cars.”
