Friends, family members and complete strangers are still leaving flowers and messages of condolences at the makeshift memorial outside the Newton Recreation Centre in Surrey where 53-year-old Julie Paskall was fatally beaten on Sunday.
Police say they have received about 30 tips but they still have no suspect in the vicious crime.
The Integrated Homicide Investigation Team and Surrey RCMP spent the day canvassing the neighbourhood looking for any information that may lead them to a suspect.
“Often we get one piece of information that seemed inconsequential but is very important and leads to other avenues of investigation and can actually get us some real evidence,” says Sgt. Adam MacIntosh with IHIT.
Surrey RCMP have also set up a command centre outside the Newton Rec. Centre.
Police believe the motive was robbery, and the attack was random and unprovoked. There is a surveillance camera at the entrance to the arena, and two other cameras at the wave pool nearby, but none of them captured the attack Sunday night.
There were some lights out at the arena on Sunday. Those have now been fixed, but residents want more.
WATCH: Rumina Daya on the search for Paskall’s killer:
“For many of us that have been watching the decline in the area, we’ve been tense for a long while now,” says Liz Walker with Newton Community Association, speaking on Unfiltered. She says over the past decade her family has been threatened by people in the area and now they don’t walk to the stores or anywhere else.
Many would like Mayor Dianne Watts and Surrey council to do more to help keep the area safe.
Esmir Milavic from Surrey 604.com, community relations strategist, says over the years there have been many discussions about Newton and the fact that something needs to be done. “People are asking for action, people are not asking for new task forces, for new recommendations, for new talks, people are asking for action, for results ASAP,” he says on Unfiltered. “Because we already have recommendations and a couple of my colleagues, bloggers from Surrey and Metro Vancouver area, already pointed to that. So now we need to implement that.”
Walker says council finally said they are not going to put any more social services in Newton, but she fears it may be too late already. A new building is being being built to court-ordered offenders and drug addicts so Walker fears the problems are only going to get worse.
IHIT is asking anyone with information on who was in the area of the Newton Arena, Newton bus loop and the Newton Wave pool between 7:00 – 11:00 p.m. on December 29 and may have seen any suspicious activities, persons or vehicle to call the tipline at 1-877-551-4448.
A meeting has been organized for Monday, Jan. 6 at 7 p.m. at the Newton Senior’s Centre. Anyone is welcome to attend to find out what can be done to help residents be safe.
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