by Gary Dimmock
Ottawa Citizen
Adrian “Mook” Daou, the Vanier rapper serving life in prison for the 2010 axe killing of Jennifer Stewart, a 36-year-old street prostitute, has filed an appeal, asking the Ontario Court of Appeal to quash his Dec. 16 murder conviction and order a new trial.
According to the notice of appeal by defence lawyer Robert Carew, the judge at the jury trial erred by admitting evidence against Daou on two unrelated crimes — including an attempted murder — that he was not on trial for. The filed notice lists several grounds of appeal of the circumstantial murder case, including observations about Daou’s hallucinations and his prescribed medication that were not admitted as evidence at trial.
The case against Daou was anchored in a series of bizarre confessions to police.
Daou, 24, said he chose the vulnerable Stewart, frail and tiny, and turning tricks to feed her crack habit, as his “perfect score” in a murder plot for notorious hip-hop fame.
Daou confessed to police in February 2013, after he’d spent 22 days in an isolation cell at the Innes Road jail, where he was serving time on a drug conviction. The guards suited him up in a suicide jacket and showed him the jail’s loneliest cell, where inmates aren’t afforded a TV, radio or reading material — not even a Bible. At trial, the jail’s longtime staff psychologist, Ian Shields, described the conditions as draconian.
Suicidal and alone, Daou told a guard he’d like to confess to a murder and when the police came to hear his story, he made it clear he wanted out of isolation. In the first version of his confession, he initially got key details wrong — including only details the killer would know, like the murder weapon. He first said he used a military knife, but later said he hacked her to death with an axe he bought at Canadian Tire for that specific purpose.
He also gave different versions of who dumped the murder weapon, and his account of the killing is at odds with key findings of an autopsy and testimony of an expert forensic pathologist.
Daou made it clear to police that he wanted an overnight transfer out of the notorious Innes Road jail to a federal prison where he’d have “more space” to do his time and focus on nailing down “killer rhymes.” He also inquired about the $50,000 police reward, asking if someone could collect it if they “ratted” him out.
Daou, who hadn’t had a coffee in 22 days, was given as much as he wanted during the police interview at Elgin Street headquarters. He had four “double-doubles” in a row, then a Pepsi and Colonnade Pizza for lunch. The delusional man who heard voices from the radio and deadly instructions from McDonald’s slogans on the day in question was excited to be outside of a jail cell for the first time in weeks, and was beside himself about the pizza.
Every time the detective left the interview room, Daou broke out into freestyle, sometimes going so far as to do a mic check on the police recording gear.
Prosecutors at the jury trial called witnesses to testify about his unrelated, alleged crimes, including a sex trade worker who said Daou tried to kill her during a sex-for-drugs deal in darkened parking lot in old Hull. Prosecutors called the woman, a crack addict, to testify at the murder trial to try to corroborate some parts of Daou’s confession. Though the confessions were at times contradictory, the prosecutors seized on the parts they believed to be true — including his admissions about other crimes he was not actually on trial for.
The appeal also claims that Ontario Superior Court Justice Robert Maranger erred by admitting bad character evidence and limiting utterances Daou made during sessions with two doctors.
The jury was also shown a key Canadian Tire receipt for the items Daou said he bought for the murder, including an axe, that he said he purchased about two weeks before killing. A search of Canadian Tire records found a matching four-item transaction, from two months before the killing. Police were unable to retrieve security video of the purchase. Prosecutors did not call the cashier who handled the key purchase, nor did they call the cashier who performed the search of records. They called a floor manager who now works in the warehouse.
Nine days after he confessed to the Jennifer Stewart homicide, and still desperate to get out of the Innes Road jail, Daou confessed to another killing of an Ottawa sex trade worker. Only this time, police didn’t take his story seriously because they had already solved that homicide through DNA evidence. The details about that case can’t be reported because of a publication ban.
Daou is still in jail, awaiting the outcome of his appeal.