Silence. That is what Zilla Parker says she has heard from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health after she went public last week in the National Post with her family's outrage at the placement of her husband's killer on the same street where close family lives in Parkdale, without so much as a word of consultation beforehand.
Parker is disappointed, but she is hardly surprised. From the time Nabil Huruy, 35, was moved to CAMH in 2023 from Waypoint psychiatric hospital in Penetanguishene, she said their treatment has been nothing short of appalling.
"They have zero empathy for the victims," insisted Parker, whose husband Dominic was killed by Huruy in an unprovoked attack in 2013. "They have always completely ignored us as if we don't exist."
Wrong place at the wrong time
On the night of Sept. 13, 2013, after numerous run-ins with police failed to have him properly held at a hospital, Huruy sat at a table occupied by the off-duty Markham firefighter watching sports at the Rotana Cafe on the Danforth. Just after 1 a.m., Huruy suddenly began stabbing him in the head and face with two knives, convinced the 45-year-old had been dispatched by the "government" to harm him.
Parker was in Montreal settling the couple's two daughters into Concordia University when she got the nightmare call in the middle of the night. "We just went straight to St. Mike's (hospital) but he never regained consciousness," she said softly. "He had cut the base of his brain stem."
In 2015, Huruy was found not criminally responsible on a charge of second-degree murder after the court said he was likely suffering from schizophrenia and could not appreciate the moral wrongfulness of his actions. He has been under the jurisdiction of the Ontario Review Board since then with annual reviews to determine the least restrictive conditions that also protect public safety.
The Saudi-born Huruy was kept safely from the public from 2016 to 2022 while he was obsessed with violent jihad and believed Allah wanted him to murder non-believers. He then reported an "epiphany" that he had been misinterpreting the Quran after speaking to his aunt in Saudi Arabia and was transferred to CAMH.
Following his 2025 hearing at CAMH last spring, Huruy's disposition was expanded to include the possibility of supervised housing in Toronto — but Parker said she was assured they would inform her first.
'Nobody reached out to us'
So she was stunned to learn in December from Toronto Police that Huruy had been quietly moved out of CAMH and into a facility on Dowling Ave. "Nobody reached out to us in advance," she said. "We have close family that lives a block and a half away." Since finding out, she has stopped visiting them, terrified she might run into Huruy on the street.
Before this year's ORB hearing in March, she had never written a victim impact statement. "I didn't feel I should. The murder was done due to a mental-health issue and I don't believe someone should be punished because the person is ill," she wrote. "This year I am writing one for the first time … because of how my own mental health is impacted."
Plea fell on deaf ears
She begged them to move Huruy to another facility so she can return to that Parkdale neighbourhood. "I have debilitating anxiety worrying that I will see Mr. Huruy, on the street, at the bus stop, in the grocery store, at the bank … anywhere outside the door. I am now having nightmares about it."
"It's been four months," Parker said with incredulity. "My family's been living on the street for 15 years." Her pleas fell on deaf ears. In its decision last month, the ORB confirmed Huruy continues to pose a "significant threat" and agreed with CAMH that he should remain on Dowling so his progress is not interrupted.
CAMH spokesperson Anne-Marie Tremble said that due to patient confidentiality, the hospital cannot comment on the specifics of the case. Parker's only hope now is public outrage: Her change.org petition has garnered more than 3,000 signatures.
"Everybody is shocked. Everybody. The messages are: 'How on earth can they be doing this? Why are they retraumatizing you?'" Why indeed?
