Latest Mississauga murder has some residents fearful amid string of 2023 slayings
Published July 25, 2023 at 12:48 pm
The murder of a 21-year-old Mississauga woman last week inside her seventh-floor Port Credit apartment has shaken some area residents who are still reeling from a string of violent incidents earlier this year in the south end of the city.
As Peel Regional Police homicide investigators continue the hunt for the killer of Pitch Phaunpa, a number of residents say they’re unsettled by an uncharacteristic spike in gun violence and deaths in the Port Credit area so far in 2023.
Police haven’t revealed how Phaunpa was killed, but they say she died sometime last Monday or Tuesday (July 17 or 18). Officers conducting a wellness check on the woman last Thursday discovered her body inside the apartment building at 28 Helene St. N., just south of Port Credit GO station.
Pitch Phaunpa (Photo: Canada Obituaries)
“So glad I sold my condo there (because) there is always something happening to people in that area, people getting shot and stabbed; it’s never ending,” one person wrote in response to a Facebook post late last week in the wake of the latest murder.
“I have been going to Port Credit since I was a kid and also lived there for a few months. It’s a real mess and likely not safe at night. I saw way too much and each year it gets even worse than the one before,” another woman wrote on the post.
While a number of residents expressed concern on social media, others suggested their fears are overblown and that Port Credit is still a safe and “beautiful” part of the city and that the number of violent incidents so far in 2023 is a departure from the norm.
The grisly discovery on July 20 came about a month after an unrelated “targeted” double shooting several blocks to the southeast left a 25-year-old Toronto man dead and his 19-year-old female companion wounded by gunfire.
Shahid Todd was pronounced dead at the Oakwood Ave. S./Wanita Rd. scene on the night of June 21. His body was reportedly found in very shallow water on the Lake Ontario shoreline.
A shooting three years ago in Mississauga covered by insauga.com involved a man of the same name as the murder victim in the June 21 shooting.
In July 2020, police charged a man by the name of Shahid Todd, 22 and of Mississauga at the time, with attempted murder and numerous other charges after another man was shot in a parking lot at Mavis and Britannia Rds. in Mississauga.
The victim in that shooting survived.
Police haven’t said if the two shootings are related.
In addition to the latest violence in the Port Credit area, yet another double shooting claimed the life of one man outside the Canvas Art Bar, on Lakeshore Rd. E., in March.
Meanwhile, Phaunpa, known to family and friends as “Polly,” was described in an online obituary as a student at the Toronto Film School who enjoyed drawing, watching crime series TV shows, listening to music and playing guitar and violin.
“Polly will be forever remembered by her family as a very kind, caring, quiet, thoughtful and smart person,” the obituary reads.
The woman’s immediate family members had reportedly moved out of province late last year, at which time Phaunpa moved into the Port Credit apartment building.
Anyone with information on Phaunpa’s murder is urged to contact police at 905-453-2121, ext. 3205, or Peel Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477.
