Niagara regional Police say the Hamilton man who was stabbed to death yesterday on MacNab Street was 77-year-old Mario Bilich. In a news release Niagara Police say they have arrested a woman who they say was responsible for the Bilich homicide as well as one in Niagara and another in Toronto, in a killing spree over three days. Niagara police were investigating the stabbing death on Tuesday of 47-year-old Lance Cunningham in a city park, when they realized that the suspect in that homicide and the Hamilton homicide matched the same description. An additional link was made to the active homicide investigation from October 1 in Toronto. 30-year-old Sabrina Kauldhar was arrested in the Burlington area by Niagara Police Service uniform officers and subsequently charged with first degree murder in the Hamilton homicide and second-degree murder in the Toronto and Niagara investigations. Police believe the Bilich homicide was completely random.
In the Hamilton case Thursday, Hamilton Police received a 911 call requesting an ambulance to the parking lot of 209 MacNab Street North, just after noon, where Bilich was found unconscious. Mr. Bilich was transported to hospital, where he later succumbed to his injuries.
In a social media post members of the Bilich Family wrote, “If you look at the Hamilton Ontario news coming out some time today, you will see a pretty tragic story of how our dad was killed yesterday. In a senseless stabbing. We are still reeling from this news. The post describes Mr. Bilich as “a born teacher thousands of students came through his French, Spanish, and religion classes at St Mary’s, and Cathedral schools…”
The post goes on to say Mr. Bilich was a widower. “Since our mom died of cancer at the end of June 2022, he asked God pretty much every day to take him home. Well, God has now taken him home. Certainly not in the way we would have intended or even imagined. Not at all. But God did welcome him into his loving arms, even as he fell onto that parking lot pavement. We know that yesterday was, by far, the best day of his life.”
The post says Bilich was attacked after visiting a north end Italian social club—part of his regular routine. “We pray that in his death, something good will come. For the city of Hamilton. For the downtown core. For people who are suffering so much because of hunger, drug addictions, poverty, homelessness, illness, trauma, loneliness. In this case, for a person whose only recourse was to stab an aging fellow, who was innocently standing at a little less than his original 6’3″, near his van, on his way to (or from) one of his favourite hang out spots to play Italian cards with his friends and to have an espresso before (or possibly after) making his daily trip to visit his beloved wife at the cemetery. We don’t know the exact timeline, but in some order, this was his pretty regular daily routine.”
The family posting on the death of Mario Bilich can be found below.
https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10160317375805668&id=702240667&mibextid=WC7FNe&rdid=znWUgzL3lUtuHXBn
