The day before she died, Stefanie Rengel sang Avril Lavigne’s “Slipped Away” on a karaoke machine her parents rented for New Year’s Eve. The 14-year-old was a born performer; she had recently started in the drama program at Rosedale Heights School of the Arts. She had clear, smooth skin, a high brow and expressive brown eyes. And she loved to play with her appearance: one day she would turn up at school in a tutu and sneakers, the next day in a pair of heart-patterned boxers over tights—all clothes she picked up at second-hand shops in Kensington Market. She dyed her hair red, blonde, brown, blue, black, wore eyeliner and brightly coloured beaded bracelets.

Just before midnight, Stefanie counted down to the new year with her family, and everyone embraced. “We made a point of being together,” remembers her mother, Patricia Hung. “Because soon enough the older kids would be off with their friends on New Year’s Eve.”

The next day was cold and snowy. Early in the afternoon, Stefanie went to a friend’s house nearby but returned home before dinner. She was standing in the kitchen, munching Doritos, watching her brother Ian eat a grilled cheese sandwich, when her cellphone rang at 6:08 p.m. Stefanie thought the voice at the other end of the line belonged to her ex-boyfriend Steve Lopez, with whom she had broken up two months earlier. The caller had blocked his identity. “Is that you?” she asked. He sounded upset, shouting “Meet me. Meet me.” She dashed out the door, pulling on her boots but no coat, and telling Ian she’d be right back.

The caller wasn’t Lopez. It was David Bagshaw, a five-foot-11, 240-pound football player four days shy of his 18th birthday. He was hiding in the bushes on the median that divides the street.

Stefanie never stood a chance. David was carrying an eight-inch kitchen knife and stabbed her repeatedly, tearing through the black sweater her mother had given her for Christmas. One stab punctured her left breast, entered her chest cavity and hit the inside of her back. Another perforated her right lung and sliced open her liver. A third penetrated her ribs and stomach, causing her stomach contents to drain into her peritoneal cavity. A fourth slashed her left upper arm. David stabbed her six times in total, then ran away. Stefanie spilled blood as she staggered across the street, back toward her home, and collapsed on the sidewalk in a snowbank.

She was still alive when Gavin Shoebottom, a 34-year-old accountant, drove past moments later. He jumped out of his car and held Stefanie as she moaned in pain. “Hold your stomach,” he told her as he dialled 911. The 911 dispatcher instructed Shoebottom to apply pressure to the wound, and he used a bedsheet from his car. “It hurts,” Stefanie said. Shoebottom asked if she knew who stabbed her. Even though she was in incredible pain, and her organs were beginning to shut down, she mumbled the name of her attacker: “Bags…. Went that way,” she said, and pointed up the street.

Shoebottom became frantic while he waited for the ambulance. He tried to comfort her, but she began to lose consciousness. “Come on, sweetie, you’re OK,” he said. The paramedics finally arrived and whisked Stefanie to Toronto East General, where she was pronounced dead—the city’s first homicide victim of 2008.

Stefanie’s was a close-knit family. She lived in a two-storey house in Parkview Hills, a tranquil neighbourhood in East York, with her mother, Patricia; her stepfather, James Hung; and her three brothers, 12-year-old Ian, four-year-old Eric and two-year-old Patrick. Patricia had grown up in Parkview Hills and returned to live there with James, a laconic, amiable man whom she began dating in 2000. Her first husband, Adolfo Rengel, is a Vene­zuelan immigrant and court officer for the Toronto Police Service. Patricia and James are both cops. Patricia specializes in gang exiting and cyber-bullying, and James is a sergeant with the emergency task force.