Sultan Dailey, a 20-year-old Black male, was killed in Toronto’s Parkdale neighbourhood on October 4, 2010. Early that Monday morning, the quiet around Close Avenue was broken by the discovery of a badly wounded man near the Close Springhurst Parkette, not far from King Street West and Jameson Avenue. At about 7:50 a.m., Toronto police responded to a 911 call in the area and found Dailey suffering from gunshot wounds.
Emergency personnel attempted to save him, but he was pronounced dead at the scene.
The shooting occurred in a small park area near Queen Victoria Junior Public School. An autopsy performed after Dailey was identified established that the fatal injury was a gunshot wound to the head. His death became Toronto Police homicide number 45 of 2010. Investigators treated the shooting as a deliberate killing rather than an unexplained or accidental discharge of a firearm.
As detectives began examining the circumstances surrounding the murder, police indicated that they believed the killing was connected to the drug trade. Contemporary reporting described investigators as viewing the shooting as the result of a drug-related turf dispute. That theory suggested Dailey had been intentionally targeted rather than becoming the victim of a random shooting, although police did not publicly identify the person or people believed to have carried out the attack.
Despite the suspected motive, the investigation did not lead to a publicly announced arrest. No suspect has been named in Toronto Police Service’s current public case information, and no charges, trial, or conviction are listed in connection with Dailey’s murder. The case remains included among Toronto Police homicide cold cases, with investigators continuing to ask anyone who possesses information about what happened near the Parkdale parkette that morning to contact the homicide unit.
More than sixteen years after the shooting, the publicly available record therefore leaves the central question unanswered. Investigators developed a theory that Dailey’s death was tied to the drug trade, but the identity of the gunman and the precise events leading to the fatal shooting have never been publicly established. With no person charged or convicted, Sultan Dailey’s October 2010 killing remains an unsolved Toronto homicide.
