A Toronto man has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder in connection to the deaths of two women from the city’s Eritrean community, nearly a year after the first victim was stabbed to death on her way home from work.
Toronto Police Det. Sgt. Gary Giroux said Monday that DNA evidence linked the same suspect to the deaths of Nighisti Semret, 55, and Rigat Essag Ghirmay, 28. The women were found dead seven months apart.
Semret, a mother of three, was walking home from work in the early hours of Oct. 23, 2012 when she was stabbed to death in Cabbagetown.
Police say Semret’s killer sustained a “substantial” wound during the attack and left behind DNA evidence under her fingernails and on her bag.
In May, Ghirmay’s partial remains were discovered inside a duffel bag found near a west-end trail. At that time, police charged Adonay Zekarias with causing an indignity to a dead body.
Zekarias, 42, appeared in court on Monday. Toronto police say they are still searching for the remaining remains of Ghirmay’s body.
“At this point, we only have a part portion of Ms. Ghirmay’s body. We are looking for the remaining remains of this young woman,” said Det. Sgt. Pauline Gray, who investigated the 28-year-old’s death.
The victims and the suspect all immigrated to Canada from the African nation of Eritrea.
Gray said her theory is that Ghirmay was killed because she suspected that Zekarias was involved in Semret’s murder.
Police say that Ghirmay was with Zekarias when he sought medical treatment for the wounds he allegedly sustained during Semret’s stabbing.
Ghirmay was Zacharias’s “supporter” and she helped him through his English-language studies and job searches in Toronto, Grey told reporters Monday.
But investigators still haven’t determined the motive for Semret’s killing and are asking for the public’s help.
News of Monday’s charges brought relief to some Cabbagetown residents. “It’s like a great weight has been lifted off the entire community,” Judy Court, who said she awoke to the sounds of Semret’s screams last October, told CTV Toronto.
Anyone with information about Semret’s connection to the suspect is urged to call police.
Police said that Semret and Zekarias may have lived in the same Cabbagetown transition house at one point.
The detectives said there is no indication that Semret and Ghirmay knew each other directly, but Toronto’s Eritrean community is small, and they may have crossed paths at some events.
With a report from CTV Toronto’s Tamara Cherry
