‘You’re chasing a ghost’: A decade later, Toronto police still searching for gunman who killed expectant mother

Candice Rochelle Bobb. (Toronto Police handout)

Ten years later, cold case investigators in Toronto still hope someone will come forward with the name of the gunman who shot and killed expectant mother Candice ‘Rochelle’ Bobb.

‘With every murder there’s somebody that knows who committed this,” Insp. Steve Smith, head of the Toronto Police Service’s cold case unit, said this month.

“We’re hoping over the past decade, there’s been some sort of change in relationships and somebody’s willing to come forward and if not directly to the police… at the very least, call Crime Stoppers and give us an update.”

Thirty-five-year-old Bobb and three others were driving home from a basketball game on the evening of May 15, 2016, when they dropped off a passenger on John Garland Boulevard, near Jamestown Crescent.

Police previously said that while the vehicle was stopped, a gunman in another vehicle approached the car the group was travelling in and sprayed the vehicle with bullets. Bobb, who was five months pregnant at the time, was sitting in the back seat when she was shot.

She was rushed to hospital, where doctors performed an emergency C-section. Bobb was pronounced dead a short time later and her son died in hospital about three weeks later.

‘So frustrating for our investigators’

Following the fatal shooting, police announced that the perpetrator would face murder charges in both the deaths of Bobb and her son Kyrie. But after a decade, no arrests have been made in the case.

“It’s such a horrible tragedy that didn’t need to happen,” Smith said. “This one, it’s so frustrating for our investigators.”

He noted that at the time of the initial investigation, officers reviewed some video evidence that was available but were unable to identify the perpetrator.

“A lot of times in these shootings, especially when the actual shooter isn’t seen or seen leaving in a vehicle, it’s hard to track them down,” Smith added.

He noted that police are looking at using some emerging technology that may help identify the gunman.

“We do have the shell casings, so we’re looking at some new technology where we can garner either fingerprints and/or DNA from the shell casings,” he said.

“But it’s still really experimental, so we’re kind of taking a wait and see (approach)… but we’re looking at, in the near future, being able to utilize these cartridges to hopefully identify at least somebody that was involved in this.”

$50K reward expires this summer

A $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of a suspect was announced back in 2017 and is still active for another couple of months, Smith said.

“It will expire on July 1 of this year, and we’ll have to make a decision of whether we’re going to renew that reward,” he added.

“Rewards haven’t necessarily brought forward the information we’re looking for.”

He said just having the name of the offender could go a long way to making an arrest.

“Once you name the offender, a lot of things start to fall into place. It’s when you don’t know who that offender is, it’s kind of like you’re chasing a ghost,” Smith said.

“Once you get a name, things become a lot clearer, and it’s a lot easier to actually put people there and follow the evidence. A lot of things make a lot more sense once you know who you’re dealing with.”