Cold case unit hopes to soon solve the 1988 murder of an East York arcade owner

Nick Gournis is seen in this undated photo provided by Toronto police. (TPS handout)

After more than 30 years, Toronto police say they are now close to solving the murder of an East York arcade owner who was brutally beaten to death with a baseball bat on Christmas Eve, 1988.

Police previously said 50-year-old Nick Gournis was working late at the arcade he owned and operated on Kingston Road, near Victoria Park Avenue, when two robbers entered the business and attacked him.

“We believe that between about 10 p.m. and midnight that two people had actually entered his premises and proceeded to try to rob him and unfortunately, it looks like they resorted to extreme violence in order to exact their toll,” Det. Sgt. Steve Smith told CP24.com on Wednesday.

Gournis was discovered several hours later by two young patrons who arrived to find the doors of the arcade locked.

“They looked in and saw that Mr. Gournis was laying on the ground bleeding. So they actually broke in and were able to get him medical help. He was rushed to hospital, but unfortunately died a short time later,” Smith said.

“Not only did these people actually beat him but then they left him there to die. They didn't even bother calling any help.”

Smith said Gournis was simply trying to make money to support his wife and two children when his life was tragically cut short.

Police investigating the homicide at the time were unable to make an arrest in the case.

“If there weren't any fingerprints left at the scene, they really had to kind of try to figure out who would have been in the area who may have been likely to commit that offence,” he said of the initial investigation.

“It would have been a very heavy on the interviewing of people in and around the area and trying to rely on that for evidence of the offender.”

Now decades later, thanks to advancements in technology, Smith said the cold case unit is in the process of putting together an offender profile based on DNA found at the scene.

“A lot of these older cases… DNA wasn't really a thing back then, and if it was, you needed large portions of DNA to develop a profile,” Smith said.

“There's a lot of cases that we can go back to and utilize evidence that was at the scene to develop profiles of the offender.”

He added that police who previously investigated the homicide already put together a solid list of persons of interest.

“We think that by putting those two things together, we should have a good chance at identifying the actual offender,” Smith said.