PATH community trying to move past Shoppers Drug Mart stabbing

There's still a sense of unease for those working in Toronto'sunderground PATH system where Rosemarie (Kim) Junor was fatally stabbed inside a Shoppers Drug Mart last Friday, employees in the city's financial district told CBC News.

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Peopleworking in the interconnectedcorridors of shops and cafes running beneath the heart of the city'sbusiness district have a connection with so many of their customers, Jin Jeong said. He's worked at the Starbucks at 66 Wellington St. W.for barely a month andalready recognizes the same faces coming in each day.

"When I walked by the area, I was looking at the people and I still couldn't believe that among these nice people, there was one lady [who] tried to kill somebody," Jeong said. "Usually when these things happen you start not trusting people."

He had never seen Rohinie Bisesar before, the 40-year-old woman charged with second-degree murder in Junor's death. Junor worked at the Medcan clinic nearby, but police have said there's no connection between the two women and that the stabbing appears to have been random and unprovoked.

Random incident

Jeong said that while he was shocked by the violence just a few shops down, he's tried not to let the incident shake his faith in the underground community and its regulars.

Michele Kehoe has taken much the same attitude. She walks through the PATH from the GO train every morning heading to her office at the Northbridge Financial Corp. and said she doesn't want the tragedy to affect her behaviour.

But she did say she found herself thinking of Junor as she stopped to pick up some tissues at the underground Shoppers Drug Mart on Friday afternoon.

"I thought to myself, 'My God, I could have been standing in line with that young woman any time,'" she said. "But I try not to frighten myself every day I might feel differently if this was a terror attack or an issue of security.

"This was a terrible tragedy, but it's also very, very unusual."

That's a sentiment that Kehoe said she thinks others likely share, given how crowded the underground shopping networkseemed Friday.

Women and men in business attirefilled up the corridors and the coffee shops, walking next to holiday shoppers weaving through the foot traffic with their arms full of bags.

There are Christmas decorations outside most stores. The atmosphere is busy and festive, with little evidence that police swarmed the area oneweek ago.

But two staff members at the McEwangourmet grocery storenear the pharmacy saidthey've noticed an uptick in the security presence there.

There were two guards standing outside one of the pharmacy's entrances on Friday afternoon, but an email inquiry about the securityto a Shoppers spokeswoman went unanswered by early evening.

'A little nervous'

Raquel Brown said that she's felt uncomfortable at work since the stabbing.

"It makes me a little nervous," the McEwanemployee said. "It's scary, because it was just very random."

She and her co-worker Ashley McDonald said that while the staff have talked among themselvesabout what happened there hasn't been a collective discussion about safety.

"It just makes us feel vulnerable, because it's right beside us," Brown said.

Neither woman said they recognized Bisesar, but they said they felt safer knowing that she had been arrested.

The 40-year-old made a brief court appearance Friday, but will remain in custody at a Milton, Ont., detention centre until her next hearing.

Her lawyer, Calvin Barry, said that he's worried Bisesar is struggling to cope in jail. He would not, however, comment on whether the accused had undergone a psychiatric evaluation.

She's slated to return to court Jan. 8.