http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/police-say-death-of-calgary-mom-whose-son-was-killed-10-years-ago-was-not-a-random-attack
Police say death of Calgary mom whose son was killed 10 years ago was not a random attack
Reid Southwick, Postmedia News | October 21, 2015 11:32 AM ET
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Selma Alem had endured the pain of loss and heartache. An Eritrean who lived in Calgary for more than 30 years, she suffered through two bouts of cancer and lost a son after he was beaten to death with a meat cleaver.
On Monday morning, her lifeless body was discovered inside her Coventry Hills home, alongside the body of another woman, friends said.
Homicide detectives are now investigating their deaths, a decade after one of Alem’s sons, Michael Kahsai, was found dead inside a Forest Lawn home. And like her son’s case, police do not believe the victims died from a random attack.
“We are very sad; the whole community is sad,” said Samuel Tedros, a longtime friend, referring to the Eritrean community in Calgary. “She survives cancer and now this happens.”
Police were called to a house in the 200 block of Coventry Close N.E. at about 10 a.m. Monday to check on the welfare of those inside after a friend reported being worried about one of them. Officers discovered the bodies of two women, one in her 50s, the other in her 20s.
Alem was a professional care-taker who looked after two clients with disabilities in the Coventry Hills home. She prepared meals, provided medication and took them to appointments, Tedros said.
Tedros met Alem after she emigrated from Saudi Arabia to Calgary in the early 1980s, having been sponsored by her then-husband. She began working as a housekeeper in a hotel before landing a job in a seniors home, where she eventually became a supervisor, Tedros said.
“She was a very, very hard-working lady, very well-respected by her employer, by her boss,” he said.
Alem received support from other Eritreans in Calgary after one of her two sons was killed in October 2005. Casey Sluys was high on cocaine when he bludgeoned Kahsai to death with a meat cleaver, inflicting 56 blows.
During the attack, Kahsai was face down and defenceless, receiving most of the blows to the back of his head.
She survives cancer and now this happens
Originally charged with second-degree murder, Sluys was convicted of manslaughter after he claimed self-defence. He was sentenced to seven years in prison, with two years shaved off for time served.
“Every day you think it will get better, but it will never get better,” Alem said in April 2009, after her son’s killer was released on day parole. “You can’t work, you can’t concentrate, you can’t keep a job.”
Described as a generous woman with a loving heart, Alem also successfully fended off bouts of breast and ovarian cancer, undergoing surgery to remove the tumours.
“She was one of the best mothers; she was honest; she was very generous, very kind,” said Asgede Abed, who has known Alem since the early 1990s. “She didn’t deserve this.”
With files from Erika Stark, Calgary Herald
https://nationalpostcom.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/casey_sluys_cal0605-tf-astronomy.jpg?w=620&h=465
Selma Alem in a file photo.
Received on Thu Oct 22 2015 - 06:28:45 EDT
