By Tony Spears
Ottawa Sun
Helpless streetwalker left for dead
She thought she was waiting for drugs, but Jennifer Stewart was waiting for her death.
The tiny 36-year-old — weighing 80 lbs. soaking wet — was no match for her killer.
The axe bit into flesh and bone.
Her wrists, partially severed, showed the power of the blows and the futility of her resistance.
Her killer left Stewart for dead in the Alice St. parking lot in Vanier, leaving behind a mystery that would baffle police for three years.
So began the first-degree murder trial of Adrian Daou, a 25-year-old dishwasher and aspiring hip hop artist. He has pleaded not guilty.
Crown prosecutor Louise Tansey told a jury Monday that on Aug. 20, 2010 Daou had trolled the dark streets of Vanier with death in his heart.
Months earlier he’d bought an axe as well as gloves, protective glasses and a dust mask, Tansey alleged.
“On Aug. 20, 2010, Mr. Daou decided it was time to act,” Tansey said.
Stewart, a sex worker, was “the perfect score.”
Daou allegedly hawked drugs to Stewart, leading her from Marier Ave. to the parking lot.
He bade her wait while he fetched the mask, gloves and axe, the court heard.
And so — “dressed for murder,” Tansey said — he returned to the parking lot.
“Mr. Daou did exactly what he set out to do,” Tansey said.
He lived right around the corner on St. Charles St., the court heard, just a 50-metre dash through a half dozen backyards to the home he shared with his father.
Stewart lay as she fell, face down on the dirt and gravel, where a dog walker found her at 7 a.m.
The years passed and Daou had his own brushes with the law, though no one pinned the killing on him.
And then one day he grabbed a guard at the Innes Rd. jail and said he wanted to confess.
He gave two separate statements, supplementing his story with sketches shown to the jury, the court heard.
Tansey said he gave details only the killer would know, but the court heard he’d also confessed to another killing — a killing for which he wasn’t charged.
The motive is murky.
Daou had designs on rap stardom, the court heard.
“He believed that murder would open a door to that world,” Tansey said.
A forensic police officer testified about the crime scene; defence lawyer Bob Carew had just one question for him.
“Nothing matched up with this individual, Mr. Daou,” he said.
Sgt. Jim Killeen agreed.
The trial continues.