For a little over a year, Fashar Badakhshad lived in a basement apartment in a rooming house on Huron Street, north of Bloor in the Annex. Some time in the past few months, he began dating his neighbour, a 24-year-old Ryerson student who lived in the apartment next door.
Mr. Badakhshad didn't appear to have a job or go to school. He immigrated from Iran as a child, attended Dalhousie University in Halifax and took classes at Concordia University in Montreal a few years ago.
Around 2008, he turned up in Toronto.
Otherwise, police know little about the man now considered a person of interest in the murder of his girlfriend.
"He's kind of a ghost in some regards," said Detective Scott Whittemore, a Toronto homicide investigator working on the case. "He's very transient, very secretive."
The young woman, whose name hasn't been released, was stabbed around 10 a.m. Friday, as a fire broke out in the rooming house, police say. She died of her injuries.
Mr. Badakhshad suffered burns to 80 per cent of his body.
As a "person of interest" in his girlfriend's murder, police will be looking more closely at him to determine exactly what he was doing at the time of the homicide. He is not a suspect.
Mr. Badakhshad himself is still in hospital in a medically-induced coma.
"It's quite grave, but they'll probably save him. They seem to think he's going to live," Detective Whittemore said.
Even his family has eluded them. His mother used to live in Toronto, but police believe she may now be in Alberta or Nova Scotia and haven't been able to track her down.
The victim was a criminology student at Ryerson University and had lived in the rooming house for a few months. Police are not releasing her name until they have notified her family, some of whom are overseas. Detective Whittemore described her as an "innocent victim."
The house has been sealed since the fire. Some of the other 19 residents of the building, which is popular among university students, will likely be allowed to return on Thursday.
The fire itself was knocked down in 15 minutes and no one else was hurt.