Lest we forget Angela Sparapani killed in NDG at the age of 12

  Lest we forget Angela Sparapani of 966 Girouard who died tragically on Saturday evening at around  6 pm on 25 April 1971 at the age of 12.
   Angela had been playing at Oxford Park in NDG when her father Alberto, aged 32, became enraged at his wife Maria who had left him after getting tired of him beating her.   
  Two weeks earlier a court had fined him $25 for beating on her.

    Maria and the seven kids moved in with a neighbour. 

   Alberto called around until he got his wife on the phone and threatened that he would kill their children if she didn't come right away.
   One child Joanne Cappadocia - now an adult - was an eyewitness.

 I remember that day so vividly. My family and I were moving from St Jacques Street to 921 Girouard. As we were driving down Girouard heading south, we saw her father on the balcony carrying and waving a shotgun. He was yelling and then all of a sudden went into the house. We found out later, that he had been calling out to her mother who was apparently at a neighbor's house a few doors down, as he wanted her to go home to him, he had threatened to shoot a kid if she didn't and apparently that is exactly what happened, he had shot Angela. Angela as I was 12 years old at the time and she was the nicest kid. It was very sad and shocking to know that her father had done this. 

   Maria felt panicked when she heard a shotgun blast, hoping that he was just shooting it off in the air to scare her over the phone.
    Angela, who attended nearby John XXIII school, had been playing at Oxford Park when she returned home.
   As she returned her father shot her and she died instantly.
   Her body lay halfway lay over the door threshold for all to see.
   Another friend, Dan McDonald, also recalls the incident as a child playing in the laneway.

He tied Angela to the kitchen chair when she ran into the house to hide. He called his wife on the phone told her he'd shoot her and he did. We were just little kids playing in the laneway between Old Orchard and Girouard, I saw the gun and Angela in the chair but didn't see the shot, just the aftermath. The only thing I really remember from it today visually is her father on the phone the phone was on the wall and Angie was on the chair in front of them and he had the shotgun in his hand while he was yelling on the phone. The song Angie from the Rolling Stones became a big hit that same time, it was on the radio 20 times a day and I remember the heartbreak every time that song came on for years.

   After shooting his little girl, Alberto turned his .12 gauge shot gun on himself, shooting himself in the abdomen and leg. He was rushed to nearby Queen Elizabeth Hospital and recovered.
   Alberto Sparapani was charged with murder, which was reduced to homicide.
  At the trial Alberto said that he was suicidal and that he had been irritated by his daughter for telling his wife that he had purchased a shotgun.

   Judge Antonio Lamer sentenced him to 15 years in prison, a term which he hoped would protect the family against him for some time.

  The family, which included eldest sister Albina and two brothers, moved away from the area.
  Angela's tombstone sits at Cote des Neiges cemetery.
   Alberto was, according to one report, deported to Italy after serving ten years in Canadian prison.
   Franca Sparapani, who was the youngest of the seven children and just one year old when Angie died, says that she has no idea of what happened to her father since or whether he's still alive but her mom is still alive and she herself was recently honoured in a media report for her contributions to the needy.
   Dora Maria Toth, who grew up in the area and felt particularly touched by the tragedy, makes a point of visiting the grave site annually to pay her respects to the child whose life was taken away so tragically and senselessly.