METRO VANCOUVER -- A woman savagely beaten as she was picking her son up at the arena has died in hospital in Surrey, said the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team.

Sgt. Adam MacIntosh, a spokesman for IHIT, said 53-year-old Julie Paskall of Surrey succumbed to the injuries she suffered Sunday evening when attacked outside the Newton Arena in Surrey.

“The motive for this unprovoked attack remains robbery with both IHIT and the Surrey RCMP continuing to work toward finding out who is responsible.” said MacIntosh.

Paskall’s family gathered Tuesday at the hospital to say goodbye to the “loving” mother and wife.

Darwyn Shawara, the hockey coach of the victim’s son, said earlier Tuesday that Paskall had been taken off life support at Surrey Memorial Hospital. He said she was surrounded by family: her husband Al Paskall and three children, a 16-year-old and son and two daughters, 24 and 28.

He described Paskall as someone who would do anything for anyone and always volunteered to be the timekeeper for the hockey team. “She did everything for me. She ran a time clock. She always did it automatically. She kept all our stats, she did a wonderful job for this team and would always help out with anything,” he said.

He said his heart was with the Paskall family and he would be thinking of ways the team will be able to help them get through the tragedy. He said the team will bring in counselling services for the players.

The victim’s father-in-law Lloyd Paskall also said earlier Tuesday that the family had decided to remove the support. He described Paskall as a “modern day housewife” who loved her three children, but didn’t want to comment any further, saying his son should be the one to speak about his wife.

The attack has prompted a public warning from Mounties after a similar incident there two weeks ago. But Douglas Elford, a spokesman for the Newton Community Association said Tuesday he believes there have been more attacks.

His group has been canvassing the neighbourhood for several months with questionnaires for local businesses that address how much crime and prostitution has moved into the Newton area. He said the group was receiving many complaints about attacks, beatings, and petty crime such as car and house thefts.

“We have a concentration of services in the neighbourhood, including a probation office, homeless shelters and many recovery houses in the area and it attracts people to the neighbourhood that have addiction issues and as a result it attracts people who prey on these people.”

He said at all times of the day there are people openly selling crack cocaine at the bus loop, adding that there has been a shift of the transient population from Whalley.

Elford said they have a meeting with Surrey city council in February to urge council to put more police officers on the street and do more to curb the escalating crime.

“It’s just gone way too far over the line,” he said.