Funeral today for Toronto subway stabbing victim

A funeral was held Thursday for a woman who was stabbed to death on a TTC subway train at High Park subway station last week.

A mass for Toronto resident Vanessa Kurpiewska, 31, was held in Mississauga at St. Maximilian Kolbe Parish at 11 a.m.

Kurpiewska was one of two victims stabbed at the station on Dec. 8.

Toronto police said they responded to reports of a man armed with a knife on a TTC train at around 2 p.m.

When officers arrived, they located two women suffering from stab wounds.

Kurpiewska died of her injuries while the other victim, a 37-year-old woman, was treated for non-life-threatening injuries and released from hospital, police said.

Vanessa Kurpiewska, 31, is seen in this undated photograph provided by police.

A suspect was taken into custody at the scene.

Toronto resident Neng Jia Jin, 52, has been charged with first-degree murder and attempted murder.

Police said the suspect did not know his victims.

Since the attack, a memorial has grown at High Park station with flowers and messages of condolence addressed to “Nessa.”

A memorial for Vanessa Kurpiewska is seen at High Park Station on Dec. 14, 2022. (CTV News Toronto/Abby O'Brien)

Kurpiewska’s death marks the third to take place on TTC property this year.

In June, a 28-year-old woman died in hospital after she was doused with a flammable substance and set on fire on a bus outside Kipling Station. Two months prior to that, a 21-year-old international student was shot outside of the entrance to Sherbourne Station and later died in hospital.

Also in April, a woman was pushed onto the tracks at Bloor-Yonge Station and suffered a broken rib. She has since sued the transit agency.

Passengers aren’t the only victims of violent incidents in the TTC network.

On Dec. 6, a female TTC operator was assaulted and robbed by a masked male suspect while on duty at the Long Branch Loop in Etobicoke at around 10 a.m., according to the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 113.

The union, which represents frontline TTC workers, said it was the second attack on a TTC worker in less than a week and is calling on the transit agency “to do more to prevent all forms of violence towards transit workers.”