Toronto Star ePaper

Family of slain CEO offers $250K reward

ISAAC PHAN NAY STAFF REPORTER WITH FILES FROM JENNA MOON AND CLARE RAYMENT.

The family of a Toronto tech CEO killed in 2018 announced Tuesday it is offering a $250,000 reward to help in the investigation of the unsolved murder case.

On the evening of May 28, 2018, 37-year-old Matthew Staikos was fatally shot in the Yorkville neighbourhood. Nearly five years later, his family is still looking for answers.

David Perry, the chief executive officer of private investigation firm Investigative Solutions Network, said the Staikos family hired his company to continue investigating his death.

Perry told reporters the Staikos family is offering a private reward of $250,000 for information that leads to the arrest of the person who killed Staikos.

Investigators then read a statement from the Staikos family.

“Every day has been excruciating, unsufferable and seemingly unsurvivable today is no different,” the Staikos family said.

“We’re desperate. We’re desperate because we loved, and love, and will forever love Matthew so much and losing him in this way without any sense of reason has been torture.”

Moments before the fatal shooting, Staikos was seen walking with another person after a business dinner in the area of Bay Street and Yorkville Avenue around 11:30 p.m. Police said surveillance footage shows that when Staikos and his colleague passed a silver or grey four-door Mercedes, a suspect stepped out of the car, shot Staikos, got back in the car and drove away. Toronto police found Staikos dead at the scene.

At the press conference, Toronto police Det. Sgt. Terry Browne said police still do not know why the suspect shot Staikos.

“The reason this happened to him is still dumbfounding to us,” Browne said.

“We still don’t know 100 per cent whether Matthew Staikos was the intended target (or) the shooter perhaps mistakenly shot the wrong person ... There’s no doubt in our mind that whoever did this, it was a planned and deliberate incident.”

Because the suspect purposefully shot Staikos, Browne said police still investigate the event as a targeted homicide.

Police added the car used by the suspect is still investigators’ best lead to finding him. Investigators describe the car as a titanium-coloured 2017 or 2018 Mercedes C43 series, or possibly a 2016 Mercedes C450.

Police have yet to identify any suspects in the nearly five-year-old homicide case. They describe the suspect as a man who’s about five-footten.

Staikos and his brother founded Torch Mobile, a software company, in 2003. Six years later, the venture was acquired BlackBerry parent company Research in Motion, where Staikos worked as the technical director of web technologies until 2013. By 2018, Staikos was the chief executive of a Toronto-based startup text messaging platform called Vleepo.

Police said the reward will expire after a year. A previous $250,000 reward was offered in June 2021 but that had expired last year.

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2023-02-08T08:00:00.0000000Z

2023-02-08T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://torontostar.pressreader.com/article/281681144035839

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