http://www.newstalk1010.com/news/2015/06/09/watch-guilty-verdict-in-nighisti-semret-murder
WATCH: Guilty verdict in Nighisti Semret murder
Adonay Zekarias to be formally sentenced Friday
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Posted on 6/9/2015 by Siobhan Morris
It took a jury only four hours to find the man accused in a brutal
Cabbagetown laneway slaying is guilty.
Adonay Zekarias was convicted of the first degree murder of Nighisti
Semret on Tuesday. That conviction carries an automatic life sentence.
Semret's son has flown from Africa to Toronto to read a victim impact
statement at the formal hearing on Friday.
The 55-year-old mother was killed as she walked home home from an
overnight cleaning shift at the Delta Chelsea Hotel one rainy October
morning in 2012. She was attacked from behind and stabbed seven times.
"Justice was served today," Assistant Crown Attorney Mary Humphrey
told reporters after the verdict was delivered."It's a good day for
public safety."
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http://www.thestar.com/news/crime/2015/06/09/what-the-jury-didnt-hear-in-cabbagetown-murder-trial.html
What the jury didn't hear in Cabbagetown murder trial
Adonay Zekerias faces a second first-degree murder charge involving
another woman whose name arose during testimony.
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Rigat Essag Ghirmay was killed and dismembered.
By: Alyshah Hasham Staff Reporter, Published on Tue Jun 09 2015
When a jury convicted Adonay Zekarias of the murder of Nighisti
Semret, a 55-year-old fellow refugee from Eritrea who once helped him
with his English, they did so not knowing that Zekarias stands charged
with another first-degree murder.
The jury, which deliberated for just four hours Tuesday before coming
to its decision, heard a little bit about Rigat Ghirmay, a 28-year-old
Eritrean woman who lived with Zekarias, 43, and helped him buy his
plane tickets to Germany six weeks after Semret was stabbed to death
in an alley near her Cabbagtown home around 7 a.m. Oct. 23, 2012.
Ghirmay was also with Zekarias when he called 911 from their apartment
shortly after Semret was killed to get help for the deep cuts on his
hands that the Crown alleges he got while attacking Semret.
The jury heard that Ghirmay is now dead, but they did not know she was
last seen alive on May 15, 2013, and that her body was dismembered,
with parts still missing.
Or that police allege Zekarias killed her because Ghirmay became
suspicious that he murdered Semret.
Zekarias was charged with the first-degree murder of both women on
Sept. 30, 2013, after being initially charged with indignity to a
body.
It was male DNA found in Ghirmay’s apartment that connected Zekarias
to Semret, police have said.
At a press conference announcing the charges, Det. Sgt. Pauline Gray
said it was unclear whether Ghirmay and Zekarias had a romantic
relationship, but said they were close, with Ghirmay supporting
Zekarias with English classes and finding work.
Police say Ghirmay moved out of the apartment she shared with Zekarias
a week after a news conference given by Det. Sgt. Gary Giroux on May
6, 2013, at which he said he believed Semret’s attacker sustained
serious injuries to his arms or hands during the attack.
Ghirmay had called 911 with Zekarias from their apartment on Humber
Blvd. to get help for lacerations on his hands less than two hours
after Semret was killed, the jury heard.
Zekarias told the 911 operator that he hurt himself lifting something,
then told a paramedic his hands got caught in a door — both
explanations that don’t explain the injuries, the Crown told the jury.
Ghirmay told a nurse at the hospital that she wasn’t present when
Zekarias was injured, the jury heard.
Ghirmay, who had recently graduated from a personal support worker
program, was killed in her new apartment on Shuter St., police have
said.
The motive for the murder of Semret, a mother of four who fled Eritrea
for Canada in 2010 due to religious persecution, remains unknown.
Zekarias is scheduled to stand trial for Ghirmay’s murder next year.
With files from Star Staff
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Received on Tue Jun 09 2015 - 22:25:26 EDT