Condo killer had frequent car crashes, injuries and suicidal thoughts years before massacre

The frequency of 73-year-old Francesco Villi’s strange accidents and a lack of medical proof, ruined his credibility, raising suspicions he was a malingerer

Nationalpost.com
Dec. 21, 2022
Adrian Humphreys

A bizarre frequency of car crashes and workplace accidents over decades left Francesco Villi, the 73-year-old gunman in a mass shooting at his condominium north of Toronto, depressed, unable to work as a contractor, and suicidal years before his acrid dispute with his condo board over his apartment’s construction.

The frequency of Villi’s strange accidents and a lack of medical proof to back some of them up, left doubts over his credibility, a diagnosis of mental illness, and suspicions he was a malingerer long before be was named as a mass murderer after Sunday’s targeted shootings.

In 1973, he twisted his back when a lid of mortar fell on his right knee, leaving him out of work for months. The next year he slipped and fell while picking up a plank and didn’t work for a year.

In 1982, he was off work for most of the year from a back sprain and shoulder injury from a motor vehicle accident. In 1986, he was off work for months more after his car was rear-ended. In 1988, while lifting another plank, he re-injured his back, putting him off the job.

In 1990 he was rear-ended twice, and fell from a ladder at work.

In 1992 he said he was suffering from depression over his ex-wife, and insomnia. He said he returned to full-time employment in May 1993, but only lasted six months -- before his van was hit twice within 90 minutes, leaving him unable to work, he claimed.

His family doctor said in the 1990s that Villi had thoughts of suicide. A psychiatrist in 1994 diagnosed Villi with adjustment disorder, depression and suicidal ideation. A tribunal hearing his insurance claims disregarded Villi’s claims as unbelievable.

Villi’s registered construction company, Villi Construction Co. Ltd., was licensed to work as a building renovation business in 1970 by Toronto municipal licensing.

He was not a successful businessman. He declared bankruptcy in 1996.

Although listing himself as a general contractor, he worked mostly on small construction jobs that were interrupted by frequent accidents, injuries and crashes.

He did most of the work himself, but occasionally hired casual labour to help.

It was physically demanding work: removing walls with crowbars, laying bricks, drywalling, climbing up and down ladders, hammering, erecting scaffolding, and some electrical and plumbing work.

The licence for his company, by then registered to his condo apartment in the Bellaria Residences, where he killed five neighbours and injured a sixth, was cancelled on March 1, 2016.

At the time of the shootings, Villi was embroiled in a dispute over his apartment, which was located over top of the building’s electrical room. He complained of vibrations, noise and poor air circulation that robbed him of comfort and sleep over years.

The bitter squabble became a legal dispute, as well as one argued on social media and in condo hallways.

His court action was scheduled to be heard the day after the shooting, and it was not going his way.

In a series of erratic and angry videos posted to Facebook in the days leading up to Sunday’s shooting, Villi lashed out at the condo board for being “demons,” and at the legal system, saying he had been betrayed by judges and lawyers.

On Sunday around 7:20 p.m., Villi went to three apartments in his condo tower, shooting six people. Five died and another is in hospital. York Regional Police said three of his victims were on the condo board.

An officer responding to the shooting shot and killed Villi.

One of Villi’s first passionate and unsuccessful legal interactions in public records came years earlier, after he was the victim of twin vehicle collisions in short succession on Nov. 26, 1993.

Villi, then 44 years old, was driving his van in a parking lot of a shopping mall roughly 20 kilometres from where he was living at the time of the massacre, when someone drove into the driver’s side of his van.

As he sat in his van waiting for 90 minutes for police to come to investigate that crash, someone drove into the back of his van.

Villi applied for and received accident benefits from his insurance company for two years, until he was cut off. He objected, was unable to resolve the dispute through mediation, and the case went to arbitration at the Ontario Insurance Tribunal in 1995 and 1996.

“Mr. Villi testified that he was badly shaken up in the accidents, although he did not hit any part of his body on the inside of the van as a result of the collisions. He was wearing his seat belt at the time of the first accident, which was more severe than the second.

“He complained of neck stiffness, back ache and a shaking sensation immediately following the accidents,” the tribunal’s decision says.

“Mr. Villi claims to have suffered a neck and back injury as a result of the accident, as well as depression. He claims that these injuries have disabled him from returning to his pre-accident occupation as a general contractor.”

Even before the crashes, though, Villi missed long periods of work due to workplace accidents and motor vehicle crashes. He was on a 15 per cent workers’ compensation pension for back disability at the time.

Two orthopaedic surgeons who examined Villi testified they could find no objective signs of damage to his back. Another doctor said he saw Villi perform tasks he said he could not do, a fourth said there was “some exaggeration,” a fifth declared he was “malingering,” but his family physician backed Villi’s complaints.

The tribunal said Villi was not credible. Things he said under oath in his testimony were directly contradicted under cross-examination. He said he worked full-time until the car crashes and had worked for four hours immediately before the first collision at 12:30, despite medical records showing he was at his doctor’s office that morning complaining of severe pain.

“I am unable to find Mr. Villi a credible witness,” said Eban Bayefsky, arbitrator for the tribunal. The tribunal cut off his weekly disability income benefits.

As in the recent dispute with his condo board, Villi did not accept the findings. He appealed, accusing the tribunal of manufacturing facts and ignoring his evidence. His appeal was dismissed in 1996.