Police link Cabbagetown murder to dismemberment: Sources
BY CHRIS DOUCETTE ,TORONTO SUN
FIRST POSTED: MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2013 12:02 PM EDT | UPDATED: MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2013 01:57 PM EDT
A “major announcement” will be made Monday afternoon in the deaths of two Eritrean women who were butchered in the same area of the city seven months apart.
Toronto Police say homicide detectives will release new information in the murder of Nighisti Semret, 55, and the suspicious death of Rigat Essag Ghirmay, 28, at a 2 p.m. news conference.
Police remained tight-lipped Monday morning but Sun sources say investigators will reveal that the two deaths are believed to be linked.
Semret was brutally stabbed to death in a Cabbagetown laneway, just steps from her home, on Oct. 23, 2012. And despite a massive hunt for her killer no arrests have been made in her slaying.
Some of Ghirmay’s dismembered remains were found May 24 in a piece of luggage dumped along Alliance Ave., southeast of Jane St. and Eglinton Ave. W.
The rest of her body parts have never been located.
Earlier this year police said Ghirmay was likely killed in her apartment in a highrise at 285 Shuter St., near Parliament St., and they had video of a man cleaning up blood at an apartment building at 101 Humber Blvd., near where the luggage was located.
They also have video from both buildings of the man moving luggage.
Adonay Zekarias, 41, was arrested two days after the grisly discovery and charged with indignity to a dead body.
Police could not immediately confirm Ghirmay had been murdered.
Interestingly, the accused is also from Eritrea, a country located in the Horn of Africa.
Police have also said Ghirmay and Zekarias once worked together as cleaners at a downtown hotel.
Semret was a cleaning supervisor at the Delta Chelsea Hotel at Yonge and Gerrard Sts.
Homicide Det.-Sgts. Gary Giroux and Pauline Gray will provide an update into the two grisly deaths at police headquarters at 2 p.m.
Sun crime Chris Doucette reporter will be providing updates from that press conference:
http://www.torontosun.com/2013/09/30/police-link-cabbagetown-murder-to-dismemberment-sources
http://toronto.ctvnews.ca/man-charged-with-murders-of-two-women-in-toronto-1.1476864
Received on Tue Oct 01 2013 - 10:13:35 EDT